Monday, October 3, 2011

"It's a mental handicap!"

I took a trip West this summer to visit with family. My father and I went to the local mall to see a movie and escape the scorching heat. As we parked, a pair of twenty-something's screeched by us in the parking lot and pulled into the closest handicapped spot. They pulled out the handicapped sticker and placed it on the dash. As a physician, I could see no obvious physical handicap that would require special parking. No wheelchair, no walker, and no, not even a limp. My father is in his 70's and had recently had a knee replacement, and while he would surely qualify for special parking is happy to leave those close spots for those who truly need them. So I was probably a little too loud, as we walked behind these two physically capable young women in expressing my incredulity that they were truly disabled. One of the women, dressed in grunge and peppered with tattoos turned back towards me and loudly exclaimed: "It's a mental disability!"
And perhaps it is. The entitlement, the grandiose sense of self certainly suggests a narcissistic personality disorder or even psychopathy. My ex-husband "Slick" had a handicapped placard that he had charmed some poor unsuspecting female physician into issuing for him. He claimed that he had a shoulder injury, but both as his wife and as a physician I never found him to be in the least physically disabled.
Should those with personality disorders e .g. narcissists and psychopaths qualify for the same treatment afforded to others who legitimately fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act?
I'm all for giving them all their own special parking spots, right in front of the special psychopath colony.  Let them duke it out among themselves over who  is the most entitled.......

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