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Interrogation
Written by Chloe on Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A friend of my partner came to visit us for a couple of hours today (Sunday). Neither my partner nor myself could remember when he last visited, and therefore whether he had or had not seen me in a wheelchair before. It had been quite a while. He lives hundreds of miles away. His first words to me gave it away.
I’ll call him "X" and me "C".
X: Why the wheelchair?
C: Why not be in a wheelchair?
He had come with his best friend, who neither of us had met before, so I didn’t want to get into BIID explanations. I also didn’t want to lie about anything, so a similar dialog continued a little later.
X: Well, so what’s with the wheelchair? You look cute in a wheelchair.
C: Thanks. Yeah, looking cute is a good reason to be in a wheelchair.
It must have been obvious by now that this was a dead end conversation starter. I just didn’t feel like talking about it. The interrogation continued nevertheless.
X: So, what was the injury from?
C: I had a skiing accident.
X: Did you break your leg?
C: No.
X: What then?
C: It was a spinal compression.
X: Does it hurt?
C: Not much
The conversation between the four of us was all very pleasant in fact. However, in retrospect my responses to questions about the wheelchair probably seemed a bit odd. The last interchange was just before they left.
X: Well, I hope next time I visit you’ll be out of the wheelchair.
C: Why? I thought you said I look cute.
X: Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to see you in a wheelchair forever.
C: Why not? It’s okay.
Maybe it was me who was doing the interrogation.
Tags: BIID, Wheelchair
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6 Comments
I bet that was a hard situation to deal with. If you and I had been having that conversation though, I would have picked up on the fact that you didn’t really want to talk about it.
At some point, we have to learn how to deal with this just like people who acquire the wheelchair by surprise. Smile and insist that “I’m a happy person.” Admit that “My life has changed in a big way, and it is a big adjustment, and I am still learning how to deal with it.” Project a positive outlook by saying, “Using a wheelchair has given me an opportunity to examine my life and find real happiness in everything that’s going right for me.” Be the friendly and outgoing person that the chair helps you to be.
Changing the subject is always fair play. That guy was downright rude and I think by the end of that conversation I would have told him so, and not wanted to be in his company again.
“I prefer not to discuss it.”
Usually, nobody asks. I think X was very rude.
Thank you for the feedback.
This afternoon I went to visit a friend for a couple of hours. She lives close to my work, so I visit her presenting however I present at work. It had been several months, so she has seen me with a crutch but not with a leg brace.
The subject of my brace did not come up for the first 20 minutes, as we just sat and chatted together. She didn’t even look at it in any obvious manner. There then came up a conversational opportunity for me bring it up in a casual way. After that she asked me a number of questions about it.
What a difference! There was absolutely no feeling of being interrogated. I had given her the signal that I was okay talking about it. It never dominated the conversation. I was able to convey to her that I was happy about the leg brace, without bringing BIID into it.
It all went beautifully. Some people really do get how to talk to PWDs, including about their disabilities, without anything being at all uncomfortable.
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1 On 16 June, 2009, Beth said:
It’s because most of the world sees being in a wheelchair as a really nasty tradegdy. He was wishing you ‘good luck and get better soon’ and just didn’t realise that you don’t want to get better in the way he expects.
I think this is part of the reason I’m not sure about going full time as a wheelchair user. When everyone finds out I’m expecting loads of ‘oh, poor you’ and I don’t think I could handle that when I’d be feeling happiness and relief. I feel I’d be lying by ommision to let them think that I was unhappy but I’d have to tell them about BIID to explain that I was really happy.