Subject: OT Rant: Dear Able-Bodied People...
Author:
Posted on: 2016-01-25 16:51:00 UTC

Yes. I know. I've heard it before. I'm too young to be in a wheelchair. I'm lazy. I'm seeking attention. I'm faking.

If I have the gall to so much as stand up from my chair because I feel like, for ten seconds, my back will be able to stand bearing my weight, well, shame on me for not falling perfectly into your black-and-white scale of disability. If I can stand, I must not need a chair and am therefore faking. If I'm not totally paralyzed from the waist down, I must not need a chair and am therefore faking.

Just because I can move my legs and don't have an obviously broken bone (the only other acceptable time to use a chair, don't you know?) doesn't mean I am able to walk. Just because there isn't something visibly wrong with me doesn't make it okay for you to interrogate me on the extent of my medical problems. That is between me, my doctors, and whichever friends and family members I decide to share with. You, a random stranger, have no right to come up to me and demand to know why I'm in a wheelchair. And you especially have no right to accuse me of faking a disability because you saw me limp three steps from my chair to a different, more comfortable chair. There is a reason why I made sure the distance was that short.

If I'm in so much pain that I need a chair to get around, the last thing I want and need is to have a stranger getting up in my face over something that is none of their business.

The problem is perpetuated by thinking that either you're disabled, or you're not. Either you can walk, or you can not. Disability is not an either-or situation. For the most part, I am able to walk. I am able to run. I can jump rope, ride horses, play tag. But sometimes, I am able to do none of these things, because my back hurts so badly I can barely lift my head from my pillow. Sometimes, I am able to sit up, but only with assistance. Sometimes I am able to sit up fine but can't walk without excruciating pain shooting through my spine and hip. If I was able to walk, believe me, I would be walking.

Just because you see me standing out of my chair does not mean you've seen a miracle. You've just seen a girl who wants to reach something and thinks she might be able to make it. If you see me struggling to stand because I need to reach something, offer your assistance. Do not, however, mock me, jeer at me, or accuse me of being lazy, or seeking attention, and especially not faking. (Don't insist on helping if I decline, either, but that's a rant for another day.)

Yours,

Someone who wants this ableism to stop.

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