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?

I can't help but think it's ridiculous to ask why people with EDS or MCAS are able to dye their hair based on a diagnosis you don't have the details of. It's just not generalisable! And honestly, it just seems like a really weird thing to make a point of.

I won't speak on MCAS as I don't have as much experience with it. On the other hand, I have several friends with H-EDS and we all spent our late teens and early-twenties with brightly and regularly dyed hair. We didn't have to spend any particular length of time with our arms raised in awkward positions, because my friends dyed my hair and I dyed theirs! Usually with the person having their hair dyed sitting on the floor and the one with the dye on a chair or even the edge of the bed, in my little university room. Especially in groups where dyed hair is popular, such as the demographic of young women in question, there's often plenty of willing hands with the knowledge and experience to apply a box of Schwarzkopf Live or a tub of Manic Panic! In fact, in my mostly-autistic and disability-friendly social circle, it was just one of the ways we socialised. A regular invite was to come round, watch a film and dye each other's hair. We don't do it as much now we're ten years older, but it's still a nice way to spend way to spend an afternoon on occasion.

I appreciate you meet a lot of these people and that you have experience with some of these conditions, but even then I just don't see how someone's ability to dye their hair, or more commonly their ability to ask someone else to dye their hair, has any realistic relevance to whether or not they're disabled. I can just as easily say that my experience, as someone within this demographic (give or take five years), is completely different.

It seems as petty as it nonsensical a thing to make a judgement on, to be honest.

No, it was about the apparent and very visible numbers of young women using walking aids. And given that there is much social/political/media commentary at present about the rise in people, especially, young people with disabilities...it is very pertinent to the nature of this sub forum - which tends to pay particular attention to social trends and patterns in the collective and the shifts in the way people identify themselves.

Quite!

I think one of the major cultural and social themes of the last twenty years or so has been the loss of clear boundaries; and this is effective at every level of society and culture. Ideas around globalisation; open borders; the " you can be whatever you want to be" sentiment; ideas around transgenderism and trans-humanism........Openness and fluidity taken to the extreme.

I read a fascinating book some time ago by Frank Furedi - 'Why Borders Matter' in which he looks at the psycho-social impact of loss of boundaries and borders. All healthy organisms ( from the micro level to the macro level) require boundaries - not only for self definition and protection, but also to help to distsinguish one type of thing from another.

It's not surprising to me at all some young people would be wanting to identify into disability, for the same reason they are wanting to identify into queerness, or neurodivergence, or anything else.

One of the things I've found most enlightening about reading material from detransitioners is the degree to which some of these kids believe that being white, straight, healthy, etc, makes them bad people. They have a very deeply internalised feelings of self-hatred and are desperate to somehow be one of the "good" people.

I found this difficult to understand, because it seems obvious to me that it makes no sense. But they have been taught that is the case, and many of them are quite literal, and they also don't know enough about society or history to question the narrative.

It's a significant relief for them to convince themselves they fall into some kind of disadvantaged group.

Yes this is exactly what is happening and where the mindset is at.

A relief to be disabled?
That’s a stretch. It really is. Being disabled isn’t being part of some kind of group, label or identity, and it can’t be just assumed at will. In most societies, it’s a disadvantage to be disabled, not a benefit. Remember Covid? A good portion of people wanted the disabled to be in lockdown for months on end while they got on with life, and blamed them for the fact lockdowns went as long as they did.

So, no. I’m having trouble with this particular narrative.

I think @TempestTost is using the word in a specific way, in the same sense that cutting gives a form of relief to those who practise it, relief from overwhelmingly uncomfortable and painful feelings.
In this case the relief is that of the burden of feeling alone and unhappy in a threatening world that doesn’t understand one’s despair and being part of a supportive community. And actually, it appears that not only can one “identify into” disability, but that, historically, it’s not uncommon.

I think there is a lack of understanding, and why wouldnt there be, that for some people being in a group that is perceived as a victim, or having a victim mentality or being part of a 'community' that either feels or is discriminated against and oppressed is fulfilling for them. It gives an emotional power or satisfaction. Many of us on this thread have cited the service user and client groups we work with where this is their mindset and goal.

No its not normal, which is why its observed and discussed.

Feelings are critical, I think.

A situation or an experience which creates a pleasant feeling, or which feels emotionally satisfying in some way can be difficult to let go of. One tries to repeat the experience in order to repeat, or maintain, that feeling.I suspect that this mechanism and the drive for emotional fulfilment is at the root of the process of identity formation.

