The disabled are people too

Sometime in the last week one of the online "shows" that follows Big Brother, "Dick at Night", had a guest panelist (Jun, I believe), say that BB has had every type of person on the show.

 I respectfully say, no they haven't. In season 1, they had a house guest who was an amputee but no other disabled person that I know of since then.

In fact, I don't remember any disabled person on any game show on television. And if there has not been one I am a bit offended but not surprised.

In many ways the stigma that comes with a disability is almost as bad as the disability at times.

I have often been treated like I have a mental disability just because I am physically disabled. I have had people talk to me like I am a little kid. And most annoying of all is having people look at you with pity.

I know that I talk funny, when I hear my voice I always sound like I am drunk and have been asked if I was drunk a few times when answering a phone.  But its a little part of my disability where I have to think to breathe when I talk. As a kid I remember being taught being able to breathe properly but I don't always think about it and often run out of breath.

I move slow even for a disabled person. I remember being in gym class with other disabled kids, we had this game where a traffic like cone was place in the middle of two separate rows of kids. The gym teacher would call out the name of two kids and the object was to knock the ball of the cone first. The teacher would always put me up against Debby because we were the two slowest kids in the class; I never got to the ball first.

For some silly reason I tried out for wheelchair basketball the first time I went to college. That was one of the most humiliating experiences I have ever had. The other guys literally wheeled circles around me.  The coach tried just using me a defender to just block shots and that was bad too.

So, yes there a a number of things that I can't do but none of it means I am dumb.  And I know that there are other disabled people who are more intelligent than I am.

So it would be almost impossible to convince me that there aren't a number of disabled people who would do well on a game show.

Even though there are a few physical competitions on BB I think it's possible for a disabled person to do well on BB. Those who follow the show knows there are a few people who never won competitions but did well on the show.

I wish I could be that person. It would probably never be me but I hope that before BB has its last season (which I hope is a long time from now) I really wish a disabled person would be on there.