Ziggy is a Certified Peer Specialist in PA and currently resides in Pittsburgh. He is a member of the Let’s Act committee, a group of peers devoted to raising awareness about mental health care. In his downtime, he enjoys reading novels and watching nature documentaries.
View all postsNot Being Believed Due To My Disability
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The pitfalls of advocacy are that regardless of how much you ask, or provide evidence that there is a problem, at the end of the day if the other party isn’t receptive to what you are saying, ignores evidence that you present, there is little that you can do to change their mind. If you have a disability, being believed sometimes is the most difficult thing in the world. It’s almost like your entire being is invalidated because a person can look at your disability and think that it renders you incompetent. This blog will be a bit of a somber one, but trust me when I say, I reached out to those who could properly assist and with enough time, maybe it will be addressed.
This tale takes place over a span of two months. One day I woke up in my apartment and noticed that it was freezing cold, so I went out of my room into my living room, looked at the thermostat is saw that it read in the lower 60s. The furnace had broken, during a time when it’s required by state authority that you have to have a working furnace for any apartment or home. I thought to myself, I’ll contact my landlord in the morning, and this will get fixed, right? Little did I know that this ordeal would be met with skepticism and an inability, to repair a furnace. The entire time my evidence essentially was discredited. Photos of internal temps, showcasing that the furnace couldn’t heat the apartment up to a reasonable temperature, all these aspects were ignored. Why? Simply because they believed someone with ASD couldn’t be telling the truth.
After certain in this situation, I was forced to contact outside help, because the simple request of just looking at something that is broken, was an excuse to be negligent. If there is one truth that I can tell you, it’s to not be afraid to ask for help. If you feel that you aren’t being believed, keep reaching out until you find someone that can help you. While I’m still recovering from this stressful situation, I know that I did the right thing. I know I’m not in the wrong here. I know that even with my disabilities, that doesn’t mean that I can’t perceive my own reality and see the truth for what those entails.
Ziggie
