tennis or fly, or the blind person who learns to ski. Goffman points out that some of these efforts also end disastrously as, for example, a person in a wheelchair trying to dance.
A person with a stigma may also use it as a crutch (Goffman 1963). He gives an example of people who have used their physical stigma as an excuse not to do things or to get attention, and once these physical disabilities are cured, they have difficulty adjusting to 'normal' life because their crutch has been taken away. Others find the experience has changed their outlook on life and people and given them new insights into how 'normal' people think and act. Some stigmatized people cannot handle contacts with so-called 'normal' people beca
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