Everyone Has a Wound. Not Everyone Is a Victim

A statistic recently stopped me in my tracks. Not because it was shocking, but because it was confusing.

At Stanford University, roughly 38% of students are officially registered as having a disability and receiving accommodations. At Amherst, it’s around 34%. At Harvard, about 21%. Brown, Cornell, Yale, and other elite schools report similarly rising numbers. Meanwhile, community colleges typically report accommodation rates closer to 3-4%.

Now, maybe elite universities have somehow become the natural habitat of every diagnosable condition known to modern medicine. Maybe the nation’s most selective institutions have accidentally built their campuses on top of radioactive anxiety mines, or maybe something else is happening.

I honestly don’t know. That’s what makes this interesting. To be clear, this isn’t an argument against accommodations. If someone needs support, provide support. That’s what decent societies do, but at what point do we stop and ask a question that feels increasingly forbidden… Why are these numbers exploding?

If nearly four out of ten students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world require special accommodations, we’re no longer talking about an edge case.

We’re talking about a cultural phenomenon, and when something becomes that common, curiosity should not be considered cruelty.

Humans are fascinating creatures. We adapt to incentives faster than a Labrador finds dropped bacon. If a system rewards certain behaviors, beliefs, or identities, more people will understandably gravitate toward them. That’s not a character flaw; that’s economics. Put a sign over a door that says “Priority Access This Way,” and eventually, everyone starts looking for a reason they qualify.

We’ve seen versions of this our entire lives. The employee who somehow turns every missed deadline into a story about how they’ve been wronged, or the coworker who can weaponize a mild inconvenience with the precision of a Navy SEAL. The person who leaves a meeting late, unprepared, and somehow convinced they’re the victim of unrealistic expectations.

It’s like we’ve discovered a cheat code for adulthood. If responsibility is heavy enough, redefine yourself as exempt from carrying it.

What fascinates me is how quickly the language of resilience seems to be disappearing. When I was younger, the cultural script was: “Life is hard. How do I get stronger?” Now the script sometimes sounds more like: “Life is hard. How do I document it?” Again, real suffering exists. Real disabilities exist, and challenges deserve real accommodations.

That’s not the debate. The debate is whether we’ve unintentionally created a culture where disadvantage has become a form of social capital.

A 2021 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals with more narcissistic and manipulative traits were more likely to seek resources through victim claims. That doesn’t mean everyone making a claim is manipulative. Obviously not, but it does raise an uncomfortable question: What happens when victimhood becomes rewarding? (REAL TALK) Incentive systems shape behavior.

What if repeatedly viewing ourselves through the lens of limitation changes us?

What if constantly scanning for evidence of our disadvantages makes us less likely to discover our strengths?

What if resilience, like a muscle, weakens when it’s rarely required?

And perhaps most concerning of all… What happens when the future leaders of our institutions learn that the most effective way to navigate obstacles is not overcoming them but negotiating exceptions to them?

The students sitting in those classrooms today will become CEOs, professors, policymakers, physicians, judges, and executives tomorrow. They will write the rules, shape the culture, and set the norms.

What lessons are they absorbing?

Are obstacles meant to be confronted, or are they opportunities to build a better exemption request?

That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about because resilience has never meant pretending obstacles don’t exist. Resilience means acknowledging reality without surrendering to it. Victimhood says: “The obstacle defines me.” Resilience says: “The obstacle is real, but it doesn’t get custody of my future.”

Maybe that’s why this trend leaves me feeling both concerned and perplexed. We’ve spent decades trying to create a more compassionate society. That’s a worthy goal, but I wonder if, somewhere along the way, we've accidentally built a system where adversity carries status, exemptions carry prestige, and fragility can sometimes function as leverage.

If that’s true, then this isn’t simply a conversation about disability accommodations. It’s a conversation about what kind of citizens, leaders, and adults we’re cultivating, and when nearly 40% of students at one of the world’s most accomplished universities require special exceptions, I think it’s reasonable to ask…

Are we witnessing a genuine public health crisis?

An administrative arms race?

A diagnostic boom?

Or a culture increasingly teaching people that the safest path to power is through powerlessness?

Because those are very different diagnoses, and only one of them comes with a treatment plan.

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This newsletter explores the psychology of work, leadership, and what it means to be human in a world that’s moving faster every day.

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