I have a friend ( two friends actually, but here i refer to one in particular)) who tends to express all of her life and emotional crises through dramatic physical disease, malfunction or distress. Her marriage broke up when on one occasion she felt her husband did not take her injury as seriously( or show as much concern) as she had expected.

When she was a child she was taken ill with a life threatening condition and was hospitalised. She recognises that she enjoyed all of the love and attention ( and the drama) that being so ill solicited from her parents and from the nursing staff. Even though as an adult she recognises this - Illness, injury or disease has become a primary way through which she works through her life crises. However, she is very much into self transformation and she puts a lot of emotional energy and commitment into recovering from any ailments she does suffer. She rarely, if ever, sees a doctor.

That is not to discount her ailments when they occur. They are real.

Grayson Perry, in his memoir, tells of his absent father and a brutal step-father. As a child he had a teddy bear who became known as 'Alan Measles'. Alan Measles became a sort of transitional object that contained and represented all of his more turbulent, and delicate, feelings ( I think he'd been given the teddy when he was ill with measles).

It was also around this time( 4 years old) that he started to secretly wear his mother's and sister's clothing. In his mind a little girl would be the recipient of more care and love from others than he felt he, as a boy, was receiving. Boys were supposed not to cry and to be tough. Dressing up as a girl was a way to recreate the feeling of being loved and cared for. As an adult his favourite cross dressing character was initially a 4 year old girl ( can't recall her name). Dressing this way in public also brought him lots of attention.

And when you identify yourself with a certain set of conditions and that gives emotional satisfaction, the instinct is to preserve or maintain that identity.

Emotional fulfilment doesn't always have to infer the satiation of what we might classify as 'positive', 'life enhancing' feelings, either. if we have fixated or identified with an upsetting or even traumatic experience, or even, perhaps, one of temporary relief from an upsetting experience, then the replication of that feeling ( and the conditions that surrounded it) can bring a kind of emotional fulfilment.

I don't know anyone who's ever fundraised for a walking stick. Is this is a solid gold walking stick from Tiffany or something?

Munchausens (now fabricated illness) has been known about for a long time. Being seen as ill/disabled does bring some people some kind of relief, attention.

Some people refuse to be defined by their illness or disability but others embrace it and some make it up.

Look at Belle Gibson, the Australian health influencer, who pretended she had brain cancer. There is a series about her on Netflix which i watched - it shows her being a lonely single mother who has reason to go to hospital for a brain scan and after she posts about it, she gets so much care and attention, she keeps going (it all gets way out of hand).

One of the questions that people like Belle Gibson raise is whether she is a criminal or a vulnerable person with significant mental health issues. Or both.

Gold wouldn’t make a very good walking stick. Too soft, not very durable. Though if it was used by the quirky disabled I don’t think it’d be properly used so a non issue.

I was in a hotel bar last night listening (earwigging) to three women out 'neuro diverse' each other. The list was endless. They all had the funny dyed hair too. No sticks on show so they're obviously not up with the times.

I remember being at an event a couple of years back where I bumped into two friends, who also hadn't seen each other for a while. It was just after Covid so their conversation was heavily around the effect it had had on their mental health, plus mental health problems in general. I attempted to empathise and both of them just turned to look at me with "What do YOU know about it?" looks on their faces. Neither of them had the first clue that I had personal experience on what they were talking about, and assumed there was nothing wrong with me. It just so happens that I choose not to discuss it a lot because I don't want it to define me, not that that means I think everyone else should do the same.

It was clear that that wasn't the sort of viewpoint they welcomed so I left them to it.

Do you mean it’s a trend in a fashion accessory sense op? Like wearing a top hat or something? Maybe they’re using them as potential weapons given the rising levels of violence against females

Funnily enough, the ones who exist won't disappear...

I saw an influencer sponsored ad for Neowalk (high price trendy walking sticks I had briefly googled for DM but quickly ruled out due to price & beung impractical)

I did notice she had about 20 hashtags on the post all relating to Audhd, including Audhd babes with sticks. But no mention of the mobility disability. I thought was strange as you would think she would be open about the physical disability & 'speaking' to other women with that disability rather than the Audhd community.

It did make me wonder if they are marketing these expensive (£80 +) sparkly sticks (that actually would be impractical if you had to weight bear on them) to 'Audhd babes with sticks' as if somehow having autism or ADHD would be helped by a walking stick.

I probably need to look more into this influencer as maybe there was a back story I wasn't aware of but it did seem very, very off.

