To think the lift is for anyone who needs it

[EeyoresEars]

Queuing up to use the lift at a busy station this week. There were about 6-8 people in front of me and I’m not sure how many behind. I waited for lift as I’m pregnant and couldn’t have carried my buggy down the long flight of stairs.

A woman who was using a wheelchair was a couple of people behind me in the queue and I heard her starting to complain, not directed at anyone, just talking loudly so everyone could hear. She kept saying she was going to miss her train because of all the lazy people who should carry their cases down the stairs instead of using the lift.

Then she started complaining about people not carrying buggies down the stairs. I kept ignoring her, as did everyone else, which I think made her more angry. She shouted to a staff member and asked what she was going to do about the lazy people in the queue. The staff member said there isn’t priority access for the lift and it’s safest for people not to carry heavy luggage on stairs if they don’t feel able to. The woman using the wheelchair kept on complaining and saying she was taking it further.

Aibu to think anyone who needs the lift can use it and if you have to queue then that’s just life?

I don't say anyone was horrendous. I said stating that wheelchair users have an easier life of it because they're sitting down all the time was horrendous.

I think the bottom line is, yes it is kind to allow people with disabilities to use the lifts first, but as people have said; you have no idea who has disabilities and who hasn't just by looking at them.

So all in all, the woman in the wheelchair was being extremely rude and ignorant to the people around her and appeared to be under the impression that just because no one else was in a wheelchair then they must all be abled bodied lazy fuckers.

Wheelchair or not, if someone, anyone, is rude, nasty and demanding to people I wouldn't let them go in front.

Being in a wheelchair is not easy My life was a billion times easier before I had to use one. For those who think it's easy, I invite you to try it for a week. I can absolutely guarantee you won't still be saying it at the end.

No, being in a wheelchair does not mean you have the right to be rude. However, some people who are in a wheelchair have other disabilities too, as well as just physical ones. The lady could have been autistic, had learning difficulties, anxiety disorder or anything that could make her seem rude. You just don't know.

Actually, some people choose to use wheelchairs because it makes their lives easier, although they can walk perfectly well!

While taking DD for an appointment at a specialist epilepsy centre, we went for a coffee to kill some time as we were early. I got talking to one of the residents, who was in a wheelchair - he told me he had to use it outside of his residential house, after he had a seizure, fell down the stairs and broke his neck. I could see all the scars he had from falling during other seizures.

If we were travelling with DD, we would use a lift, partly because she has no depth perception and finds strange stairs frightening; but really because we are worried about her having a seizure on the stairs or escalators and falling! Not only would she injure herself, but its quite likely she would knock anybody else over on her way down! She has fallen down our stairs a number of times, although as ours are carpeted, she has not seriously hurt herself yet.

However, even standing waiting for a lift for 5 minutes with her is stressful, because she can have a seizure and fall at any time onto the concrete - possibly needing a trip to A & E for stitches, X-rays, a CT scan (or is it a CAT scan) of the head. So, not only would we miss the train, but we would have to spend hours in A & E, and then possibly months at physiotherapy, or the fracture clinic or whatever. Its well known that people with her condition can end up in a wheelchair anyway, due to the brain damage caused by the repeated seizures and falls.

So, no I don't think wheelchair users should get priority over all other disabled people for lifts, whose disabilities are invisible!

And to add, I'm not saying autistic people or people with mental health issues are rude, just that sometimes a meltdown or panic attack could come across like they are being rude.

You've seriously misunderstood me, @Bishop.

I said that wheelchair users lives aren't necessarily more difficult than non-wheelchair users.

And then gave the example of my friend, who is a part time wheelchair user and vastly prefers sitting in the wheelchair to standing without it. When he's in the wheelchair, he's a wheelchair user. When he's not, he isn't. He would happily agree that, at the very least, the challenges he faces as a wheelchair user are completely different to the ones he faces when he isn't a wheelchair user. He would probably also point out that his life has in fact become significantly easier since he got the wheelchair, simply because other people take his disability more seriously. He's terrified of getting out of it in public in case it changes people's attitudes back.

I know this because I've discussed it with him.

At no point did I mean to imply that all wheelchair users are like my friend. It's not fair to take my counterexample and claim it was a generalisation, especially when I've been arguing against generalisations.

Moreandless

Here’s just a few of the comments. I’m simply pointing out that the people who said these type of things are actually being pretty unreasonable.

“Obviously as a pregnant woman with a pushchair you should go behind her, because you chose your predicament.”

“her needs do trump yours as she has no other choice, whereas you could have used the stairs, just chose not to because it was easier.”

“Spd is painful. But you’re only pregnant. Not disabled. There is a world of difference between disability and a painful pregnancy. Carpal tunnel syndrome is in your hand doesn’t apply in this instance. Your attitude shows you really don’t have the first clue about what it is to be disabled.”

“If you have a buggy, you could ask someone to help you carry it down the stairs”

“you absolutely can use the stairs to take a pram down when pregnant. I use to live in a 3rd floor flat with no lift. done it with all of mine. even with a double.”

The lift is there for everybody and it's first come first serve. Just because she is in a wheelchair doesn't give her a free pass to be bloody rude!

chouetted I don't think your part time wheelchair friend is doing anything wrong. I needed a stick for years but was too proud/self conscious to do so. Finally i got sick of being so unsteady and having to justify my disability, so went for the stick. A big benefit of it was making my disability more visible as well as making me feel safer. but going out without it scares me in case I get accused of faking.

@SpottedCowJumpstheFence Not quite the same, but I keep thinking I'd like to have a stick when it's cold & icy or wet &muddy, but I'm worried people are going to see me with it and expect me to use one all the time!

