I don't like not being normal. Here is some emotional diarrhea.

[Livingtothefull]

I feel I am not normal because I don't live a normal life. My DS has severe physical and learning disabilities, daily I am reminded that we live in an environment and culture that is really not designed for him.

Example. My DS can't get himself around safely, when I am out with him I push him in a wheelchair, because of his learning difficulties he can't get himself around. It is physically strenuous to push him especially uphil when the pavement is uneven. Feel the shock my DS feels when we hit a rut in the pavement which grinds to a halt - it hurts my hands too.

It is much easier to push DS on the road as it is smoother and designed for wheels - but we can't use that safely either, we get honked at & have to move back onto the uneven pavement.

Another example. I am trying to open a bank account for DS, as he has just turned 18 I think as an adult he should have access to his own money (which we have been saving for him for years) but as a person with severe learning difficulties he needs protection.

How to reconcile this? I want a bespoke bank account which is set up with his needs in mind. But I have approached several banks and it seems that accommodating him isn't so straightforward. Has this situation never occurred before, is it really so outlandish?

Example 3. DS has never been able to use the train station in his home town where he has lived all his life, because there were no lifts to the platforms. The station has now been rebuilt and as part of that, lifts are being installed. The station has been pronounced 'open' but the lifts aren't working yet so to us it isn't open. I complained to the effect that 'if a place isn't open for the disabled, it is effectively isn't open so you have no business claiming that it is'. My complaint was ignored of course.

Where the emotional diarrhoea kicks in: here. I am so so tired of being ignored. I feel it is hard for anyone to understand where I am coming from, how hard this all is. I feel really insignificant; I don't know what normal is but I am not it, and I feel emotional upset at knowing my face doesn't fit. Because my life is not normal and the pressures I face are just overwhelming, what I have to deal with just takes my breath away. Also, I feel stifled as if nobody is interested in what I have to say.

I am tired of suffering and worrying about my DS future. My DS will have as good a life as his country is willing to give him. I have to do what I need to do for my DS and I need have some critical distance from my emotional upsets. I wish I could know it would be OK.

I find it frustrating that the disabled appear to be the only minority group that it seems to be OK to routinely discriminate against.
Presumably that's because most of the others are 'be nice' whereas disability requires people/organisations to actually do something that might cost money :(

@Livingtothefull I don't have a child or other dependent with disabilities, but I am frequently disgusted by the lack of disabled access to public transport. I live in London where the vast majority of Tube and Overground stations have no lifts - and as you or a pp said, this also creates problems for people with buggies, suitcases or who simply can't climb stairs. And the number of times when there is a lift, but it's out of order for weeks on end! A disgrace for a wealthy capital city.
You have all my sympathy, and I wish your DS a happy adulthood.

I haven't got any useful advice. But I just read your thread and didn't want you to feel not-heard.

But wow you have been strong for so long... I really hope you find a solution and a happy future for your ds.

Hope an awkward cyber hug is okay 💐.

I hope you are right Foaming, I really don't think I deserve it. I think I am as good as the next person; wish that some of these posters would ease off their hostility, I am doing the best I can.

Thank you SO MUCH all of you for your posts.

But now an extra1% think IABU. Please explain why?

Please explain why IABU. Because here is where I am going from; I don't understand why you don't want to support me and my DS. Long before I had DS I thought that people with special needs needed protection, I never begrudged it because I thought that was what a civilised society does.

Do you want to be civilised or don't you?

Now a further 1% think IABU. Please explain why?

Talk about a void! I am off to bed, I have well had enough of this.

People will press the button just for a reaction I think. In nobody’s world are you unreasonable x

A lot just do it when scrolling, I've done it myself a few times. I honestly wouldn't bother about it.

Posters on here don't usually hold back, if someone had something nasty to say you'd have heard it by now.

That may be true Casualbride but I really wish they wouldn't. I think IANBU but I am on the edge here and I need support. But I won't ask for it where it is not forthcoming.

There is nothing but support on this thread, no need to focus on the buttons which will either have been pressed by accident or by a twat x

I’m sorry I have no useful advice to give you, Livingtothefull. Life is unfair. But I’m sending you much love and concern. You sound like a wonderful mother who deserves happiness. Your DS is lucky to have you caring for him so well. I hope you have good friends and family to help you.

So sorry life is so hard for you. Wishing you peace of mind and every little happiness possible xx

I feel for you Livingtothefull. Even though I am a doctor and I thought I had quite good awareness of the issues disabled people face, I discovered recently that I really don't. I was involved in a serious accident and was a wheelchair user for some months before progressing onto a zimmer then crutches. It really opened my eyes to the daily challenges that disabled people face, and not just the physical things, but the way people behaved towards me changed hugely. Often it was like I wasn't even there, or there seemed to be an assumption that I was stupid. Strangers were the worst of course, but even people who know me pretty well did it FFS.
Of course I had the privilege of knowing it was a temporary problem for me. Well, I will never be completely the same again but I will be viewed as "normal" by the majority. It made me realise just how hard it is though, and to have to deal with these things day in day out for your whole life must be absolutely intolerable.
I wish I could help you, but for what its worth you are 100% completely reasonable. What is unreasonable is that you have to face these problems with such little support or understanding from the rest of society. How anyone could think you are unreasonable is beyond me. I think most who have voted that way will have misunderstood what they are voting on, or clicked by accident. Please don't take it to heart.
Are you in the UK? I have a relation who has quite a senior role in a relatively new bank. I could ask him if they have anything that could work for your son and others in similar situations if you would like me to? A smaller bank might be more interested in a more bespoke approach.

