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Pretending vs Wannabe
Written by Sean on Sunday, January 28, 2007
There are many different aspects to being transabled. Some are transabled, merely "wannabe" (I say merely, but this is not a negative). Others must pretend in some fashion to handle the stresses of BIID. Others yet don’t have the need to have an impairment, they simply pretend one way or another. I work very hard at not passing judgement on anyone. I don’t want people to judge me, I feel it’s not my place to judge others. But I disgress from my thought for today. Forgetting the folks who simply "pretend", I’d like to talk a bit about the relationship between pretending and needing an impairment. Or rather, my perception of that relationship.
I am a wheelchair user. I am not a wheelchair pretender. I am transabled. My body image is that of a low paraplegic. I am not paraplegic. I pretend to be paralysed, mostly *to myself*, although when necessary, to others. By and large, people just know me as a wheelchair user, which I am, from the moment I leave the house to the moment I return, and even when at home, I use the chair a significant percentage of my time. I think it is important to explain that.
I use a wheelchair daily. I don’t pretend to use the chair, I just do. I have as much experience pushing a wheelchair as some people with physical/mobility impairments. In fact, I have more experience pushing and handling a wheelchair than someone who has had an SCI for 5 years. More than twice as much experience. I do not say this to brag, simply to illustrate.
I have been unable to get in restaurants, clothing shops, petrol stations, mechanic’s shops, job interviews. I have been unable to use public transit. I have been unable to get into hotel rooms, or just plain into the hotel itself. I have been unable to rent a car (no hand-controls, no way to explain to work colleague that I don’t need hand-controls). I have been "forgotten" in a plane for over 45 minutes, missing the last shuttle of the day as a result. I have been spoken to as if I was deaf, or stupid, or both. I have been patronised. I have been discriminated against. I have had to lift my chair in and out of the car numerous times everyday, in fact, weight-lifting over 1.5 tons each year just with the chair! All that, and more, because I use a wheelchair.
It’s not all dark, nasty and unpleasant. Because I use a wheelchair, I’ve also had many joys, met people I would never have met, had interactions I would never have had. I know the joy of racing down the street on a glorious spring morning. I feel the grace of zig-zaging between individuals in a crowd (thereby causing some panic). I know the innocence of children who exclaims "Look mom, he’s got the same cap I have", as Mother looks ashamed and tries to shush the kid, think it was pointing attention to the wheelchair. I have experienced a pretty girl falling on my lap as she was backing away from a counter, while her friends laughed at her. Small, fun, interesting experiences too numerous to tell. All that, and more, because I use a wheelchair.
No, my friends, don’t think for a moment that I am a wheelchair pretender, because I am most definitely not. In the land of using a wheelchair, I may not be a citizen, but I am most definitely a permanent resident.
Yet, I can’t deny I am a pretender. I must pretend to be paralysed, if only to myself, because for better or for worse, that is the self-image I have. I am a wheelchair user because I pretend to be paralysed. My wheelchair use is the direct result of my pretending to be paralysed, in a weird way. And my pretending to be paraplegic is a direct result of being transabled. There are many transabled individuals who endure, go through life without ever feeling the need to tie a leg up, put a blindfold on, use crutches, a wheelchair, whatever. And if that works for them, I am glad.
It’s a thin line this. To claim I am not a wheelchair pretender, when I admit to being a para pretender. Can you see the distinction? I hope you can.
What is blindness? Wikipedia defines it as:
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or psychological factors.
Ok, so let’s imagine this scenario: A blind wannabe puts in opaque contact lenses. They cannot see a thing. They have put the contacts in because of their psychological/emotional need for being unable to see. They are, in effect, blind. They aren’t, at that point, pretending to be blind, because they are unable to see; they lack visual perception.
One might argue that they can stop the experiment at any point, get off the ride when it suits them, and because of that they don’t know what it’s like to be blind. That is certainly a solid argument, but I’m not sure. You can’t get off the transabled ride. Once you wannabe, you’re doomed forever to wannabe (unless you manage to acquire your desired impairment).
Are they pretending? Are they momentarily blind? Thin line, grey area.
Assuming that we *are* pretenders after all, which as you’ve just read, I disagree with to some degree, there is still a very solid reason for us to do this so-called pretending. Robin says:
I identify a lot more on the wannabe side than the pretender side, the latter is just something I do to be able to deal with the pain of the former.
I think that’s the key for me. In order to deal with the pain I experience as a result of being transabled, I must use this wheelchair.
For someone who hasn’t experienced this intense, ongoing, unrelenting emotional pain, it would be easy to dismiss it out of hand. It would be easy to get angry at us, and say that if we really wanted to, we would stop using our wheelchairs, we would rejoice in our healthy bodies.
