Ask Me: How Do People with Disabilities Feel About Themselves

I was only seven years old when I first hated my disability. Through the years of bullying and the negative stigmas around disability, I had low self-esteem and a negative perception of myself. It wasn’t until college when my self perception changed and I started to have self-determination. At the same time, there is limited research investigating how people with disabilities feel about themselves and interventions to effectively increase self-esteem among this population. Researchers have not adequately addressed the specific issues of studying a person with disabilities feelings, self-perception and self-confidence of themselves. This research has seek further exploration and representation of how people with disabilities perceive and feel about themselves. This paper addresses the issues of finding how people with disabilities feel about themselves with special attention to their self-determination, self-advocacy, self-esteem and self-perception. Specifically, in this research from interviewing young adults with disabilities and how they feel about themselves, to show how they feel and give them a voice then how we may come up with interventions to support a positive self image. There is a need to build understanding on how people with disabilities feel about themselves to create interventions that support self-determination and positive self perception for people with disabilities. This research, by closely examining and interviewing people with disabilities, sheds new light on the rarely acknowledged issue of how a people with a disability feels about themselves and interventions that support positive self image