My problem isn't so much being unsteady, more the fact that I lose all sense of where I am compared to the ground the minute my foot slips, which isn't terribly great for staying upright.

OP,

Ok, so you have found THREE comments in the whole thread where posters have said you should not use the lift. 🤷🏻‍♀️ THREE in a thread of over three hundred. Like I said you are choosing to focus on a tee yay tiny minority of posters comments. I think the vast majority of posters think that anyone who is disabled, who has mobility issues (ie pregnant or elderly or whatever) or who has prams or heavy luggage should use the lift.

Also, while we are on the subject of thread generalizations hardly anyone has said that the woman in the wheelchair wasn’t rude. A few posters have explained WHY she might have been rude and one posters didn’t think she was rude but generally everyone has said that her behavior wasn’t ok.

YANBU.

SPD is bloody awful and absolutely gives you the right to use the lift if you need to. Just because someone's pain isn't permanent doesn't mean they are in lesser need at that moment in time than someone with a permanent disability.

Would you say to someone who broke their leg, bandaged and on crutches to "use the stairs " because their situation isn't permanent?

Abled bodied people aside, the lifts are for people who need them at that moment in time whether their situation is permanent or not.

YANBU, sounds like a very bitter lady. People with suitcases might have invisible disabilities preventing them from carrying suitcases - my cousin has Pots and never climbs stairs(even without suitcases) as it makes her dizzy and breathless and she needs somebody to support her on the way up/stop for breathers. Sometimes she uses a wheelchairs for long days out but when she doesn't, you wouldn't know she had a disability.

As I said before, if you would wait 30 minutes for a lift as many wheelchair users have to, then you really need to use it. But I have waited at lifts and found nearly everyone melts away to use the stairs. So I guess it was a preference for them, not a necessity.

YANBU
She was rude. Lifts aren't just for wheelchair users.
I am mid thirties and no mobility problems. Peoole look at me and tut because I'm a lazy fucker for not using the stairs. What they don't know is that i have to use the lift because I have a heart condition and can go into svt by using the stairs.
I will let wheelchair users go before me as much as I can but sometimes I need to go in before them.

Sounded like you all needed the lift she needed to wait her turn

To Joe public I look perfectly healthy and normal. I struggle with stairs sometimes and definitely would not be attempting to carry a case up and down them without risking a dislocation. She needed to get off her high horse. Disability permanent or temporary, is not always visable.

"Spd is painful. But you’re only pregnant. Not disabled"

What ignorant rubbish.
I used lifts when I was pregnant, because if my spd. I used disabled toilets if they were the only ones within a distance I could walk to.

I didn't have it as badly as some women in here, but I had to plan journeys around stations with lifts, had to get taxis for what would have been 5 minutes walk, and then spent the last few weeks pretty much housebound. I peed in a bucket sometimes, because we didn't have a downstairs toilet, and going upstairs was too painful. I'll likely be affected by it to some degree for life. And many people have it worse than me.

So don't you dare say it's not a disability, or that not using the stairs was a choice.

I also remember the time when (mid pregnancy, so it got a lot worse), I was overtaken by a very, very elderly man with a stick, who gave me the saddest look of pity as I shuffled forwards.

Sleeplikeasloth I completely agree! It stings to hear several posters as well as another disabled person, write absolute bloody nonsense about a condition that has left me and many other women, permanently wheelchair bound and in daily agony. As well as many more left with chronic pain!

I wrote a comment about it on page 5 but the person who wrote the post (which was basically saying that as she managed not to use disabled facilities, that all people with SPD should be the same’ has not bothered to answer. I doubt you will get a reply either!

It’s not just healthy people who can write anti disabled nonsense!

I still maintain that it was rude of the wheelchair user to be abusive towards others waiting! I am a wheelchair user too and have been in that situation before, I would not have been abusive, Its just not who I am! Thankfully though there are mostly good people out and about who will go out of their way to help me.

Yes of course you were entitled to use the lift. I would have given the wheelchair user priority but i presume the lift thad the capacity to take additional passengers like yourself who needed it so I don't see the issue?

It irritates the hell out me when you arrive at an airport and theres one lift filled with healthy looking men (and generally it is always men) and a tiny weekender who don’t want to take the escalator. Unless the lift starts specifiying who can use it people unfortunately can’t complain.

You’re both wrong. Pregnant women and people with cases are of course expected to use the lift, but unless it is one of those tube stations with 200 stairs, healthy people with just their work handbag /bag etc should use the stairs. I’d always let a wheelchair in first though.

Sleeplikeasloth
Eeyores
I was comparing a temporary disabiling condition to permanent disability in mental health terms. Perhaps that was not clear to you. At the time you had not discussed you permanent disability, only that you had spd brought on by a second pregnancy and carpal syndrome, which isn’t affected on taking the lift (which I totally agree you needed to take).

Permanent disability is very different from a psychological POV. At no point did I say you should take the stairs. So be angry with me if you want. But it is a fact that a person, who is temporarily disabled is in completely different mental place from a person, who has a permanent one. It doesn’t mean their needs aren’t great during that disabling time. Anyway that is all immaterial as you drip fed you are disabled and I responded that I would not have posted that comment in the first place had you explained yourself first.

Chouetted
I think being in a wheelchair part time is very different from permanently. I have chosen not to have a wheelchair because I’d need a manual one, which reclines and has head support and another one, which is electric when alone. All far too complicated and considering my level of health probably wouldn’t give me a great deal of benefit as I really just need to rest and spend the majority of my life in bed. But if I did have a wheelchair, I would still have a certain amount of mobility as I am able to use stairs and walk a short distance with great difficulty. I would therefore have all the benefits of a chair but without the difficulties as per your friend and undoubtedly feel the same way.