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Finding A Place to Belong

• August 7th, 2006

I speak about people with disabilities having a sense of belonging, a view that can encompass the community or their own living room. More often than not I am usually referring to a physical space, a home, the workplace, the neighborhood, but there are other ways of belonging that are much less tangible.

The examples that come to mind are belonging in your own skin, within your gender, nationality, culture and religious beliefs; this type of belonging is more difficult to understand because not only does it change over time or by event but aspects of self in this regard are rarely discussed with people with disabilities and never show up on a “social history”.

How does one belong and connect to personal grief, shortcomings, and regrets? How do we belong to the notion that learning, no matter how painful, that we can still apply the lessons and at times even embrace them? I find this to be a very personal process overlooked in our quest to support individuals. It’s left to chance, the luck of the draw, or whatever. Maybe that’s how it is for all of us, that age old quest, the struggle for significance.