I feel really uncomfortable around mentally handicapped people...

[HEyHEY]

Where does that rate on the "Asshole" scale.

I can't help it, I just don't feel comfortable. I guess it's the unfamiliarity thing.

[commander bunnypants]

1. you are entitled

but being an MH social worker. I disagree, just like you or me. Are you afraid of them?

DDQM

[HEyHEY]

8. Not afraid, just not willing to open up

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. Not a big deal.

You fear their unpredictability, right?

[commander bunnypants]

3. but once you get to know they are very predictable

AH the stigma, FALSE

DDQM

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. Hey. I wasn't saying that was a right way to behave, or that it was true.

I was just trying to empathize. No stigma here.

[commander bunnypants]

10. No the social stigma of hadicappied folks have

really pissess me off.

[LynzM]

4. Familiarity helps

I spent 3 summers working with mentally handicapped adults. It was quite uncomfortable at first, and got better with time and experience. I don't think it makes you an asshole, really, just that you haven't had the chance to get accustomed to them?

[hadrons]

5. so you're not comfortable around Bush voters???

[KamaAina]

6. Not so much the A-hole scale as the inexperience scale

there was probably a time when you felt uncomfortable around girls, too, wasn't there?

I once spent an afternoon with several people in a supported residence, who had all participated in a legislative internship program. We were discussing local politics at nearly a DU-like level, even referring to specific bills by bill number.

If you'd been there, you just might have felt some of that uncomfortableness go away...

Edit. Specific. Let me reiterate my unqualified opposition to "sopecific" bills in any form...

[Misunderestimator]

7. I'm comfortable, but a lot of people aren't ... as long as you don't let

your discomfort make THEM uncomfortable, then you are not on the Asshole scale at all. It's always uncomfortable to be around people that are different than you are at first... accept your discomfort and try to get past it.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. It Ranks About At The Median

It's not uncommon. My wife left teaching for a while to be a program coordinator for a center that administers to mentally handicapped adults. She said it was not uncommon for FAMILY MEMBERS to be uncomfortable around their own folks! They would be one way during a briefing, and then be completely ill at ease when the briefing included the mentally handicapped family member.

She only worked there 3 years. (She left because it was such a poorly run operation and went back to teaching special ed. No abuse or anything like that! Just poorly administrated and managed.) But, she saw things like that at least once a week.
The Professor