transabled.org

Wheeling Hurts Everyone

by Gordo - 10 March 2010

"Wheeling doesn’t hurt anyone." That is one of the long-standing rallying cries in favor of wheeling among those with BIID. Wheeling as a coping mechanism prevents us from harming themselves physically in an attempt to get an SCI, but wheeling does hurt people — badly.

Pretending and Cross-Dressing

by Chloe - 3 March 2009

I was recently reading Sean’s post "BIID Sufferer? Language and concepts subtleties". It’s about the nuances of meaning that different words convey. There is a word that is used on this site sometimes that really bothers me. That word is "pretending".

Day two continued…

by Ada - 13 December 2008

Last night, I came home from work, unpacked groceries, changed into jammies and jumped in my wheelchair.

I puttered about the house, fixed supper, fed the beasts supper, watched tv and talked to my friend on the phone. Sometime after midnight, I had what can only be described as a moment of temporary insanity. I decided I needed something from the store, and I needed it immediately! There is an all night store not to far from me. So I changed into street clothes, got into my wheelchair and left my home.

Pretending

by Tom - 8 December 2008

It is not possible to pretend being an LBE amputee. The amputation I would like to have is through the wrist. Of course, this is not possible to simulate. The closest I can get to it is by making my hand as useless as possible and with as little sensitivity as possible. I have tried many methods to achieve this, and finally settled for a compromise. It involves closing my fist, thumb inside, and bandaging the whole thing quite tightly. The bandage must also go a little up the wrist so that there can be no wrist movement. Then I cover the whole thing with a "stump" sock. However, this still looks more or less like a closed fist. I found this could be made less obvious by letting a couple of finger "stumps" point out at the end of it. So I let my little finger and my major finger point out, but bent and bandaged so that they look like two short finger stumps. When asked, I tell people that I have an underdeveloped, malformed hand and that I have to wear a glove to protect it due to the fact that there isn’t any sensitivity in it.

A Hand for A Life

by Tom - 23 November 2008

I could start this account by saying I’ve always wanted to be an amputee for as long as I can remember. I could recall very old memories, but the most vivid one - and the most significant - is a dream I had when I was about eleven. In that dream I could quite straightforwardly remove my left hand from the end of my arm by pulling on it with a slight twist. I could also put it back, but it felt a lot better without it. Not having a hand at the end of my left forearm just felt right.