Girls Using Walking Sticks

Oh I hadn't heard of Tourettes contagion.

I do remember reading that prior to Flora Rheta Schreiber best selling book, Sybil and then Hollywood movie made starring Sally Field, there had only been 3 documented cases of 'multiple personality disorder.' afterwards with the book & movie there was an explosion and suddenly there were thousands. It was all later debunked as a bit of a fraud put together by three women. MPD seems to have fallen out of fashion as you rarely hear people claiming that they have it today, but it the 1970s it was all the rage.

It does suggest a certain suggestibility.

A girl from Hong Kong that I work with said that they'd already had the walking stick trend a few years previously (before London 2025) and thought it was connected to an anime/manga girl character with a walking stick and multicoloured hair. She also said something about chunky soled shoes/boots completing the look.

I can't say I've seen as many this summer as there were everywhere last year.

Indeed. togas and kilts spring to mind for starters

I've noticed an increase in young blokes wearing skirts/dresses on warm days. Not in some making a statement, or trying-to-be-feminine or showy, outrageous ways, just having a long black skirt or a plain, utilitarian type dress on as ordinary clothes.

I think it's bloody brilliant! It totally should be normalised because there has been so much shame attached to clothes associated with women, and the whole idea of 'femininity' being shameful and embarrassing if expressed in some way by a man. I have said for years that I think it would actually really be a positive if men would wear skirts more to help erase this idea that it's shameful and humiliating for men to be seen in 'women's clothes' (which, of course, weren't 'women's clothes' for much of history or in other parts of the world)

I have seen young men (wearing skirts) doing this in Oxford. I was puzzled by seeing three in one day.

no self respecting young person would dream of using a stick or a crutch or a wheelchair unless they really couldn't manage without it

I really don't wish to return to those days . I spent from my mid teens onwards struggling intensely with standing for long periods or walking long distances. I missed out on all kinds of life experiences (concerts, festivals, city breaks, art galleries and museums....) because I knew my body couldn't manage them. Companies like Cool Crutches and insta bloggers who were ambulatory wheelchair users helped me accept the help of mobility aids and it has opened up the world to me.

Here is an artice about the tourettes contagion. I think a similar phenomenon might also be behind the increase in young people self diagnosing as autistic/adhd etc and various other mental health conditions. A girl who attended school with my daughter even insisted she had DID and many "alter" personalities, as well as being trans, adhd, autistic, BPD and god knows what else. This was at 12/13 years old btw. I mean, what are the actual odds? Scary what social media can do to young brains

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9014744/

In that case thank goodness for the upcoming social media ban for under 16s.

Remember several years ago when the tik-tok teen girls all had tourettes and were even inducing an actual tourettes like illness in themselves because of their delusions? This is the latest version of that. They now all have self diagnosed pots/long covid/cfs, use walking sticks and complain about how medical professionals are awful and just don't get it because they cant actually find anything medically wrong with them. Even my own teen dd who didnt escape the trans social contagion unscathed (out the other side now thankfully) has noticed it and can see that its mostly nonsense

No-one should be ashamed of their disability, of course they shouldn't, but it's a bit concerning when a significant cohort of young people are very obviously all clamouring to identify as chronically unwell, disabled and emotionally and physically delicate. Whatever happened to identifying as a punk or a skater girl? Nope. Not this lot. These days it's all 'my pronouns are they/them and I identifying as someone who can't stand up for more than 15 minutes without passing out. I have a tiktok channel where I chronicle my daily swoonings and all-round feebleness. It makes me fascinating.'

Of course for some of them it will be absolutely true. But for many others it will just be something they feign and exaggerate because they are attracted to the tragic-ness of it all, the attention it gets them, and they aspire to be that unwell.

Well you might think that's a perfectly healthy and normal way for a teenager to behave but I don't. Most genuinely unwell or physically disabled young people work really hard to live as normal a life as possible and to be seen and accepted as as normal as possible. They don't want a spotlight on their health issues, they don't want pity and sympathy. They don't descend into self absorbed narcissism and attention seeking.

Of course if they should walk with a stick if they need to, and not get judgement for it. But up until very recently, no self respecting young person would dream of using a stick or a crutch or a wheelchair unless they really couldn't manage without it. Whereas now a walking stick for a certain type of girl has become a social signifier of the 'tribe' she wants to be part of. She almost certainly has issues of some sort, but those issues probably don't require a walking stick.

