+
upworthy

ableism

Community

Woman shares heartfelt story of calling the cops on another parent and regretting it

"We have become a culture who watches for faults, instead of opportunities to help."

Canva

"I am sad that the person who called her in didn't ask how they could HELP HER."

Years ago, Megan Burnside saw a mother physically struggling with her son. The boy was screaming ... so she called the cops.

The mother, it seemed, was trying to get her 10-year-old son back in the car, and it looked like things were getting physical. Concerned for the kid, Burnside decided to call the police. Then she and her husband left.

When the police called her later to update her on the situation, she was horrified: The boy had autism, they told her, and was known to sometimes lash out physically. The mother was just doing her best to calm him down, as she had many times before.

Keep ReadingShow less

Shopping for that perfect outfit can be an ordeal. But for a lot of disabled people, it can be downright hellish.

In fact, many folks will opt to shop online because of the inaccessibility and ableism they often encounter in-store.

In 2014, Trailblazers, UK-based disability rights campaign, interviewed a group of 100 disabled people between the ages of 16 and 30. According to the report, three-quarters of the respondents said they feel coerced into shopping online due to the limited accessibility at stores. In fact, two-thirds said that a place's physical accessibility determines whether they will visit it or go somewhere else.

Keep ReadingShow less

I know I've said things to my daughter about her anxiety that were immensely unhelpful.

And though I've apologized, I cringe thinking about how many more times she's going to have to hear unintentionally hurtful things about her mental health struggles.

Those of us who don't deal with mental health issues can sometimes stick our collective foot in our mouth. Big time.

Keep ReadingShow less

As thousands across the nation prepare to take to the streets on March 24, 2018, for The March for Our Lives, we're taking a look at some of the root causes, long-lasting effects, and approaches to solving the gun violence epidemic in America. We'll have a new installment every day this week.

In the winter of 2012, an undergraduate student who'd just taken my abnormal psychology course sent me an email.

The note was short, containing a link to an article about Adam Lanza (the Sandy Hook shooter) and two questions: Did mental illness drive him to do what he did? And if so, did that mean that what I'd told her in class, that the mentally ill were no more dangerous than the rest of the population, wasn't true?

Keep ReadingShow less