Annoying Behaviors Wheelchair-Users Frequently Endure

I would argue that most people don’t act and say things with the express intent of being annoying.

Yet, it happens on a daily basis.

Specifically, many people do and say things, often without a moment’s forethought, that pester, denigrate, or just get in the way of those of us who require the use of wheelchairs to get around.

On the one hand, many people have zero experience with disability, so they are unlikely to realize the things they do and say are bothersome.

On the other hand, their behavior is also mostly a result of a lack of basic consideration. They don’t think, they’re in a hurry, they’re distracted…or they just don’t care.

I’m not bringing this up to attack or point fingers. Well, that’s not the main reason, at least. Rather, my intention here is to bring awareness to the kinds of things those of us who get around in wheelchairs put up with so anyone who may be guilty of these behaviors will be less likely to repeat them in the future…I hope.

I hate going grocery shopping.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful I can regularly afford groceries and that I’m able enough to do my own shopping.

It’s just, it’s my least-favorite chore. This is partly because I always get a cart with a crooked wheel.

I’ll never understand how we as a species have advanced to the point of being capable of colonizing Mars…but you’re telling me we can’t engineer a shopping cart that rolls in a straight line? Seriously?

Getting around the store isn’t so bad. I have a strong upper-body and I need the exercise.

It’s when I get to the register that I start to worry.

About half the time, the cashier will bag up my groceries — sometimes three, four, five or more bags — then look at me, expecting me to carry an entire cart’s worth of groceries on my lap.

Or, they’ll ask if I want them to hang the bags off the back of my chair, which has NO WHERE for bags to hang (my chair doesn’t have push handles or any bag-carrying attachments).

Look, I don’t like asking for help in general. I hate asking for help out with my groceries even more. But I need it, so I suck it up and do it.

My asking for a hand with all my bags is met with mixed results. Sometimes, it’s no trouble for the cashier to get someone to help me out. Other times, usually if they’re busy or short-staffed, I catch passive-aggressive static for requesting help.

I’ve even been asked if I was sure I needed help out.

“No, I got it. Let me leave my shit here and take the one bag at a time that will fit on my lap out to my car until, five or six trips later, I’ve gotten everything.”

I’m not convinced there are any decent parking lots anywhere.

Again, I’m grateful that I was able to purchase and operate an adapted vehicle. Parking it, however, has been a perpetual struggle, one that has gotten worse as time goes on.

The adapted car I own has a ramp that folds down from the passenger side, allowing me to roll in and out of my car without needing to disassemble and reassemble my wheelchair a dozen times a day.

However, this requires me to park in a handicapped space with an access aisle so I have room to open and close the ramp as well as maneuver up and down it without hitting someone else’s car.

Often, able-bodied pedestrians will walk through/across a handicapped space without thinking. They’re not used to parking there, so to them, no one ever uses those spaces. In fact, many able-bodied people see handicapped parking as a waste of perfectly good (and close) parking spaces.

Here’s the thing.

I USE THOSE SPACES! As do many other people with disabilities.

Yet, as I’m pulling into a handicapped space, often someone is walking across it. Or, they’re standing in it, waiting for me to move on. Worse still, some people have even stood there and carried on a conversation in the space in which I intend to park.

When I wave my placard at them, or, in some cases, gently honk my horn to get their attention, suddenly I’m the asshole. How dare I interrupt their conversation or suggest they move?

Of course, it’s my fault, really. I’m a person with a disability who deigned to leave the house. None of this would have happened if I’d had the good sense to die rather than survive the accident which put me in the chair. My selfishness of wanting to live is the direct source of those people’s discomfort and inconvenience.

Not everyone who uses a wheelchair is permanently disabled. Some people are recovering from surgery, a broken leg, or any other number of issues which affect their ability to walk.

I sympathize with those people because, even though it’s temporary, their ability to get around is impaired in ways with which I relate. Moreover, spending an extended period of time getting around in a wheelchair is an excellent form of empathy training.

But…

What bothers me is when someone who has spent a few weeks in a wheelchair tells me they know exactly what I’m going through.

Oh, really? You had foot surgery and pushed yourself around in a chair for a few weeks, then did three months of physical therapy before getting back up on your feet and walking around like you did before?

Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like to break your neck, be told you may not survive the night, be intubated for nine days, then transferred to another facility two hours away that specializes in spinal cord injuries. Then, once you’re stable enough, beginning physical and occupational therapy that will last five years before being told you’ll never walk again without significant bio-technological intervention or God himself coming down and commanding you to stand. Not to mention the severe nerve damage throughout the entirety of your body, affecting your hands so you have to re-learn how to do everything with limited dexterity and grip strength. Oh, and by the way, you pee through a tube now. No, you don’t want to know about the…other side of things. Yes, it is very unpleasant.

What’s that you ask? When will things return to normal?

Oh, there’s no going back to normal. This is how you live now.

But yes, please tell me more about how that six weeks in a loaner wheelchair is the same as being a quadriplegic for the rest of my life.

Other people in other subsections of the population will relate to this, I’m sure.

Often, when I meet someone new, in order to try and establish common ground on which to base a conversation, they’ll tell me about someone they know who also uses a wheelchair.

Ok, fine, I understand the compulsion. And I appreciate the attempt at relating to me.

What I don’t appreciate is the question that so often follows.

“So, do you know them?”

Oh, sure. I see them at our weekly meetings. There’s coffee, donuts, free WD-40 to quiet the squeakiest wheels…

Just because I use a wheelchair doesn’t mean I know every other person in my area who uses one.

But you know what bugs me even more?

When I DO know the person they mention.

Maybe we played wheelchair rugby together or took one of the many adapted physical fitness classes offered by our local community college together.

Maybe they’re a friend of a friend or we attended the same event or fundraiser or something.

This bugs me because it reinforces some people’s preconceived notion that, for whatever reason, everyone in a wheelchair knows one another.

When this became a stereotype, I can’t honestly say. All I know is it’s alive and well and being passed on to a new generation.

This one bugs me the most. This is inexcusable. And it still happens despite the fact that people should know better.

Some people see me roll up in my wheelchair and jump to the conclusion that I have an intellectual disability.

Please don’t misunderstand me; there’s nothing wrong with living with an intellectual disability.

What pisses me off is the assumption people make based on seeing me use a wheelchair. It’s the idea that I need to be spoken to loudly and in simple terms, for the sole reason that I can’t walk.

Or, when people talk about me like I’m not there, like I’m incapable of understanding, that I’m unable to converse on their level, that I can’t advocate for myself or communicate.

It’s so insulting, I can’t describe it without long and horrific strands of profanity, which I’m won’t do…because I’m a motherfucking gentleman.

I know that part of living in a society is being forced to interact with other people. And I know that, sometimes, we’re going to rub each other the wrong way, often without meaning to.

What I’m advocating for is that we all try to be mindful of what we do and say. That we try to be considerate of others. That we not make assumptions based solely on what we see.

And, for shit’s sake, get out of the damned handicapped spot when someone’s trying to park there.

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