But if you read this and you had a spinal cord injury, or other mobility impairment, remember how many people told you that you weren’t walking because you weren’t trying hard enough, that you weren’t working in physio hard enough, that you didn’t want it badly enough. How many people said to you, years post injury, "So, you’re still using that thing then?" (refering to the wheelchair). We have no more control over our condition than you have over yours. Only, since our condition is not something you can touch, you can’t see it in an x-ray, it’s just too easy to dismiss.
And we go on, in pain, day after day. We share a similar frustration with people who have mobility impairments. They anguish that they will never walk again. We anguish that we will never be paralysed, or blind, or amputees, or have MS, or be deaf, or any number of other conditions.
And to relieve the pain, to allow ourselves to function, we "pretend". We pretend to ourselves, and some people, that we are paralysed. And we are wheelchair users, to mitigate our condition. We pretend, to ourselves, and some people, that we are blind. And we wear opaque contact lenses, to mitigate our condition. We pretend, to ourselves, and some people, that we have MS. And we use crutches or wheelchairs, to mitigate our condition.
So, there we are, pretenders that aren’t, wanting to be something we can’t have, in pain, dealing as best we can with the cards that were dealt to us, hoping that at the next round the dealer will pass a better hand.
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3 Comments
Excellent post Sean.
I think that whilst all of these phenomonon (Pretending, BIID, Wannabeism etc) can manefest in one person, it it is very dangerous to assume that in every case they are all linked.
I know one or two “pretenders” one is a full timer who lives her life as a paraplegic and may or may not be BiiD. For her it is important that if she cannot be who she feels she should be she can at least be percived as how she feels she should be. She seeks no special attention or benefit, although she may well receive some because of societies tendency to lionise independent disabled people at the same time as it discriminates and despises.
The others however are what you might call “hobby pretenders”. They have much more in common with others I know who are railway buffs running restored railways, historical re enactors or amateur drama buffs. I think in these people the desire is simply to “be somone else” for a time, to experience another life. the social dilemma for disability pretenders is much like that for some historical re enactors because the choice of subject challenges a social more. For example it’s seen as odd but harmless fun to pretend to be a cowboy or a redcoat or a civil war soldier. But what if the re enactor prefers to be an SS or Gestapo officer? Society baulks at that.
People like you are not “pretending” to need a wheelchair. The need is a real life psychological one.
I think “Wheelchair user” is a fair and accurate description in this case. Maybe “Enactor” is a better description of the hobby type.
P
3 On 29 January, 2007, Sean said:
Paradox, thank you for your most excellent comments. I like this analogy to re-enactor, the “hobby pretender”. Though I must admit, they somewhat disturb me in a way. Not the fact they use a wheelchair, or cane, or whatever (I live in a glass house afterall!), but the fact that in my experience, in general, they have no desire to have a real (any?) understanding of what it is they are trying to emulate. Which I think is important, even if you’re only playing tourist in this land of disability, at least if they’re gonna do it in public.
Claire, thank you also for your no less excellent comments. I particularly like those two points you’ve articulated about why we can’t just blurt out why we really use the chair. Particularly the fact that it is important to be perceived not only as a wheelchair user because we’re cracked, but rather as paraplegics.
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1 On 29 January, 2007, Claire said:
Excellent post, Sean. Actually, I don’t like the terms Pretender or Wannabe. They carry negative connotations, and imply deceit, choice, and even frivolousness. Both terms fall far short of the reality of the illness called BIID.
The reality is this. We “wannabe” because of a mental illness in which our mind tells us that our body is other than what it is. We “pretend” as a form of psychological therapy in order to manage these feelings, because there is no cure. Our psychological need for a chair is not less real than someone’s physical need for a chair (or cane, or crutches, or contact lenses, or whatever you use to simulate your desired disability in order to manage your feelings).
And why can’t we just be open and honest and tell everyone “I use a chair because I have BIID”? Two reasons.
1. If BIID tells us that we are a paraplegic, then being perceived as being who we are is part of the therapy. Take that away, and the therapy becomes less effective. (And for those who will cry “Attention!” take note of the difference. It’s not about attention, it’s about being perceived as who our brain tells us we are. There is a HUGE difference there.)
2. The world isn’t ready for BIID. They haven’t been inculcated by the media to know, understand, and accept BIID. They are revolted and alarmed by it. The last thing anyone dealing with BIID needs is for family members, friends and acquaintances to start looking at you askance, avoiding you, whispering things behind your back, or thinking that you are insane in other ways besides the BIID (ie. “are you going to try to injure our children?”).
And so we must deceive, for our own mental health. And for those of the Judeo-Christian persuasion, I am quite convinced that where deception causes no harm to others, it is permissable as a way to manage an illness. The good caused by the therapy far outweighs the harm caused by the deception.