To be fed up of feeling like I'm a second-class member of society

[Mummyme1987]

I had a serious car accident a few years ago, and have various medical complications too. I use a wheelchair. I'm fed up with this feeling that because I have mobility and medical problems, I'm not a full member of society. I overheard a now non friend imply that I was a drain on society because I don't work. Lately I've had issues with people talking over me, at a checkout I'm ignored and even though my hand is out for the change it's given to my husband. Little things like people moving my wheelchair so I'm facing the wall. Even moving me so I bash my toes. And then there is the parking issues, comments about being too young to have mobility problems, like being young stops car accidents. I've put on weight since the accident, so i get a lot of too fat to walk comments. Why do people do this? My family are fab, we have other disabilities in the family, and at home I don't feel this way. Im now finding I don't enjoy leave the house unless I have too. Im fed up with other people's attitudes. When I have talked to these people about the attitude, they always try to lay it at my feet with the dont be so sensitive, maybe you are depressed (I'm not), I'm actually really happy, I just am fed up with your attitude! Im not even sure why i am writing this but it has boiled ever today.

Reading this thread has made me realise that,despite being disabled myself,I am quite lucky in that I have had nowhere near as bad ' verbal' experiences as many of you here. Apart from the incident on the bus which I mentioned earlier,I haven't had any nastiness aimed at me verbally (well not as far as I am aware!). I am not not in a wheelchair,for which I am grateful,but use one or 2 walking sticks,depending on whether I am having a 'good' day or a 'bad' day. As well as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis,I also have fibromyalgia,which causes extreme tiredness due to poor quality,or lack of sleep. It does infuriate me when people glibly say 'Oh yes,I get really tired too'. My tiredness is the sort that seeps into your bones,turns your brain to mush and makes you think 'If I take one more step I am just going to collapse in a heap on the floor. The things that irritates me on a daily basis is people not making allowance for the fact that I cannot jump out of the way in a split second. They say 'excuse me' but by the time my brain has registered it and told my reluctant legs to move,they have lost patience and barge past me,nearly knocking me over. And people not making allowance for the fact that someone using walking stick(s) is inevitably going to be slightly 'wider' IYSWIM. People walk so close to me that I end up nearly having my stick(s) kicked out from under me. It is not possible for me to walk effectively using sticks with them held in front of me! They need to be on either side of me to be of any use. BUT.... having said all this,over the 16 years that I have been disabled,i have encountered some very nice,helpful people (lovely lady that carried my shopping home from the bus stop for me as she could see I was knackered,and the nice man in the coffee shop who gave up the comfortable armchair so I didn't have to sit on a hard upright chair).

Hospital planning - the physio dept for us is UP A FLIGHT OF STAIRS no lift! Which idiot thought that one up?!! Yes to making planners use a wheelchair/blackout glasses/weights on joints like my dd did with her friend?

Accusations of drunkenness in inappropriate places. My grandmother was diabetic and had several strokes as she got older, my aunt has had several strokes too, my friends 19 year old son (he gets it the most due to his age) is diabetic - they've all been accused of this - all teetotal! Unluckily for those attacking the 19 yr old, my friend is a very Bolshy scouser god help them when she gets started! he's also now an athlete doing really well and is using his 'fame' to educate people about genetic diabetes.

Lots of disabled assessment centres are up stairs with lifts that can't be used in advent of fires! So if you are upstairs and there's a fire and you can't walk, then you burn. Nice.😡

Mummyme1987

That's political though isn't it, designed to make people not claim.

Still fucking outrageous!

Mummyme1987 and baconyum - physio rooms and assessment centres not being fully accessible is a sick joke I'm furious for you all over again.

I've been thinking about whether or not to post here for a couple of days - mostly because I constantly over-share and then have to change my user name, but also because I grapple with this stuff (and have spent countless sessions with my counsellor trying to work out what my response should be).

I use a wheelchair sometimes and crutches the rest of the time. I'm 6 years in and I'm still caught on the hop by these kind of comments. Every time. I'm a bit frustrated with the PP who thinks it's just a matter of "sticking up for yourself" when it's so much more than that.

I experience these comments (every day, sometimes many times a day) as diminishing. They reinforce the struggle that I have had as my disease has gradually stolen my sense of who I am. They make me incredibly weary. The idea of being responsible for challenging very single fuckwit I meet makes me tired beyond imagination. I can't bear it.

