Girls Using Walking Sticks

[Arran2024]

I saw a post about this on X this morning. Apparently it is a trend.

Anyway, I went into town this afternoon and sure enough, I saw a number of young women with walking sticks. None of them looked like they were leaning hard on their stick, just kind of walking along like it was a big umbrella.

Is anyone else seeing this?

No, what's pathetic is you being so ignorant that you think because you are ok some days, that means you always are, and then doubling down on that ignorance
That's what's fucking pathetic.

No really. I dont think she is ok every day because she is ok some days. The creator herself shows this in copious amounts. I know you think I’m being ignorant but it’s not beyond the pale to consider that actually some people are liars. The is also not too clever with it becsue it’s blatant.

I wasn’t suggesting anyone lifted a wheelchair.

she can fucking skip about the park every day. She can definitely stop acting the victim and seek help to get her chair off the train.

Every day? You know this woman personally, do you?
Or are you one of those strange hate follower people that get weirdly obsessed and think they know someone from some social media posts?!

If the train stops at the station for a few minutes then fucks off to the next station, what should she do? There’s no one in eyeshot. She stands up and gets on/off the train without her chair, then the train moves and leaves it behind. Not a very good scenario, is it? She can’t exactly run down the platform to find someone.

She did what the rail companies ask - which is alert to needing assistance on a particular platform at a particular time for a particular train. She took a video to highlight that she was let down and no assistance was available, and no person was even near by to call for. She wasn’t “playing victim” - she was highlighting the difficulty disabled people face every day. Even with supposed systems in place to make travel easier and accessible, they don’t always work out that way.

Why not be mad at the people responsible for making these accommodations, why not be mad that disabled access is not easier and more readily available as and when it is required and requested?

Instead you are mad that a disabled person did not push and exert themselves on this particular day in a way you can’t justify would have even helped the situation.

If people saying that these young people are using it due to genuine need are right, shoulf we all be MASSIVELY concerned about low health and "sudden" prevalence of physical disability amongst young people? That IS concerning. So would be if it's just a social contagion though.
How does UK compare to other European countries in this? Anyone knows?

Why not even consider that because walking aids are more accepted socially and also readily available you are then seeing more of these people, as they are then just simply outside more?

To diagnose POTS you put the patient laying down on a tilt table & then quickly swivel them upright. If their heart starts racing & blood pressure drops then they have POTS. The sufferers are predominantly young females.

The train had terminated at a major station.

i am mad at assistance but i can also see a disability player at work. Im not going to link the person here but her videos are pretty awful for disabled people. Yet here’s me being called a cunt for pointing it out. Not everyone is genuine.

Yup - a highly diagnosable condition with very clear visible and medically detectable physical repercussions. Yet PP here will poo poo it away as “another fad”

Almost feels like some posters don’t see their own misogyny. Conditions that are predominantly suffered by women are the ones being demonised and called fake. “Pretend they like/have something to fit in with their peers? That’s just what girls do”

And you sit there and call yourselves feminists.

But if loads and loads of people who didn't need to started using them and the disabled facilities would you feel the same?

I have never in my life judged someone using a stick. I'm honestly baffled that anyone would and I'm sorry this happens.

However, I can absolutely believe that this could become the latest identity fad. And I'm concerned about the impact on disabled people if so.

The arguments above (it's only a small number of people, it doesn't affect you, ableist etc) we're used when concerns were raised about trans. But trans is easy to visually spot. As many have pointed out, many disabilities are invisible and would be easy to appropriate.

Same, minus the EDS.

This thread is exactly why I don't have a lanyard, even though there are certain situations where I've thought it might be a useful thing to have.

But if loads and loads of people who didn't need to started using them and the disabled facilities would you feel the same?

How would you even begin to know if someone is disabled or not, what are you basing that on?.Is it the whole " we can always tell" argument again? 🙄

That's entirely my point. How would you even know? And no of course you wouldn't be able to tell.

So what would happen to already too few disabled services if a whole bunch of people started using them who didn't actually need to?

