If you met someone with a limp

[ilean]

would you comment on it?

ah ha haha I have just reread and realised I missed the crucial "except"
well congrats on your four year old son
does he give you much pain?!

Hmm shoe choices don't seem to make much of a difference to my ability to walk, if they are flat, but every extra ounce of weight makes it much more likely for me leg to seize up. Ditto lack of cushioning.

Oh ilean, I hear you on the weigh thing! Currently trying to shed the extra pregnancy pounds as I know it will reduce my pain levels but I miss biscuits and chocolate when I'm bfing!

meita the offer of help thing is a really difficult one. I too don't really see myself as disabled but I know able-bodied people do and tbh, I am shocked whenever I see myself in photos or video because I do look much more different in reality than I do in my mind.

I often get offers of help when I'm not struggling, just doing things 'my way', which looks different to someone able-bodied who would do it the 'normal' way. These offers of help make me feel uncomfortable in the same way as the nosy questions do, but I always try and make my response appropriate to the motivation of the person asking, rather than the effect of their question on me. Difficult, because it forces me to rise above how they have made me feel, but that's just part of living and getting along with other people.

Sometimes I would like help and don't get it but I would much rather this than be constantly fending off people try to help when I don't want it. It reminds me of something I read on an 'interfering MIL' thread on here: help is only helpful if the helpee wants it, not because the helper thinks they must/should.

Ah takestwo I meant the weight of the shoes My BMI is about 23 so I can't be arsed am ok on that score. It's my fitness that is shocking. My core muscles may as well be fashioned from playdough. How you are supposed to invest in your body when you hate and want to ignore it is beyond me

Opps sorry ilean! The weight of my shoes makes a difference too, but not as much as the weight of the rest of me

I find a love my body a lot more when it's fit[ter], despite its imperfections, it's just getting over that 'hump' to start exercising and get it fit enough that I find hard.

No offence taken Certainly nothing wrong with being a bit of a porker, I could probably do with losing half a stone but it's too much of a battle. Yes I should just get on with fitness, I have an inkling that if I don't do some serious work to up my muscle mass now, I will pay the price down the line when my leg is even more crap.

Nothing to add except to all fellow limpers! I have multiple complex disabilities but the most obvious is a limp. I guess I might comment on a limp actually, but only if it looked like mine, just to see if it was the same condition.

I do find I get offered help and more comments when I'm on crutches than when I have my wheelchair. I think as someone said up thread it's assumed injury rather than disability. A high point was someone NOT asking what was wrong, instead just announcing, "I hope you're going to give those back to the hospital when you finish with them!" My reply was something like, "Yes, I'll make sure they are given back ... When I die!"

Thought there might be a few people here who agree with this...
I do have a thread about it in chat too :)

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/64317

Some of you have mentioned Dr Weaver in ER- I thought it was great to have a strong disabled character in the series as a doctor and was a bit and when the scriptwriters decided to 'fix' her

Oh I never got that far, Bourdic
It did register with me that they never mentioned or explained her injury / condition. I wondered if it was a disabled actress being employed without reference to her disability, iyswim.
How did they 'fix' her?

On another note, since there seem to be a few limpers, and because I really enjoyed the thread (thank you all ) and think it might be useful to others who turn it up in a google search, and because there was a discussion about using the disabled parents' corner, I am going to ask HQ to move the thread to Parenting, disabled parents

I think I read that they chose to 'fix' the limp because all the series of having to fake a limp had given the actress back pain, so I think it was her benefit rather than to avoid a disability.

People can be so thoughtless!

My mum has a limp - always has done and I've never thought anything of it. If anyone asked about it I just told them what had caused it. Never have been embarrassed and it would never have crossed my mind, she's the best mum ever. Just though you'd like to hear it from a DD's point of view OP

People would not comment on someone in a wheelchair.

They so would.

My dad had polio as a child and when I was growing up he wore a caliper on his leg which gave him a really pronounced limp. When he had to go more than a few steps he used a wheelchair - and is permanently wheelchair bound these days. People comment all the time. They commented on the limp too.

