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Get used to it
Written by Sean on Friday, December 22, 2006
I went shopping with my partner tonight. She wanted to get some clothes before a vacation we’re about to take. I put my wheelchair into her car and got ready to go. It took her some time to get ready, but finally after a while, off we went to the mega discount Wal-Mart-type store.
We arrived at the store and none of the accessible parking spaces was available. I slowed to check, and she pointed to an open space, away from the accessible ones. I said I couldn’t use that, the chair couldn’t be taken out. She said "I didn’t think you would wheel tonight.".
In the end, I didn’t because there were no parks. Quite a luxury I wouldn’t have had if I had been paralysed. I wish I had been a para. I wish I had not had the option. Had I been alone, or with someone who got it better, I would have waited for a parking space, and used my chair. But I could see she was in an argumentative mood and I did not want to fight. Much easier to just walk. Still, I resent the assumption that I would walk when I have made it clear so many times that I must wheel.
It’s as if she is indulging me when she "lets me" wheel.
I felt so uncomfortable walking. It never gets any easier. Fish out of water. Knots in the stomach. Feeling jittery. Not quite a sense of panic, but a sense of wrongness. Like an African American woman might feel like if she suddenly walked into a bar filled with neo-Nazis.
And she asked for my assistance in finding t-shirts and pants. But everything I suggested was wrong. So I stopped suggesting. She complained about back pain she has. Her back has indeed been bothering her, sciatica most likely. She complained I wasn’t helping. At the risk of appearing egoistic, what about my pain? What about my discomfort?
In the end, we didn’t get everything she wanted, because, well, they didn’t have the stuff. Wrong style, wrong sizes, bla bla bla.
But I fear the problem wasn’t really the clothes. I wonder if she realises how controlling she is. I don’t think she does. And she loves me very much, I know she does. Even goes as far as saying I’m the most important person in her life, and sounding like she means it. But she can’t get it in her head that the most important person in her life MUST wheel.
“I am what I am, get used to it”, as my friend the famous cartoon would say…
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1 On 24 December, 2006, Wheelmouse said:
Hi,
I had a response written up to this comment, and decided to leave it on my computer overnight before posting it, and then when I tried to post, your site was down for a brief time. So my original post is lost forever. This one might not be so articulate but I still want to say what I had on my mind.
I am transabled. My boyfriend understands me, and for this he is amazing. As far as the populace goes, I would say he is in the 99th percentile of those who can accept and understand the viewpoints of others.
Those who can understand transability are a rare breed, rarer then the transabled themselves. They are amazing people. To understand the transabled mind, one has to adopt and entirely different worldview then the worldview one already owns. One must cast aside the idea that disability is the lowest common demonator, that disability is a terrible trait to possess, that disabiity is something you wish upon your enemies as punishment, or the (insane…) idea that disability is punishment doled out by the hand of god.
She cannot understand you because she still sees disability in this way. She sees it as a punishment, a limit of oneself, a force that lowers human potential, etc.
Seeing disability this way - no one would want it. The problem lies then, not in how she views you, but how she views disability. Of course we know that to you, a life as a paraplegic is just the opposite. It frees you, allows you to live to your full potential, and is a gift.
That said, without the right motivation to change, people will not change. Your wife is trying, she just isn’t there yet. On her worldview changing journey, it might be helful if you cut her a little bit of slack. It’s not easy to be in the 99th percentile. If you expect/require her to be amazing, she will probably not meet your expectations.