num_pages: 304
description: Boldly claiming a space in which people with disabilities can be seen and heard as they arenot as others perceive themAbout Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to those with disabilities but also to their families coworkers and support networks the authors in About Us offer intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them.Since its 2016 debut the popular New York Times Disability column has transformed the national dialogue around disability. Now echoing the refrain of the disability rights movement Nothing about us without us this landmark collection gathers the most powerful essays from the series that speak to the fullness of human experiencestories about first romance childhood shame and isolation segregation professional ambition child-bearing and parenting aging and beyond.Reflecting on the fraught conversations around disabilityfrom the friend who says I dont think of you as disabled to the father who scolds his child with attention differences Stop it stop it stop it what is wrong with you?the stories here reveal the range of responses and the variety of consequences to being labeled as disabled by the broader public.Here a writer recounts her path through medical school as a wheelchair userforging a unique bridge between patients with disabilities and their physicians. An acclaimed artist with spina bifida discusses her art practice as one that invites us to stretch ourselves toward a world where all bodies are exquisite. With these notes of triumph these stories also offer honest portrayals of frustration over access to medical care the burden of social stigma and the nearly constant need to self-advocate in the public realm.In its final sections About Us turns to the questions of love family and joy to show how it is possible to revel in life as a person with disabilities. Subverting the pervasive belief that disability results in relentless suffering and isolation a quadriplegic writer reveals how she rediscovered intimacy without touch and a mother with a chronic illness shares what her condition has taught her young children.With a foreword by Andrew Solomon and introductory comments by co-editors Peter Catapano and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson About Us is a landmark publication of the disability movement for readers of all backgrounds forms and abilities.Topics Include: Becoming Disabled  Mental Illness is not a Horror Show  Disability and the Right to Choose  Brain Injury and the Civil Right We Dont Think  The Deaf Body in Public Space  The Everyday Anxiety of the Stutterer  I Use a Wheelchair. And Yes Im Your Doctor  A Symbol for Nobody Thats Really for Everybody  Flying While Blind  My $1000 Anxiety Attack  A Girlfriend of My Own  The Three-Legged Dog Who Carried Me  Passing My Disability On to My Children  I Have Diabetes. Am I to Blame?  Learning to Sing Again  A Disabled Life is a Life Worth Living
language: English
title: About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times
publisher: Liveright