Wearing dungarees means that you don't have an uncomfortable waistband to deal with. If I'm in jeans or trousers or a skirt, the waistband drives me mad no matter how well the clothing fits or how soft the material is. I'm just constantly aware of it and it's really distracting. A dress would also solve the problem, obviously, and occasionally I do wear one. But my style isn't particularly feminine and I don't feel that dresses are really 'me'.

You go to the toilet in the usual way, by placing your rear end on the toilet seat and releasing your bladder/bowel. 😉 Seriously though, you just pull the straps off your shoulders and then pull the dungarees down as if they were trousers - it's not rocket science!

Your paragraph about MCAS is just nasty. I don't know much about it, nor whether there is a link with autism. But if there is, I do know that 'processed shit food' is just as toxic for autistic people as for everyone else. However if you experience symptoms of ARFID, which many autistic people do, the 'processed shit food' might be the only thing you can eat. Because it's bland and easy to grab and always the same. DD mostly eats shite food. It worries me. But not as much as the alternative, which would be literally not eating at all.

EDS doesn't always mean regular and full dislocation of joints, my DD for example just experiences subluxation. She doesn't have a diagnosis, thus I don't actually claim she has EDS. But the reason for the lack of diagnosis is related to her autism; she's had as many tests as she can bear but she has a crippling phobia of needles. She has frequently said that she would happily die rather than have a life-saving injection (let's hope it never comes to that). She experiences symptoms that may well be POTS too, but had a complete sensory meltdown at the GP because she couldn't cope with the blood pressure cuff. DD does in fact struggle with raising her arms to wash her hair; this is why even at nearly 15 years old I have to help her. She sits on a shower stool, in swimwear, and I do it for her (she can't stand for long in the shower because she gets faint). She also has some of her hair dyed a very bright colour, because she just loves the look of it. This is achieved by a session at the hairdresser with her staring at her phone while I sit right next to her doing the small talk for her. I'd prefer to skip it but she's willing to go and it makes such a difference to her confidence. Which has been at rock bottom for a long time, having failed three school placements and now with such severe school trauma that she can't set foot in a school. I'll do anything to help her feel good about herself at this point.

If you can't cope with leaving the house, reading/typing on social media is one of the only things you CAN do. Remember also that, if your 'spoonies' are autistic, they'll have a strong sense of injustice and responding to correct inaccuracies will be a NEED for them. Even if they're exhausted.

Can't comment on why it'd be tagged AuDHD rather than something to do with mobility issues, that's weird. But I can confirm that the sticks are entirely fit for purpose in terms of weight bearing. And no, I don't work for NeoWalk but their sticks have helped DD feel less crappy about needing one in order to walk any distance or stand for more than a couple of minutes. And building a collection in every colour, so she can co-ordinate with her outfit, has made her happy. Yes, they're overpriced but there's definitely a market for them. I can't think why anyone would be buying and using a stick if they didn't need it - I certainly wouldn't want to do it, as although my knees are getting dodgy in middle age I can't see how a stick would help me. I've seen first hand, though, how much of a difference it's made to DD. She started off using an old NHS crutch because it helped her, but she hated how it looked. Then she discovered NeoWalk...

They are definitely the in thing in the Audhd community!!

I guess the sparkly, pretty colours appeal to that group.

DMs physio advised against them due to the design. The old fashioned 'crook' design is not great for people with Joint problems (she has an auto immune condition called Rheumatoid arthritis which affects hands/joints in particular) and they don't give good stability if you have to weight bear on them. The consultant said he cringes when he sees anyone with a neo walk.

I did think the post was bizarre as there were at least 20 hashtags but no mention of any physical disability. It was clearly marketing the product at women & girls with autism, ADHD, chronic fatigue etc. obviously if these groups do need walking aids then they should be able to choose something pretty but thought it was bad taste of the company. I guess they are quite niche so if they can sell as a mainstream accessory rather than walking aids they can make more profit.

Your personal experience of disability doesn't mean you get to dictate 'the reality' to others. There's no single reality where disability is concerned, and people don't have to justify their coping strategies, or how disabled they appear to the outside world, to anyone else.

Possibly the most depressing aspect of this thread, for me, is the way some people who are dealing with disability themselves are coming off as being among the most intolerant, and the quickest to put the boot in if other people's experiences don't happen to match up to theirs. What good does it do anyone to punch down?

They’re eroding the meaning of the word disabled. It’s dangerous.it already happened with the word woman, look how that’s panned out.