Yes, why can't we go back to the good old days when disability was seen as something shameful and unseemly to be kept out of sight where possible and many disabled people were institutionalised and separated from wider society.
Things were so much better then when people were rightly ashamed of their conditions and didn't have the brass neck to wander around being visibly disabled and giving nosy judgemental parkers a fit of the vapours by not hiding away like anyone decent would do if they happened to be disabled.
I am, for the avoidance of doubt, being sarcastic, just in case that needed clarifying!

No , it never occurred to me that they might have self mutilated or be ' trans ' whatever that actually means. They appeared to be quite healthy and happy young people. Obviously fitter and stronger than me. Which is why the mobility aids seemed a bit incongruous.But I wouldn't read too much into it. I also saw a young lad with a bar code tattooed across his forehead. Let's face it ; a walking stick will be much easier to ditch.

I note that it’s something that’s easy to have as an off the shelf accessory, it doesn’t cause the user inconvenience or physical discomfort. Nobody seems to be rocking a lymphoedema sleeve unless they really need one, even though there’s some really cool, if a bit spendy, examples out there

It’s totally disconcerting. It’s odd and worrying. These people wear their ‘disability’ like an identity.

🤣🤣🤣

I genuinely don't get why you'd see a group of people with walking sticks whilst having the audacity to have bright coloured hair at the same time disconcerting. I know people have tried to explain on the thread, it's because they are imagining a conspiracy that they've all "self mutilated" , which is why it's concerning them, and that blue hair apparently equals "trans."
It's just honestly messed up thinking to me.
If that's not what you found disconcerting too like others here, what did you?

"Spoonie"..... LOL That's brilliant!

It's a legitimately carried self defence weapon. Something visibly usable as a barrier and a deterrent.

Like hat pins and parasols used to be.

That's just the kind of standard disclaimer a lawyer would tell them to add.

Not least because it you think you need a mobility aid you do also want to make sure you are seeing a doctor!

As I said above. This site really helped me finally I accept I should buy a stick and not feel embarrassed to use it when I need to, even if there are judgy twats wondering why I use it when I "don't look disabled".

I have a stick from there. I love that it doesn't have to be NHS grey. Maybe read about the lady who founded it and why.

I have Myasthenia and I often "carry rather than lean on" a stick ....

I am so so grateful to sites like Cool Crutches for making me feel more able to accept that even though I am not yet an Octogenarian (despite what my children say 😁 ) it is ok to use a stick if I need one. Her posts and adverts helped me decide to get the stick I had needed for years and years but not quite been able to face buying

I often carry the stick because:

I don't really need my stick for walking unless I over do it and my nerves stop sending signals to my leg muscles which can get scary pretty fast. I tend to use a wheelchair for long walks or just plan life so I don't have to walk to far. But in hot weather or when I have a cold I find it hard to gauge how quickly my symptoms will flare and a stick is a safety net.

I also carry the stick as I get ill very quickly if I stand in queues, the stick helps considerably then.

A third reason I carry the stick is to render an invisible disability more visible, so people realise why I might be walking more slowly/in a priority seat on the train etc

I'm lucky, I am able to work from home and earn a good salary. But a lot of people with my condition are unable to work and some of them do choose to dye their hair all sorts of colours - why the hell not? Our world can feel pretty small and uneventful. And if I didn't have a professional job I might feel inclined to dye my hair too

The reason women feel the need to carry weapons is due to the danger posed to them by men. The acts these men carry out are far more illegal than a woman thinking ‘well i could use the washing stick if needed to hit someone’ Male violence is an actual daily threat to women. Let’s not pretend women are the problem here because thinking of a walking stick as a defence weapon is illegal.

It's illegal to carry weapons in Britain. Even if you try to pretend it's for something else when the real reason is for a weapon.

Just seen it for the first time. On a city break in Plymouth. Three young people - teenagers I'd say - in different locations. Nice blackthorn sticks by the way ! They were all with friends of a similar age , blue hair , piercings etc. Seemed like lovely young girls and boys tbh. But a bit disconcerting.

Couldn't have put it better myself! My life's ambition in a nutshell.😄

It is getting into practice for when she is an old woman who wears purple, and runs her stick along the public railings.

This has something to do with the fact that young women on blockers and cross sex hormones develop osteopenia and osteoarthritis and do need a walking aid.