Adventures of being a cripple

LOL, wow...

I have nerve damage in my hand, but it doesn't lead to any situations like that. If only I'd know I shouldn't hold the door for people in your situation, I would have stopped that a long time ago. I thought it was polite, I didn't know it was annoying.

I'd be curious to hear more of your adventures

1) Very well written
2) Insights into something I otherwise wouldn't have known about


Thanks, Cameron!

In fairness though... shirts can be tough. That's why I get dressed with assistance from my ladies in waiting. : P

I'm sure your experience was to the Nth degree, but I donate blood frequently, and the phlebotomists that work those things can be really hover-y & overprotective of everyone. And we almost alays got stickers, too (and cookies & juice, which they insist you take, whether you want it or not. I know they just want you to sit for awhile so they can observe if you're going to have an adverse reaction before they let you go, but that part's still kind of annoying at times). The best donations are with the more "hands off" crews. They're few & far between, unfortunately. I wonder if they were at all overprotective of all the other people getting the shots (albeit to a lesser degree) where you went?

Getting mad about this shit shows you have unreasonable expectations of people. If you let this kind of thing get to you, you're just to going to waste a ton of time on anger.

I find it's best to have your expectations of people match what they are, not what they ought to be. Just assume every new person is a vile, stupid, ignorant asshole. If a particular person isn't like that, he or she pleasantly surprises you. If a particular person is like that--and this is going to be the case most of the time--rather than angering you, that person simply meets your expectations.

How you avoid being an asshole yourself is holding your own person to the standard of what we ought to be, not what most of us are.

I'm just offering what seems to work best for me for dealing with the world as it is, not what I think things ought to be like.

I sympathize with your strength of feeling Cameron. It would suck hard to live in a world where everyone acted patronizing toward you.

I had no idea you were handicapped. Wheelchair, I assume? Any slowness or hesitancy of speech, anything beyond obvious physical impairment that would lead others to assume you needed extra attention?

Me either! I will begin treating you differently immediately...

I teared up as I imagined how long it must have taken you to type all that, what with your affliction and the challenges it brings. Good for you!

I look forward to the next installment of your "Cripple Chronicles".

You need to install a cow-catcher/snowplow on the front of your chair and ram people.

There was a guy in an electric wheelchair at my last job. You had to be careful around corners cause the guy would haul ass down the halls.

A wasted opportunity, Cameron! Wasted, I tell you!

Here's a totally charming, "Oh you poor helpless cripple" story to make you feel worse, or better, depending on your mood. But mostly to show you that treating handicapped people like they're helpless is more common than you think.

This happened about a year ago at this time. There's this really good sandwich place in the ground floor of my office building, so one day I decided to grab one for lunch. This place is pretty popular, plus it was freezing on this particular day, so it was a good excuse not to go outside, and as a result it was packed. So I'm standing in line, and then behind me was this guy in a wheelchair. Then there were two guys behind him, I can only refer to as "Douchebag #1" and "Douchebag #2".

First, Douchebag #1. He gets on line behind the guy in the wheelchair. Now, the guy in the wheelchair has just gotten there, and he's maneuvering his chair around to the best position to keep wheeling forward, but it's obvious he's next after me. What does DB#1 do? He tries to sidle in front of Wheelchair Guy. Like you know, he's reaaaaallly casual about it - he just sort of very casually begins to stick his foot in front of the guy's chair when I see him out of the corner of my eye. And I give him this look like, "Well, it's entirely up to you if you want to go to Hell this close to Christmas. I'm just sayin'." He sees me give him the look, and immediately withdrawls his foot and gets back behind the guy in the wheelchair where his line-cutting-a-crippled-person's ass belongs.

Then we have Douchebag #2, who is really honestly the more fun part of the story. He gets on line behind DB#1. So I'm standing there facing forward, and I hear DB#2 say, in this really really put-upon voice, "Excuse me!" Since my back is to him, I had no idea that he's actually talking to me. So I don't turn around, because it's not like I know I'm being addressed. Then I hear it a second time - "Excuse me!" - this time with far more outrage in his voice. I turn around, and DB#2 glances down at the guy in the wheelchair, and then says to me, again, in the same just utterly outraged and incensed voice, "Can you please MOVE so he can get through?!" Now, I don't know this particular man, but I'm assuming this is his version of the "Have You No Decency?" speech. I mean there are very nearly tears in his voice. So the guy in the wheelchair and I look at each other as if to say, "The hell?", and the guy in the wheelchair looks up at DB#2 and says, "Uhhh, I'm not trying to get through. I'm behind her in line." With this totally flat voice, like "Yeah thanks, Clark Kent - I'm good."

Nice try Kaiser Soze, but I'm fucking on to you.

You should follow Stephen Hawkins lead,

No word of a lie, he actually takes great pleasure in aiming for able bodied people in his chair if they try to molly coddle him. Many A time I visited my friend at Cambridge to see Mr. Hawking tearing rounds the grounds with his nurse running to keep up.

My buddy told me that he actually sped up the motor in his chair to do things like this.

A good friend has spina bifida, and she's writing a book with others detailing their experiences. Haven't heard any horror stories in particular, but stuff like that is exactly what she wants to write of.

