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?

“Is that right for a company to heavily target a vulnerable group? They are expensive but don't offer anything over cheaper sticks other than the glitter, colours, light up, glow in the dark etc.”

Companies who make and sell desirable disability aids are allowed to market their good to their audience.

Basic versions of things are always cheaper, to make and to buy - that’s why the NHS ones are uniform grey - to keep cost down.

Disabled people are allowed to want the aids they use every day, often for life, to look nice and to reflect their personality.

If it helps, consider aids as equivalent to eye glasses. Is it right for spec savers to market fancy designer frames to people who don’t see well? yes. So this is fine too.

@Wrongthingsthanks, not something I had thought of. This girl pretty much runs, so the stick must really help her. I have joint problems myself. It does seem the tik tok thing is catching on with it becoming cool to have a stick

Many of these kids aren't in fact disabled - which they absolutely can identify in to, as this thread clearly shows, people are not allowed to dispute their claims on this. Many likely believe their fairly standard teen and human problems amount to disability, or at least they can convince themselves for a while.

And yes, it's a relief, because it allows them to escape the quite serious mental discomfort they have around being middle class white oppressors.

I think it's easy to see from this thread why this could be a much more appealing category to identify into for young women now rather than gender identity.

Gender identity is getting a lot of push-back, and has some bad associations, and NoDebate is now over.

Whereas we all know there are really people who are disabled, sometimes it's not clear why and it's a bit rude to ask for no good reason, and none of that is tied to some dodgy ideology.

And there is a whole cohort willing to try and enforce NoDebate which no longer exists with trans issues.

I have no problems with the fancy sticks at all - 8 think they are a great idea for disabled community. The only reason I know about them is because I was looking to purchase one - didn't in the end as not worth the £100 price & the design is not suitable for the specific disability.

But deliberately marketing walking sticks to the Audhd community doesn't sit right.

I don't think it is the same as marketing designer glasses with clear/non prescription lenses.

Non prescription glasses as a fashion accessory is not a problem. I think the stick as a fashion accessory is more complex as these girls are genuinely believing that it is something they need & cannot cope with the world without. That's not healthy.

The interesting thing is the nature of identity formation; how it is formed; what people form their identity around, and the implications this has for other people and for society.

Quite!

"I am what I say I am. Only I get to define and label my reality. Nobody has a right to query or ask questions. It is phobic to do so"

I found these three studies into the reported side effects of Covid vaccines - in which 'Functional Disorders' seem emphasised. A functional disorder is not rooted in physical disease or any obvious structural problem which can be detected by doctors or the usual testing procedures; instead they seems to stem from neurological systems and disruptions to them:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38165067/

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/92/11/1144

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240565022300045X

Autism is also, of course, a neurological, developmental condition.

"Autism is legally considered a disability in the UK under the Equality Act 2010. This means that autistic individuals are protected from discrimination and have a right to reasonable adjustments in various settings like education, employment, and accessing services. Even if an autistic person doesn't personally identify as disabled, they may still meet the legal definition of disability"

Another very long, but detailed, report into a study of Thimerosol and its suggested links to neurological conditions. Thimerosal is a Mercury compound, and is present, or has been present in several childhood vaccines.

Immunization Safety ReviewThimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders ( National Library of Medicine)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223724/

Oh my word, is nobody picking up on the fact that she's making this post and using ADHD-related hashtags because the reason she couldn't choose just one stick is, y'know, because she's ADHD? Has problems with impulse control (overshopping) and wanting all of the lovely bright coloured sticks (dopamine hit) BECAUSE SHE HAS ADHD?

The fact that she's an ambulant wheelchair user is almost irrelevant, even though she's tagged it, because obviously why on earth would she be buying walking sticks just because she is AuDHD? Clearly she has mobility issues; that's not something she needs to mention or explain in the post.

It's about the fact that ADHDers (including AuDHDers) struggle to understand the idea of only buying as much of the lovely pretty thing as you really need, rather than as many as you want. When there are so many of the lovely pretty things available, it's pretty much a compulsion to have as many of them as possible. ADHDers frequently end up in serious debt as a result of compulsive shopping to feed the constant need for a dopamine hit.

The things she's bought here just happens to be sparkly walking sticks. It could also have been Squishmallows, or bright colourful clothes, or Loungefly handbags, or colourful Crocs, or anything else that ADHDers tend to build collections of. FFS people, this Instagram post is really about ADHD, not about mobility aids. That's just what she happens to have bought this time, and not been able to just choose one colour. Which is why she hasn't explained her mobility issues but has still bothered to tag herself as, for example, an ambulatory wheelchair user.