Although worse than the commenting is when people ignore him and talk to whoever is with him instead. More than once he's left a shop because the shop assistant wouldn't deal with him. I've shouted "he's the one with the bloody money" to the girl on the perfume counter at Boots before now.

Oh and to add, I forget about my dad's disability most of the time. When I was at school if I had a friend meeting me after and Dad was picking us up at the gates I'd say "blue eyes, bit chubby" etc and after they'd ask why I didn't mention the wheelchair.

We're a bit disability and colour blind in my family. Dad didn't mention his girlfriend was black until I met her at my wedding. Not that I care, but it was just surprising not to have had it mentioned. He said her children were equally surprised to find out he's in a wheelchair.

In my experience, people who know us and love us see us as people first and the disability comes a long way down the list of things they find interesting about us.

Sadly however, in our day to day lives we meet lots of people who neither know nor love us and they appear to have such sad mindsets that our disability is the ONLY thing they find interesting and they seem to think they have a licence to ask whatever intrusive or insentive question pops into their little brain.

For me anyway, this is why comments, even if genuinely meant to help are such a trigger to rage and upset. Because most of the time I don't think they are meant to help, they are simply an expression of the utter twattishness of the speaker.

Hullo everyone,

We're just going to move this thread to the Parenting with Disabilities topic, at the request of the OP.

Fab
(I'm on a personal mission to up the traffic to the area)

Thank you. :) I had a vent about my pain/frustration in General Health last weekend because I couldn't find the disabled parents/parenting with disability section.

Oh dear, have I killed this thread?

Not at all odd! I was thinking about the thread and you all the other day. Wondering if we would feel able to come and offload limp related moans and giggles.

I am so unfit, I really need to tackle my fitness. But I find virtually everything depressing because it makes me aware of what I can't do (I used to love yoga but so much of it is impossible now, even bloody staff pose, because I can't stand equally on both feet ) and I can't go out to swim (broke LP with no partner involved). So has to be home based exercise.

Anyone found anything they enjoy? I was considering skipping to get my heartrate up every day (am concerned this never happens) but can't believe this will be good for my poor overworked left leg.

I was only talking about how much I used to enjoy skipping the other day.
It's a fantastic way to keep fit. And something I proberly will never be able to do again. That was a thought that stopped me in my tracks.

missnever I hate thinking about the things I will never be able to do again. I think that's why I sit on my bum eating biscuits. Anyone, even a peg leg, can eat biscuits by the pack

I have decided to get back into swimming this summer. It hasn't been possible for a while, as I've been on my own with DD and no childcare, but my exP is going to be around this summer meaning freedom for meeee. I will revel in hitting the outdoor pool! swimming is one of the few things not affected by my stupid leg.

I was thinking about this thread the other day, because I got off a coach struggling under the weight of a sleeping DD, and then as I started to push her in her pram I was really sort of hopping along, as my leg was so stiff from the journey and sore from the long day. A lovely man clearly somewhat alarmed, rushed to see if he could help at all. And I didn't mind one bit - in fact, though I batted his offer away (knowing I would be ok), I was comforted that someone had noticed.

So it really is the spirit in which these things are meant, for me.

I'm so happy to find this thread, and more in-betweener limpers like me.

I get asked sometimes about my gait and usually find it intensely embarrassing, especially when people say it in an "oh what have you done to your leg?!" sort of way. I know some mean well so I'm not complaining - I just find it very embarrassing.

I can also relate to the Little Mermaid story in the same way other people have mentioned. And also felt like the child left behind in the Piped Piper of Hamelin - that resonates with me because I've always been the one who can't keep up.

I liked Kerry Weaver and House in their own way, not specifically because of the limps but I do think I was drawn to liking them a bit more because they were not perfect either.

I've spent so long feeling like everything I do and the way I walk and the way I look is a failure (to be normal) that I think it helps me to see potrayals of people who are more like me.

Pied Piper, not Piped Piper!