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The wheelchair as an emotional crutch
Written by Claire on Saturday, December 16, 2006
I’ve had some time now to get used to having a wheelchair, to have used it in public, and at home. I’m not really any closer to understanding why it has an effect on me. But it does, indeed, have an effect. A profound one.
Claire in her chair
I’ve already described what it was like to sit in the chair for the first time. That new, earth-shattering feeling wore off very quickly. I settled into it, as if born to it. Now, my wheelchair is a part of me. It’s a part of who I’ve always been. Because even when I didn’t have it physically with me, it was always in my head. Every night when I went to bed, I would go to sleep with thoughts of wheeling. In the day, I’d think of myself doing whatever I was doing, in a wheelchair. So it didn’t feel new to me for very long at all.
When I was on my pretending trip, I didn’t feel embarrassed, or afraid of exposure. I felt comfortable, right, and peaceful. I enjoyed wheeling, loved the feeling of speed, and agility. When I was challenged by accessibility issues, I felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction for getting around them. Even when I couldn’t negotiate the obstacles, it was fulfilling to have experienced a real challenge, and to have learned and understood more about what "real" wheelchair users face daily. And yes, to have even felt the frustration. And I felt good about making others aware of the obstacles. Perhaps I have made life a little better for the next wheeler to pass through. But what I felt the most was the peace. Freedom from obsessive thoughts about being someone else. Fulfillment in being that much closer to who my body has always told me I need to be. A deep peace, that I felt physically in the core of my being.
When I returned from my trip, my chair was relegated to an office chair again, used only when I sat at the computer, and never wheeled around in. For a while after I returned home, the wheelchair thoughts increased in intensity and caused me more anguish and depresson than ever. I had been warned by some people that the more you use the chair, the more you want it. I’m afraid that’s true in my case. When you have finally found peace and fulfillment, it’s hard to give that up.
It was a couple of days ago that I realized that I hadn’t taken my chair for a spin since the trip. Perhaps that’s because after a taste of freedom, of real life, and wide-open spaces, wheeling alone in the house seemed like a pretty poor substitute. But when the chair doesn’t move from its spot or do anything more than provide a place to sit while you’re working, it ceases to be therapeutic. I’ve been wheeling around the house again in the past few days and I’ve found that it helps a lot just to be able to take a minute or two to allow myself to believe that I am who I need to be. A few minutes of peace in an otherwise depressed, anxious, heartbroken, distracted, frustrated or any other of the myriad of negative emotions that take up the majority of my days, goes a long ways towards helping to manage those feelings.
But it’s not a cure. I’m aware that I’m pretending. I’m play-acting, escaping into fantasy, tricking my mind into believing for a minute or two that my physical need for the wheelchair is real, and that I have no options open to me but to use it in order to carry out my daily tasks and live my life. For now, I can manage my feelings somewhat by doing this. I can’t help but wonder, though…were it to be real, how much more at peace would I be?
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1 On 16 December, 2006, Sophie said:
One older friend of mine has told me she sees my wheelchair as an emotional crutch not for my BIID but for other emotional problems. She thinks that me “claiming” to be transabled is just a way for me to escape the other emotional realities in my life. I’d prefer to see my wheelchair as a crutch to help ease the symptoms of my BIID.