Exactly that.

I think disability pride & the rise of the 'sickfluencers' on social media are feeding off this.

Young vulnerable women usually with autism & high anxiety who struggle to fit in find their tribes online & find something that is forbidden for society to question - changing sex, using a walking stick or emotional support animal.

They are then unable to function outside of their tribe as they embrace the sick or disabled role. They genuinely convince themselves they are incapable of work, independence etc. I think that is incredibly sad for them & not good for society as a whole

That's a very patronizing & ignorant view of autism & very inappropriate of the company to sponsor that if that's the case.

I think she is just a silly & naive young woman rather than anything malicious - like a Dylan Mulvaney but for disability.

This makes me think people are using autism and adhd as a way to absolve any responsibility of their life choices. That could be why there’s been such an uptick in diagnoses.

Exactly that. And they cannot be challenged under any circumstances because they have a pretty stick.

I'd rather have young women identity into needing Neo sticks than taking testosterone or getting their healthy breasts removed.

@PleaseStopMeowing And people will always gravitate to identities and group, e.g. women on here have a GC identity and gravitate to the same events and conferences etc.

I am gender critical/gender atheist/sex realist.

That isn't an identity. I don't have an identity, I'm just an intermittently hard working woman muddling my way through life.

I gravitate to events and conferences about crafts and gardens and wildlife and history and archaeology and local studies and religion.

I wouldn't have time for an identity.

True. Though it's not difficult, if you look occasionally at trans/queer message boards, to find people asking "what's with all the young AFABs using walking sticks these days?"

They're almost there...

The world of online chronic illness influencers is a whole thing by itself, but there are obvious parallels to other things vulnerable young women get into.

It is a part of your identity though. You gravitate to this board, obviously amongst other things you're interested in. I'm sure disabled people have plenty of interests too and being disabled is just a part of their identity. It's natural for people to form groups, and identify with each other when they have something in common.

That's personality, not identity. Identity lives dangerously close to obsession.

People observe trends all the time without there being any hard evidence for them. That’s what we are discussing here: the observation of a trend. The lack of “evidence”doesn’t mean it’s not a thing.

That's debatable - personality Vs identity. To say identity is dangerously close to obsession is rather extreme. People do have their own identities, their own values etc.

I'm dropping in and then out of this thread (I did have an inner 'Uh-oh!' when I saw it posted initially, even though (I think) I realised what point the OP was trying to make - and I have a lot of sympathy with it, while at the same time knowing that this was going to be taken the wrong way and turn into a bit of a bunfight....). I am very concerned about disability being used as yet another 'tribe' to identify into by people who shouldn't.

However. I wasn't going to get into all that! I just wanted to say to apples24 that it's really interesting that her disabled husband has observed, and feels strongly about, the phenomenon of disability becoming a 'fuzzily' defined thing. And that it has negative implications for him.

My younger son is severely autistic. More and more, I find myself explaining his behaviour/meltdowns/impulses as 'he has learning disabilities' (which is also true) because whenever I say to a stranger 'he has autism' they either say 'oh right, so's my nephew, he's ever so quirky and talks the back leg off a donkey' (DS doesn't talk) or gives me a bit of a because they think they know what 'autism' looks like, and it isn't like my extremely uninhibited, chaotic, obsessive and stimming son.

I really DO feel that the massive tide of very capable young people (as well as adults who've been functioning fairly well in mainstream society for decades) self-identifying as autistic or ADHD or even this fecking new abbreviation AuADHD are not helping. It's something you need diagnosed by a professional. While not wanting to downplay the experiences of genuinely autistic, if high-functioning (not even allowed to use that term now!) young people, the young folk who are self-ID 'autists' should try living alongside my son for a week, and then think about it again.

Aside from everything else, what’s the problem with AuDHD? As someone with (professionally diagnosed!) autism and ADHD, it’s an easy shorthand for the combination of symptoms I experience. Considering the amount of people who have both conditions, it’s understandable that people shorten it when discussing their experiences. I wish the term had been around when I was younger, because it makes conversation around experiences with both conditions so much easier than it used to be!

I have a hidden disability that affects my joints. Some days I’m ok but other days especially if I’m walking on uneven ground I need a stick as I have a tendency to fall over