My mother was/is very much the same way regarding my disability, she wants me to crack more jokes than I do. I just shrug instead.

While I have cerebral palsy, idiotic people have been remarkably rare. The worst is when I was working at my theatre job, ushering and waiting for patrons to come out of a showing. The movie's got about five minutes left, so I engage in small talk with a patron and her husband, who are waiting to get in. Without warning, the guy clasps my right hand (the side afflicted by CP) and mumbles something about God healing my arm. I'm so shocked that I can't say a word, while she apologizes about 50 times in the span of a minute.

Sure, no problem.

If a monk did that, I could probably see some humor in the situation. Quote the Dalai Lama line from Caddyshack or something.

Ah, then in that case I'd probably blush and say a mumbled thanks.

Since he and his wife were pretty frequent visitors to the theatre afterwards, I got to see their interactions together. Judging by the way she would lead him around, I'd bet that he had some mental problems that impacted his interactions with people.

Well, so much for my suggestion for Big Daddy Roth style wheels and shifter.

Your mother is at the very least a good, if not great, woman.

This thread is funny in the best possible way.

I was friends with a girl back in college who used her motorized wheelchair to "accidentally" run over the feet of people who pissed her off (she had some form of spinal deterioration). She'd do an "I'm so sorry" routine, which would get her a sympathetic "It's OK", then she'd shoot me this absolutely wicked grin as we'd watch her victims hobble off.

I can see it getting very annoying when people patronize you and you don't need it. But the door holding thing is just awkward. I would think that a lot of people are afraid they'll look like a selfish prick if they don't hold the door open for someone in a wheel chair. After all, we don't know how difficult it is to go through doors in a chair, so I think a lot of people just assume it's more difficult than it is.

I agree with you in every sense, Cameron; the condescending attitude is easily an insult to any person who's managed to live his own life just like anybody else, disability or not.
Your story and the comments hit a bit close to home as well; one of my uncles (he's my dad's cousin, but since my dad's family is from the "country", they were all pretty damn close (not in "that" sense)) was a fireman, and he fell through a collapsing roof on top of a bunch of heavy machinery during a fire, and he lost the use of his legs.
He had to be amputated this year because of health issues, and I still remember how annoyed he looked when the nurses and some of his visitors kept treating him like he was a porcelain doll...when he's lived 25 years already without the use of his legs (Hi usual response when the nurses explained to him everyday the "getting out of the stretcher/bed procedure? "Ladie's, i know the procedure; been doing it every day for 25 years").
And this is a guy who´s first word when I arrived to see him was if i wanted to sit on the "unused side of the bed" just to mess with me and have a laugh at my expense.
I think you're right on the money on here; sure, it should be common sense/decency to be helpful and respectful to someone with a physical disability, but when you become condescending and treat that person like he/she isnt capable of living his life, you're insulting that person in the worst way possible.

PS: I also used to have a friend in Ecuador (back when i traveled there every year as a kid to be with the family) who had lost a leg as an infant, and he wore a prosthesis; this kid never, ever, asked to be treated different or pitied; hell, the same night i meet him (he was the son of a fiend of my mom) my mom said to me to be "sensitive and open minded" around him; When went out for burgers together that night to get away from the adults (he asked to grab a hold of my shoulder as he walked along the way because he had been swimming earlier and was a bit tired), a really fucking big dog tried to attack us...and this kid takes of his prosthetic limb and send the beast packing with one hit!
I asked him what the fuck was he thinking, and he just replied "well, its not like i could had kicked it; we would both had fallen down if i did!".

I decided to search for this on google just to see if i could find an image; instead I found a way awesome Mr. Plow, so to speak:

http://keywestsnowremoval.com/

I'd hold a door open for a guy in a wheelchair...then again I'd hold a door open for a woman...or any other human being who needs to cross a threshhold.

Guess I'm just an asshole that way.

This thread made me think of a friend of a friend who has a blog...

http://loveonwheelz.net/

It's tricky. I try to be as rude as possible around cripples, so as not offend them.

I'm also pretty happy to be called a walkie!

In all seriousness, the waters can be a little hard to navigate (as mentioned, you don't really want to be rude and well, I'd hold the door open for anyone following close behind or in front so long as their hands are full or they're in a wheelchair).

Kudos for putting up with being talked down to (figuratively speaking!) and being mistaken for slow!

That is fantastic. "Want to grab my gear stick to help me drive?" BOOM.

So have you read her book since finding out it was personally tailored to 'your kind'?

I had a traumatic spinal injury about 2 years ago and I had to spend about a year in a wheelchair. I didn't realize how much people try to baby you. You are in a wheelchair but they act and treat you like you are mentally handicapped and can't do anything for yourself. For a little while it was kinda cool having everyone rush to open doors and treat you like a kid but that shit got old pretty quick. If you see a person in a wheelchair don't go out of your way to"Help the poor cripple" because most times they can usually get around just fine on their own.

Cozies?

Kinda sounds like she was coming onto you. Should've hit that!

Kinda sounds? It totally sounds like she was hitting on you. In a retarded fashion. And by retard I don't mean short bus.

Wow. Didn't realize I was an asshole for holding doors open for people.