Faced with stupidity, patronage and thoughtlessness I can think to myself "They meant well" or "That didn't come out how they meant it" or even "Ooh, they're going to feel horrible about saying that when they think about it later". The problem is that this is the drip drip of water on stone - it ends up being wearing, pulling me down and making me feel inadequate in all directions: because I don't say anything, I don't challenge; I don't know what to say or how to challenge. I've tried to talk about this, in a general way, but just get told (by friends and colleagues) "Oh, they meant well, they didn't mean anything bad they just were clumsy".

That might be true, but it just silences me more.

I don't want to add all my stories because PP have described everything so much better than I could. But yes, in hospitals, in my workplace, in shops, in museums, in all places that there are the Public and Me. Things are said. Things happen.

And I feel less than I was.

I'm so sorry to hear that you all have to go through this. People can be awful. Thank you Mummy1987 for starting this thread. My heart goes out to you.

'And I feel less than I was.'

That's EXACTLY it! Then we get the benefit bashing shit too!

Yyy to the drip on stone analogy too, as I've said I'm a Bolshy mare I'm also lucky enough not to be in a wheelchair nor (yet - hopefully never but it's a possibility) is dd.

But having friends/relatives who are/were it's in my consciousness.

Burblish - you may want to stay away from threads discussing the way the disabled are treated when applying for benefits for the sake of your blood pressure - that's the least of it.

Yes definitely water dripping on stone. As I said I prefer to stay home. Some days I'm feeling so bad I can't cope with shit from others as well as my medical stuff.

People can be thoughtless but i felt a lot less angry about it after CBT during my Pain Management course. I would recommend that.

I did go over people's toes deliberately in my wheelchair a couple of times when they pushed in front of queues, though

Cbt didn't do anything for me really. 😔

CBT doesn't work for me either - I've had more success with ACT mindfulness and meditation.

People generally don't handle disability well. I was on a ferry to France one time following a road accident, had my arm strapped up and was struggling to walk at great speed due to other complications. A woman looked me up and down in what can only be described as utter disgust and I wanted to cry I felt so bad - it was the first time I'd dared go out in months, but my friends were amazing and bucked me up. As we got off the ferry I made a point of being right next to her and saying very loudly and in an "affected" voice that I didn't understand why people looked at me the way they did. Don't they realise that I had a good job before all this, and that it could happen to them in a blink of an eye. Being talked over was a major gripe of mine in those days so I can only imagine what it's like to deal with full-time. You have a physical disability, so presumably you are also mentally disabled then - logic ?? I know that my difficulties made me make a point of acknowledging others who are up against it in some way. That said, there have been many occasions when the person clearly avoids making eye contact, which makes it harder. I guess perhaps some people find it easier to do that rather than feel snubbed.

i've just remembered the horrible women who encouraged her children to call me "psycho" as I went into the psychiatric hospital. I was already crying, too. Stupid evil fucking cow doesn't desverve to have children.

for you Once. How awful xxx.

This

My partner has serious mobility issues and uses crutches. I definitely agree with the 80/20% thing, and I find it very distressing to see him so upset when people are rude to him. A good comeback would be great, but in the moment it's just so shocking that it's hard for him to respond, and I just want to whack them in the head, which he says would be unhelpful, and I suppose he has a point.
More awareness is definitely needed.

One thing that really drives me insane isn't when people mock or stare at me, but when they do it to my best friend. She has cerebral palsy, mostly spastic and mostly lower body (as I am aware there are many types) and they have no idea how much effort and pain she went through as a young kid to be able to walk, all they see is her feet twist inwards and she walks "funny".

I have to control my rage when teenage girls have mocked her by copying her walk, or when people stare for ages.

They don't see someone who was told they'd never walk, and who does walk despite the pain it causes, and who gets frustrated when the pain prevents her from walking as much as she wants to. If it weren't for my best friend, I'd have never come to terms with my own disabilities, or found much humour in my life. She made me strong too, and cripes I want to knock heads together on her behalf sometimes, because she is so laid back and not bothered.

Writing in support here, I am shocked by how you have all been treated. I don't understand how it is that people can be so ignorant. I have some personal experience as my dad has Parkinsons - he is lucky that he is still fairly mobile and able to walk a reasonable distance eg shopping. However one of the effects of the disease that he is slower than usual especially in initiating movement, eg changing direction or moving out of someone's way. He has been barged many times and a couple of times knocked over by impatient people who can't wait. Places like the Underground are more or less off limits for him now as he just can't move at the 'expected' speed.

