Wheelchair

[whisky]

Last week we got a wheelchair for my wife, she doesn't need it all the time, but it helps if she is in a lot of pain, or is too exhausted to go a long way.

We have noticed people are split down the middle, some want to help us, but to others we are invisible, they just look anywhere but straight at us, as if wheelchair is something you can catch.

Worse still is the looks from other wheelchair people when my wife gets out of it, like she is a bad person for simply being still able to walk.

I guess this is a preview of the future when she maybe in it more, but this preview shows me who people really are, mostly arseholes.

 

[Phil Collins]

One of the shittiest parts of disability is having to deal with other people's fucked up reactions to just trying to live your life; yeah it's like putting on the sunglasses from They Live with regards to seeing other people for what they are.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I know it's not really the same, but I've noticed some people will just give up trying to talk to me if I take a few seconds longer than normal to reply, but I'm not going to wear a t-shirt reading "I'm autistic" so they'll know. Also I don't really like talking to people so it's not always bad.

 

[Mentalist]

Abelism is grim, I'm sorry you have to experience it. We get it here a lot. The other day I was in town and an old lady (she was SUPER old. Like 85+) was walking 0.2 miles per hour across the street trying to get to the taxis. I was there first, spotted her, and OF COURSE, gestured for her to come and get ahead of me and get the one I was about to get into. The taxi driver (think 60 year old stereotypical Greek bastard) was gesturing to me like I'd made his life hard because I was giving up my space to her because he knew he had to deal with her being slow and needed help in and out of the taxi. He clocked me as foreign and I heard him muttering under his breath. He soon shut up when I started speaking Greek fluently and he turned meek like a little bitch.

Greece is a VERY family orientated country. There are expectations to look after people in your family but if you don't have that then good fucking luck.

I don't get it in general. I spend my life thankful for my mobility and everything else I have. I am super aware that it's just ONE bad day, one bad moment away from being diminished.

I live in the country alone with my cats for a reason.

 

[whisky]

Back home now, the assisted travel is usually a fast route through the airport, but passport control at Málaga airport was pretty horrendous, we were put in a short queue with only two families in front of us, but then they kept fetching golf carts of other assisted travel people and they kept jumping in front of us, and also some people who's names had been called for final boarding.

Me and my wife stayed calm, she was sat in the chair and an hour standing up is something I am fine with, but the people behind me where getting more and more irrate as each person got their passport seen, then they started Karening their way to the front, harassing the people just doing their jobs, slowing the process down even more, mumbling about wanting to see the manager, the police, anyone who would get them seen quicker, one old guy even collapsed, as he couldn't stand up any longer, I heard muttering of "maybe I should try that" like it was some kind of grift.

We got through, and our plane was already starting to board so at least we didn't have to wait long, we were delayed from taking off by other passengers struggling to get through.

At least when we got back to the UK there were some helpful people who helped push my suitcase while I got the wife up a ramp in her chair, she can so flat bits herself but ramps are tricky.