Sorry you feel unable to have something you may benefit from, it's easy to see how you feel that way though due to some of the vile comments on here.

”These types”? Which types? Young women? Young women with dyed hair? Who exactly?

Young women who have dyed blue or purple hair and/or wear dungarees and therefore they're more likely to be autistic and trans and faking disability and like to shout "look at meeee" so we all know about it.
Disclaimer not my view, just a summary from the posts on here. Seriously, posts on here are disgusting and I'm surprised (actually, no I'm not) that they're allowed to stand.

@OldMcDonaldHadABigMac would you care to enlighten us further about 'these types' and their 'hardships'? (I'd be particularly edified to learn why you felt 'hardships' warranted being put in quotes... 🤔)

I don't understand why some posters think it is a massive leap to think that young people who are convinced they are born in the wrong body could move on to being convinced they have a disability.

If trans is a symptom of distress, why could this distress not also be manifested in that way?

It could. Personally it's the stereotyping and one-size-fits-all-ness certain pps are expressing that's problematic, for me anyway.

Can i also point out that pps are ignoring that there could be a correlation between the state of the nhs (and out of control waiting times, referrals down the wrong route etc) which delay diagnosis by years.

There are a lot of people out there who dont rely know whats wrong with them but know they need help.

It took years for me to be diagnosed with a neurological issue (even after going private). I wish I'd had the confidence to use a stick then instead of staying indoors. Missing out on life events, losing friends and getting more and more depressed.

I hesitate to jump in here, because I know exactly how these threads always turn out, but...

I have chronic health issues that impair my mobility, and sometimes I use a stick. I prefer not to, because it's a faff, but I will if necessary.

And yes, I know from experience that invisible disabilities exist.

I don't take offence at this thread because I know it's not about me.

But it's also difficult to not notice the trend. And I'm very cautious about speculating what's causing the trend. We know from trans/NB identification among girls that there's a high prevalence of autism and also a lot of girls who "identify as" vaguely neurodiverse. There's no clean and easy way of sorting them out.

And similarly, spend much time listening to girls in that identity group and you'll notice they're always complaining about how exhausted they are. I'm not saying they're all spoonies by any means; it's possible quite a few have fucked up their endocrine systems with cross-sex hormones; but there's a definite overlap with spoonie culture. It spreads in the same online spaces.

I'm not surprised that people with experience of disability and chronic illness, either themselves or others, are very sensitive to any implication that people are judging who is or isn't disabled. I understand that. Where I think it goes off track is people becoming irrationally furious at the suggestion that spoonies exist, when we know they do.

And this set of arguments:

• It's something that was always there but young people are just more confident about expressing it, like lefthandedness.
• All this stuff about social contagion and mental health comorbidities is just a dogwhistle that fails to conceal your hatey hate.
• It's a tiny number and doesn't affect you anyway.
• You're an ableist, you're bigoted and right wing and any genuine feminist would accept that these kids are exactly what they say they are.

Do you think this doesn't ring a bell? Do you think I don't know parents of trans-identified children who say exactly those things?

It's a trend. Lots of us have noticed it. There's maybe an interesting discussion to be had about why it's happening. That's very difficult to do if everything is framed as an attack on a vulnerable group.

Maybe, but I think noticing that a particular group is vulnerable to this sort of thing is important.

Quite! I saw a reddit page earlier which was talking about the " Chronic illness community".

In a social media age and a society obsessed with 'identities' and with communities of those who share the same identities, there is an established and rapidly increasing rate of young people with diagnosed mental health issues, or with self diagnosed mental health issues or conditions. It is almost like we're moving on from 'trans' to ill health and disability as the latest on trend identity.

Something like 40% of people claiming disability benefits are claiming them for mental health issues.

University staff, including Kathleen Stock, talk of how a quarter of their students have mental health issues/conditions/labels. One lecturer talked of how almost a third of his class could not cope with regularly attending lectures, meeting deadlines, or, in some cases, even taking public transport. They have to have specialised learning plans created for them.