(Image by srslyguys used under CC 2.0 via)
Imagine your body just as it is, in a world that looks exactly like the one we live in, but for one crucial difference:
You’re at a dinner party with some friends and some new faces, and you excuse yourself before heading to the bathroom. When you return to the table, you notice a few people exchanging looks. You wonder if your friends explained your absence to those who don’t know you well. You’re not sure if you should explain it yourself. Do you owe it to them? You’re not embarrassed, but they look a bit embarrassed for you. Then again, maybe you’re just being paranoid? You’re not really in the mood to get into it, and maybe these people would find it inappropriate dinner conversation. Maybe they’re the kind of people who would cringe, and you’d rather not discover that about them just now because the evening has been going pretty well and they seem nice so far.
Just when you decide not to say anything, the woman next to you asks, “Is everything okay?”
You reply, “Um, yeah.”
“Why did you get up and leave? Do you smoke?”
“Oh, no. No, I had to use the bathroom.”
“Oh… Wait, you mean like… you’re one of those… um… what’s the word for it?”
“Yeah. I’ve got frequent excretion syndrome. I have to use the bathroom a couple times a day.”
“Like, more than once a week?”
“Yeah, a couple times a day.”
“Like, every few minutes?”
“No, not that often. Just every few hours or so.”
“So you can’t hold it in?”
“Well, I’m—we’re—not supposed to. Not for too long. The doctors say it’s not healthy.”
“Wow. That must be so hard! How do you it?”
If 99% of humankind evolved in a way that they only needed to excrete once a week—as ball pythons do, for example—then modern society would look pretty different. The number of toilets available in public facilities would decrease significantly. A home with a bathroom would not be unheard of, but it would be a bit of a luxury, like an apartment building with an elevator. No one would assume that dinner at a restaurant or a friend’s house would guarantee access to such facilities. And the 1% of people who still needed a bathroom a few times a day would be considered disabled.
Eventually debates would crop up as to whether needing to excrete so often is “defective” or “just different.” There would be arguments as to who should accommodate whom: Should society provide more bathrooms, or should the minority wear diapers? Would you date someone who did? It must be so hard for parents and partners to deal with someone like that! I read on the Internet that those freaks do it in the shower! I would never get in a pool with one. You shouldn’t let your kids near them!
If you lived in this world, where most people’s bodies did not need to excrete more than once a week but yours did, you would undoubtedly experience frustration, as most disabled people do. But the source of your frustration would depend upon how you got to be the way you are.
If, after an accident, you suddenly belonged to a small minority of people who needed a bathroom more than once a week, you would experience a good deal of stress adjusting to your new schedule. Losing an ability you had taken for granted would feel unfair. Life was so much easier before this happened! Why me?! Some would be arguing that they would rather die than live like that. Depending on your support network and self-image, you might join that argument. But no matter how accepting your friends and family were, you would probably struggle with some internal shame about being less independent.
But if your body had always functioned that way for as long as you could remember—as it presumably does in the real world—most of your problems would stem from how alien the majority would make you feel. In the real world, we can all admit that needing a bathroom a few times a day can be inconvenient, especially on car trips, but it doesn’t feel “wrong,” “sick,” “crippling,” “freakish,” or “sad.” In a world where you’re the minority, you might accept the idea of wearing diapers rather than demand more bathrooms be built for you, or you might be deeply insulted by it. You might decide to combat the stigma of diapers. You would likely be upset hearing people say they would rather die than live like you.
That’s the difference between people who are born disabled and those who become disabled. The latter understandably experience stress, sometimes trauma, adjusting to a new condition. The former rarely feel the need to miss what they never had to begin with. Society likes to offer both groups pity. But they often respond to this pity with different answers because they have many different experiences. As we’ll see next week, conflict can only be avoided if everyone involved—those who were born disabled, those who became disabled, and those who are non-disabled—tries to understand the others’ point of view.
Painting On Scars 
This is a powerful metaphor/example!