Is Ulcerative Colitis a disability? Well, we know from the official guide of the Social Security Administration that it can qualify as one, so, I guess in the very strictest sense you could say it is.
You know though, I get the feeling we aren’t talking about the “strictest sense” or the literal definition of disability. Now there is no doubt in my mind that there are people who have Ulcerative Colitis so badly that they have to have help; they are disabled. They cannot go to work and they need help to live their lives. However, there are people like me who have very mild cases and while the disease is certainly a nuisance, I have to admit I would feel unrighteous collecting Social Security Insurance or some other type of disability pension even though, as I said, Social Security is pretty liberal in their evaluation of Ulcerative Colitis.
Ulcerative Colitis can disable people by giving constant symptoms so severe that it is impossible to function in public. An example is the need to have a bowel movement up to 20 times per day. The fallout from this may not only be embarrassment. It may be poor work attendance. It may be the inability to keep up with work projects. It may be the inability to do manual labor and finally the simple existence of a rundown body that is sickly and too weak to stand the rigors of movement of an entire day’s activities.
Those are two extremes. The person who really doesn’t have much of a problem and with just a little perseverance can live a pretty normal life, and the person who should get disability benefits because they have no options.
However, as with any large group of well, anything, it is shaped like a bell curve. There are extremes on both ends and then the majority of the people are somewhere in the middle. What does disability mean to them, or better yet, are they disabled?
The logical answer would be that the closer to the “mild” end of the bell curve you move, the fewer people would need disability and to the other end the reverse would be true. Then you are truly left with the major question mark.
I can only answer for myself. If I can take care of myself I want to. I don’t want to feel different and I don’t want to think that a disease is smarter than me so I would fight to retain a self-supporting lifestyle. From what I have seen in life, most people within reason feel as I do.
If you move outside the realm of Ulcerative Colitis say to paraplegia, you find people that not only lead active self-sufficient lives but become heroes and highly sought after personalities; the human spirit is capable of being truly amazing!
Is Ulcerative Colitis a disability? To some it shouldn’t be; to some it should be and legally is. For me, at least at this time in my life I refuse to let it be. What I see, no, what I hope, is that for most sufferers of Ulcerative Colitis they won’t back down and consider themselves disabled until they have absolutely no choice. Ulcerative Colitis is, after all, an illness that has many mental aspects.
Sources:
The Social Security Handbook 2008
Reference:
- The 2008 Social Security Handbook
