If you met someone with a limp

[ilean]

would you comment on it?

well it's tricky - I think there are lots of times when as Meita says, someone is just exhausted and too depleted or embarrassed to ask.

But somehow the helping of a person with a disability often feels like the way someone would 'help' a child ie boss them; the sense of the other person as a grown man or woman in possession of their faculties gets lost. (Meita I think that is what is lacking in your earlier posts).

ilean yes being an inbetweener can be really tough; I can well remember that waiting for the bus type scenario, that constant balancing of exhaustion and pain against what you need to get done.

I've posted this on here already. As I can't walk very far now, DH persuaded me to use a hired wheelchair for a family weekend weekend in London last summer. We really had the best time: no pain or fatigue issues to make me grumpy, no having to curtail what we wanted to do because I couldn't manage it.

But somehow, I still can't bring myself to use a wheelchair around our village, or the local town. Madness I know. Instead I'm not going out as much, going out for shorter periods of time.

Hmm reading this back, I need to get a grip don't I?

Meita I ask someone who is limping and struggling 'do you need any help' or even just 'are you ok?' then to that person it would be as good as pointing out their limp.

It feels very different to me

Be really specific! "Do you need help with that bag?" "Do you need a seat?" I know I do not speak for all limpers but those words would be like manna to my particular ears. And often I would say no I'm ok, thanks. Just like a pregnant woman.

Tinkly things are much easier to accept when one feels it's a temporary concession, rather than a permanent state of affairs. That is when denial is soooooooo handy.

If you are in masses of pain or as you say, staying in, then please do get a grip.

I know. DH is great, he says "For goodness sake just get in that bloody wheelchair and we'll go out somewhere."

I hate to be so bloody "tragic" though. I'm not tragic. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me.

I think I understand. I resist sensible shoes, ffs. This is what DHs and mumsnet are for, handing out grips

Boundaries become really important when you become ill/ a bit disabled/ alot disabled.

People want to trample over your boundaries all the time, and for the wrong reasons. Like, I know best for you, or, oh let me do it for you (as you're incapable) etc. the rude questions, the arrogant assumptions, the vicarious kick others get...

So remembering the scale someone wrote earlier (which was brill), and then think 'am I being an arrogant cock if I trample over this persons boundaries... Or do I know that person well enough not to be offensive?'

Btw, when people mean well it's usually clear even if they get it a bit wrong. But when people think they mean well but are harbouring some nasty little stereotypes and prejudices, that shows through too.

iaminvisible thanks so much for the link! they come in pink!!

to all the Limpers. We must do this again some time.

'Night all.

tinkly do get a grip! (hopefully you will see this in the morning...)
I remember my GM becoming more and more frail until she could no longer go out much - eg she would go to the supermarket but sat in the car We bought her a wheelchair and she refused to use it for years...
Eventually she gave in (I told her I would love someone to push me around...) and it really did greatly improve her last years as she got to go and be nosey again. She suddenly was always wanting to go out - obviously wished she not wasted so much time ...

I do see how you feel though too.

My uncle was very fit and active until he had a stroke - we got him one of those seats you can push (and we still had the wheelchair)
We couldn't get him to use the push seat or chair any closer than 50 miles away from home . He became more and more isolated and in the end was only leaving to go the drs/haircut etc.. straight into the car at either end.
He died a couple of years ago, early 70s and his last few years must have been miserable ... and worse he knew how much better my grandmother's life became after admitting she needed the chair...but he still couldn't do it
I so wish he had...

Yes being in between is hard. I want a seat on the tube but really have no right to one

Me it's, thanks for thinking about it and coming back.

From my perspective, when I am going about my day to day life, I find being asked - are you ok? What's wrong with your leg? There's a loft over there you know! - actually quite upsetting.

I see myself as a normal happy person, getting on with my day to day life and this is a jolt back to reality that all they see is a lurching cripple.

If I want help I will ask for it.

I hope I can distinguish between the kind and the nosy twats and not get offended unnecessarily, but what you also have to remember is that a lot of us who are disabled have spent entire child hoods being bullied about this - when an adult asks what's wrong with my leg, my first primal response is to want to hit them, as that is how I had to defend myself as a child.

It should be relatively easy to spot the 'new limper' who would welcome your concern and offer of a plaster and someone who is a well established limper - I.e. Getting on with their day, looking cheerful, not asking for any help.

And btw when I was pregnant and no fucker offered me a seat, I just said 'I need that seat!' ( as was about to faint/throw up) and man leapt off seat as if on fire. I think on public transport people are in their bubble so won't necessarily notice you and you have to speak up.

Sorry, Meita! Damn auto correct.

Until this thread I'd never really thought about why my stocking caused so much interest...(not as constant as it sounds - but in my 20s felt like it was)
I think people couldn't decide what it was - was it a really realistic artificial leg or maybe even a fashion statement or ? ...I think if it was an artificial leg they may have looked (and I'd be aware) but not felt as free to stare/discuss.

