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Devotee No More
Written by Elisabeth on Sunday, July 4, 2010
I used to be a devotee, no doubt about it. If I saw a wheelchair user in a store, I would be staring and following for a minute hoping I would run into him again before leaving a store. Now unless that person is a real dishy guy, I won’t have a second glance.
So what happened? Is it just that I am a wheelchair user now and thus don’t have the need to stare at wheelchair users any more? That might be part of it. But I think the other part goes much deeper. I don’t see the chair first. I see the person first. I am not interested in wheelchair users any more. I am interested in people. Sure – most of my new friends are people with disabilities but that’s not what we usually talk about. And that’s not the reason we are friends. The common denominator got us together. We were comfortable with each other because we are PWDs. But the reason we are friends is because we like each other. We can talk about a lot of things. It’s easy to talk about struggles. Because of their disabilities, my friends are more open, less judgmental. We are more comfortable asking questions that matter. Yet we know when to ask and when not to.
Until I started wheeling, I was very clumsy around PWDs. I didn’t know how to talk to them and act around them. I didn’t know not to ask too many questions. I was mainly interested in their impairment and would forget about how they felt and what they liked. I didn’t know that those who accepted and adjusted to their impairment really didn’t want any pity. They wanted to be treated as equals. Sure, they wanted their impairment to be taken into consideration when needed but that is all. Reasonable accommodation and equality is all they wanted. I didn’t understand any of that until I became one of them.
So my devotee part of me is gone. It’s no longer needed. It must have been part of my compensation for BIID. Most of devotee websites disgust me because it’s all about the amputation or a wheelchair, it’s very rarely about the person. I understand the need for it. But because I am perceived as PWD now, I understand more how PWDs want to be perceived. They want to be perceived as people first, not as their disability. And that is one of our greatest challenges, one of the greatest challenges of our society.
Tags: Devotee, equality, Impairment, PWD
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4 Comments
2 On 4 July, 2010, Phil said:
The more I have accepted that I have the wish to have two thigh stumps, the less I look for amputees out there – and the more I “admire” men regardless of the number of limbs they have or if they use a wheelchair.
Now it seems that for some accepting BIID and living it out to some extent reduces the devotee need.
I have a question: Would this work the other way round, too? If I were in love or only had sex with an amputee, would my desire to become one diminish?
@Phil: Good question. I think the answer would be different for each of us. For some, living around somebody with the desired impairment might make the desire even stronger. For others, seeing both the pluses and minuses of a life with an impairment might cause a turn off. You should find yourself a sexy DAK and see what would happen.
Living out my impairment and being around PWDs works right now for me – it diminishes my BIID but Sean would probably say that it is temporary. I am just taking it one day at a time.
4 On 4 July, 2010, Sophie said:
I think there is a difference between being a devotee and being interested in people with disabilities similar to what you feel you need. I didn’t worry when I was a wheelchair user about how I talked to people but in the years since I turn into a nervous mess whenever I see a wheelchair user and I have to strongly resist the urge to follow their chair on my hands and knees to see what brand it is.
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1 On 4 July, 2010, Chloe said:
The myriad positive changes that accompany becoming a wheelchair user cause me continuous wonderment.