I’m sorry things are hard. So many of the things that would make you and your son’s life easier would benefit so many people. Smooth pavements, working lifts, etc. yours is a more severe case, but society is definitely unforgiving towards the not perfectly abled. Even aging makes navigating cities difficult.

Thank you all. I don't want to imply that I am not appreciative of all the support I have received here because I am, I apologise if I gave this impression.

If you can find out about banking options MAFIL that would be really helpful. TBH I was a little bit taken aback by the unhelpfulness of the banks I approached, one of which I had banked with since my teens. I thought they would be proactive with some potential solutions but the conversations didn't go like that, it was more 'this is what we have got, you have to figure out what works for you'.

My DH is seriously stressed. I am very worried, because everyone has their limits and I think he has reached his.

We have had a bit of a run in with some neighbours, my DH had to deal with the brunt of it (although I dealt with some of it); it is resolved now I think but DH admitted he suffered from the stress of it all.

We took DS out for dinner to try to unwind and just have a good time out together. That was all lovely....then we went to the bus stop to get home. When the bus came DH got on with DS wheelchair while I waited to get on at the front doors. But they didn't open because as I could see, the driver was berating someone. I didn't know that it was my DH he was berating. Silly me, I thought 'Nobody would want to make DH life harder. It is plain he has a lot on his plate and nobody decent would want to make things easier for him not harder. Nobody would dream of berating him'. Silly, naive me.

DH then got off the bus and went storming off home with DS in his wheelchair with me struggling to catch up. When we got home I asked him what happened. It turns out that the driver was indeed berating DH for not waiting until the ramp for the chair went down. DH tried to explain that he felt he couldn't wait for the ramp to be put down to board the bus - but that fell on deaf ears.

At which point DH said 'Fine, I'll walk', and got off the bus and stormed off.

I get the driver is worried about the health and safety issues of not having the ramp; however, do I need to refer to all the occasions (I have experienced them too) when we have waited patiently for the ramp to be put down for us, only to have the bus drive off without us?

DH tried to explain this only to have a passenger (un)helpfully claim that she had never known that happen and the ramp was reliably always put down for wheelchair passengers. What we would know after all? We only live it every day - any random person knows better.

YANBU. I live in a rural area. When my DS was younger my car MOT expired so I got the bus into town with him and buggy in tow. The bus had steps and no provision for a buggy let alone a wheelchair. I remember thinking it's difficult to fold up a buggy and carry a baby around but how the fuck are you supposed to get about if you're in a wheelchair? Just wait an hour for the next bus and hope it has wheelchair access? It opened my eyes a little bit to what people using wheelchairs actually face and I'm sure it's much worse than that.

Sorry a lot of typos in my post...I meant that ANYBODY decent would surely want to make our lives easier not harder. There were ways the driver could have made the point about safety I feel, without being confrontational.

I know that things can be even tougher in a rural area fligglepige. I used to visit a relative in a village and some of the buses were hopeless for the disabled...others were accessible but you never knew which type of bus was coming. And of course there were fewer of them.

Sorry I've taken so long to reply @Livingtothefull but my relative is currently abroad and I haven't been able to have a proper talk to her.
However, I have done a bit of digging around and have discovered that The Cumberland Building Society are involved in teaching about finances and running a school bank in at least one school for children with learning disabilities in their locality. I appreciate that you may well not be in a part of the country with branches of The Cumberland but they might have online services or be able to give some advice, as it is clearly an issue that they have some interest in.

Thank you MAFIL, I will look into that. I am not sure if the Cumberland operates in our area but if not there may be a service that does, who specialises in banking for people with learning disabilities.

How to put this? I can't handle all this well....need to place it some distance from me in order to cope - here I am coping here yet this threat is worryingly playing itself out over there:

'DH isn't well. He said to me yesterday that he was worried something was seriously wrong. He keeps saying that I will outlive him because his health isn't good. I love DH and don't think I am purely selfish; yet selfishly, I worry how I would cope if anything happened to my DH. Even worse, I don't think my DS would cope. I want to be positive and not be self indulgent; yet here I am, massaging this thread with my stress. Emotional diarrhoea is the order of the day'.

I went to work as usual despite my fear-filled head...I coped really well. I have learned that I cope well until sudden, I can't cope any more. The moment when I didn't cope happened when I was asked what my email password was...despite having memorised it, despite knowing it for months, suddenly it wasn't there.

I am not sure I am equal to the challenges I face; I wish I could be persuaded otherwise, I wish someone believed in me. It would take an exceptional person to be able to face all this....please don't thrust mediocre me at all of this.