(I used to fake tan the other leg to try and make it less obvious - actually I did both because if I didn't wear the stocking (eg at the swimming pool) I then had the opposite problem one tanned and one dealthy white (I'm very pale) ..and I always felt for people with dark skin - I could always try and darken up but they couldn't lighten up (but actually NOONE had flesh that colour...)

I don't think people mean to be rude - I think they just don't think...

Spero when I was in hospital there was an 18yr old having her leg amputated. She been born with a deformed leg, had countless operations and finally the surgeon had said amputation and an artificial leg would give her the best mobility. Her attitude to the whole thing made me feel really pathetic worrying being conscious of wearing a stocking...

And finally all the one leg limpers (not due to back problems) - did it not cause back problems? I kept having a misaligned spine and seeing physios and osteopaths etc for back and hip problems caused by me favouring one leg...I can remember one day (when it was better) alternating between limping legs too ...couldn't decide which one was less painful...

CorusKate offering help is very different to being asked personal questions by strangers. I don't think many people would say that the disabled man in the thread you mentioned should not have been helped. That's not really the scenario being discussed here.

Fantastic thread op! I would not and have never commented on a strangers limp or any other disability. I'd barely even notice and only talk about it if the other person brought it up.
I have no experience of disabilities but DH was born with a facial deformity (hate that word but can't think of a better one right now) and had surgery to repair it but it's still noticeable (it actually took me ages to notice). He hates it when people ask what happened to his face. It's so fucking rude! He doesn't want to be reminded of how he's "different" everywhere he goes.
I wouldn't dream of asking someone about a limp.

unlucky, my limp is due to, amongst other things, leg length difference (just under 2 inches). My hip is wonky too. So far, except in pregnancy, I've escaped back pain. I assume that'll get worse as I get (even) older. I think it'll go to pot when I'm old-old.
I do have appalling posture, sort of twisted a bit to compensate for the limp (yeah, I know. I'm a catch!) so I get shoulder and neck pain.

Spotty I think you have a right to a seat on the tube! but I know what you mean, I would never ask for one myself (I did while pregnant, when I felt vulnerable, rather than just in pain). I think an able bodied person would agree if you described how you felt. But then there's this curious asymmetry - the fact of being able bodied seems to make it easier to be direct about what you need. (I think that same lack of vulnerability is what is at work in Meita's thinking). Irony.

See, I think to lots of people I do look able bodies, maybe just walk a bit funny, so I wouldn't want to ask for a seat really

dolly congratulations on your pregnancy! How far along are you? My experience was that the shortening down my right side gave me terrible rib pain (only on the right) in my third trimester. I am not the tallest of women and this is common even without a hip condition. The size of the baby puts pressure on everything in your body and your ribs, designed as they are to move, can end up taking the load. I hope it doesn't happen for you but worth seeing a women's health physio, if you aren't already, if it does.

unlucky no back problems for me after at least 15 years of favouring right leg, half my life. I was worried about my back and knee so ask the surgeons that I see intermittently - they said (in typically surgeon blase way) that there is nothing to worry about but I don't see how that can be true . My ankle is starting to stiffen / feel awkward, presumably because my foot turns oddly to compensate for fractionally turned in leg. I will have my hip resurfaced / replaced eventually, trying to hold off but my concern about the effect on the rest of my body is a big part of the calculation.

Oh it is all so sexy!!

Spotty yes I look abled bodied too, but could you say "I'm in pain, please could I sit down?"

I am a hypocrite anyway because I never do. But I may have to start to because now I have DD if I stand and walk for too long I cannot care for her and that is not fair

Tbh I don't actually live in London but we do go up a few times a year

Had an awkward moment at work the other day when an elderly lady asked me to help her down the stairs...

Oh yes that is another part of it! what did you say to elderly woman? For me is most common when you do have a seat, and someone who looks like they need one comes along, and you are sitting in the seats at the front of the bus where old people and pregnant people are supposed to go, because you have to stick your stupid stiff leg out in front of you, and everyone thinks you should offer old / pregnant person your seat but you are probably worse off than them and sometimes just can't and there are squillions of people who look just fine (yes I see the contradiction ) looking artfully out of the window.

I think we need badges. I wonder what mine would say. GAMMY LEG.

ilean my pregnancy resulted in my now 4 year old son .
I did have some physio when I was pregnant, but it seemed to make things worse, so I was left to it. I felt better immediately after the birth though (which was incredibly fast, so I didn't get any hip pain during it).
Strange question, but do you find some kinds of shoes are really hard to walk in properly? Not heels, but some trainer type shoes? Ones with shaped insoles. They wreck! Really make my foot ache.

I asked a colleague to do it she has balance probs too but in a dizzy sense rather than physical so I felt bad but I didn't want to explain myself