Unfortunately his ability to walk a distance means he is ineligible for a blue badge in his authority. He has been to the council to explain that the issue is not his ability to walk distances but that he needs more room to get out of the car as he has to swing his legs out one at a time meaning the door needs to be wider, much like someone who is heavily pregnant. The authority can't get their heads round this so no blue badge for him which means again some car parks are out of bounds due to narrow spaces. I have told him to use mother and baby spaces but he won't. Seems to me this attitude from the council is very rigid and some thought to the individual would help!

The new QE hospital* in Brum (one of the largest civilian building projects in Europe) looks nice and modern ...

1. The car park floor devoted to BB parking (and to be fair there are a surfeit of places) has no level access to the hospital - you need a lift.

2. The corridors are so narrow two wheelchairs can't pass. One needs to reverse into a room so the other can pass.

*Taken from a US prison design, apparently.

When DS was born, 20 years ago, the maternity hospital had just had a £10million refit. Yet, despite MrsLH pointing out the lack of accessibility (mirrors in bathrooms at standing height) and nagged them about a disabled shower facility (which they promised) after the birth I had to help her stand in a shower (no disabled provision) to wash the blood off. The tears were not of joy . We had to go home that night, leaving DS in neonatal.

Even now - in 2016 - if you look carefully at new buildings, the provision for the less able ranges from poor, through pisspoor to brain-dead. When we are out and about the problems start with a small (3-4 inch) step with no ramp alternative, and get worse from there.

If it wasn't possible to "bump" a pushchair up a kerb, parents would face exactly the same mobility issues as the disabled. (only they wouldn't, because their needs would be met).

As to attitudes towards the disabled ... have we all forgotten (did we ever know ?) about the blind lady who wore a bodycam to catch bullying cunts ? Check the date of the story ? Yes it is 2014 - not 1814.

I don't understand how it is that people can be so ignorant

Being ignorant takes an awful lot of hard work. It's exhausting and debilitating (to the soul). So it's only fair and proper that having invested so much energy into being a thoughtless cunt, a person then wants to drown out all the decency in others.

So even though the vast majority of people are kind, decent, thoughtful and helpful; they are drowned out by the few that spoil it for everyone. The old 80/20 rule.

MrsLH once told me, in an odd way, she was grateful for the MS. Being disabled is a marvellous way to filter out knobheads. "Normal" folk have no such advantage.

Posting in support. I'm so shocked at how you've all been treated. I'm particularly open mouthed that anyone would move a wheelchair! My awareness of the issues of disability has certainly been raised.

Re filtering out knob heads - absobloodylutely!

I've spent most of my life people pleasing (raise in an atmosphere of dv/abuse) when I had my breakdown I learned who were true friends and who were ignorant twats

I've a film I love - 'copycat' the sigourney weaver character (agoraphobic) at one point says (and I can't find the exact quote so may mess up slightly)

'You know what the beautiful part is of having a breakdown? I just don't give a fuck!'

You do sweat the small stuff less I've found.

The thing that's REALLY annoying about the building planning etc - it shows how little these people value the sick/disabled. Drip down from the heartless gits in govt I suspect

The thing that's REALLY annoying about the building planning etc - it shows how little these people value the sick/disabled

The £10million refit to the BMH in 1995/6 paid £000s to specialist "disability advisors" whose specialism was clearly cheque cashing. Then when MrsLH started pointing out the flaws, the hospital administration team asked her to review the plans.

For free.

Here's an area where it should be possible to deliver better equality: Websites. Maybe starting with Mumsnet ? Which (I notice) has no accessibility statement anywhere that I can see . Do they check their webpages for accessibility ? Nobody knows .... (start by searching Mumsnet for "accessibility" )

I hear you, OP.
I'm a disabled parent of three disabled people and the LOOKS I get...
DD has CFS and like me uses a wheelchair. The head tilting pity or judgmental tuts...

In shops being ignored or talking to DH not me. I used to be moved but now my powerchair is 70 kg plus they'd get a hernia. I get fallen over every time I go out and as I have arthritis in my ankle it really hurts me. Having to constantly travel from point a to point b at a diagonal as I'm trying to avoid people who don't look down and can't see me. The nearly getting fag ends in my face all the time, once almost got my hair set on fire.

People 'just nipping in' to the lift in front of me - they could use the escalator, I can't. Likewise blue badge bay abuse - worse in the evenings as disabled people aren't allowed a social life.

Then there's the 'faking it' arseholes. The (mainly older) people giving me grief for using a blue badge bay. The 'you're only doing it for the money' brigade (yes, because that humiliating at is assessment was so easy to fake!).

Weirdly I don't ever get this shit when I visit France...