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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Wheeling can be a lonely

Wheeling can be a lonely

Written by Sean on Monday, February 6, 2006

Life when you’re transabled can be quite lonely. If you’re still in the closet, if you haven’t told people, you can’t be yourself and you can’t discuss those things with people, so that feels lonely. If you have told a few people, chances are that you’re going to be shunned and ignored. So it doesn’t really matterhow you approach it, it’s generally lonely.

Then, of course, you may not have told many people, but have acquired a chair and started using it more and more. That’s what I did in my "early days". I’d drive myself to a town an hour or two away from home, spend an hour or two at the mall, catch a movie, go for a meal at a chain restaurant. All in the chair, of course. I’d go home, log on the net, start talking to my internet mates.

And I’d feel incredibly lonely.

I longed for the ability to wheel with friends. I couldn’t wheel with my friends that knew me as an AB. I didn’t have friends that knew me as a wheeler only. I did that for years.

Eventually I met a few people who "knew". People I’d met first online. And then, there was Lolly, who was very accepting, and we went out together a few times (not dating!), but it was good to be able to wheel and be myself. And Lolly was, of course, a wheelchair user, because she was a double leg amputee.

From there, slowly, but surely, I met more and more people, and built a circle of people who knew me either only as a wheeler, or knew why I used the chair, but couldn’t care less. My wheeling wasn’t such a lonely experience.

So I look back and remember how lonely it all was. I was looking at ways to experience my chair, and I needed to experiences to be shared.

Now, it’s not so much that way, I just wheel because that’s my reality.

But talking to Sophie reminds me of all that loneliness I had at the time. She’s at a stage much different than where I’m at. And in a way, I think she’s lucky to have the internet and people who accept her online, and perhaps luckier still to have me to speak with. I’ve been through it. I’m actually around in the same town she’s in. I’m not able to just drop everything and go spend time with her, but at least, we’ve managed to get together a few times, face to face.

So, I know she’s feeling it hard, being alone like this. But I also know that it’s a natural stage of her own growth, and that in time she’ll get to a point where she won’t worry so much about going out to do things in her chair, because she simply will. It’ll be part of her day to day routine, and having people to do these things with won’t matter so much. And one hopes with time, a circle of friends will grow, that know her as a wheeler, or even a part-time wheeler.

And the same goes for all of you out there who are at some stage or other of that transition. It is lonely. But it gets better :) Eventually.