YSK That many people with a disability consider their aides (wheelchair, etc.) an extension of themselves. You should ask before touching or moving them.

[u/LtSoundwave]

Read this article and was surprised to hear how many people struggle with this. Even if you are trying to help, you should ask first.

www.bbc.com/news/disability-49584591

[u/Liquid_Is_A_Paper]

THIS. I only need to use a chair on the worse days - most days I don't need any mobility aids; the disability still affects the way I move and do things, but I'm able to walk unaided most of the time. As a result, I'm often made to feel like a fraud or fake or something when I DO have to use my chair - even though trying to move without it on bad days would be at best painful and at worse dangerous.

Non-disabled people have a very set and rigid idea of what constitutes "real" disability, and that needs to change.

[u/blindchickruns → u/Liquid_Is_A_Paper]

Do not get me started on the people who think I am faking blindness. News flash, most legally blind individuals have some useable vision. Yes, I can see enough to look towards your face. I can still see the symbols of the products I use because they have been the same since before my eyes went to shit. The fact that I am capable of looking at your face, does not mean I can actually focus on it. I'm getting bad enough now I can't necessarily guess a gender just from facial features anymore. Sorry, I'm not faking Karen; it's really time to see someone about your narcissism now.

Sorry. Just venting. But it's like the cane brings the attention of narcissistic personalities because they sense weakness. It's very bizarre.

[u/rkei → u/blindchickruns]

Yeah that’s awful.... I’ll be honest, I’d never tell someone “oh, you’re not blind” (because how rude is that??), but somehow I never really understood the “blind doesn’t mean I see black like when you close your eyes” thing until I heard of Molly Burke (legally blind, looks not blind, does tons of YouTube videos about her life + Q&As on blindness etc). I even knew one of my mom’s friends was blind but I didn’t realize just how much remaining vision she had or how common it was until then - in retrospect, i think “legally blind” implied “but not bliiind blind, just really bad” somehow? Made much more sense in retrospect but it just didn’t click before that.

[u/blindchickruns → u/rkei]

Yeah. The vision I once had is just no longer there. The best way I can describe it is I am falling slowly into an abyss. There is no color to be seen. It just doesn't exist. That feature is being slowly removed over time.

[u/haelennaz → u/rkei]

I also didn't understand this until I had a class with a woman who had a guide dog but could read a laptop if the print was so large that you could only fit a few letters on screen at a time. And then one day she told me my coat looked really warm! I was surprised at first, but it was a long puffy coat, so I realized she must have been able to compare my normal size and shape with what I looked like that day, and logic would of course dictate that I don't actually expand when the weather is extremely cold, so I must have a large coat.

[u/black_raven98 → u/Liquid_Is_A_Paper]

I work a lot with people who are disabled in one way ore another (paramedic) and it's astonishing how most people have the idea that wheelchair equals totally unable to walk. Like that's the rare exception.

Most people that use wheelchairs are perfectly capable of standing up with some assistance while holding on to a handrail or something. That's literally how we transfer them from the wheelchair onto our chair most of the time, standing up with assistance and swapping chairs. Quite a few are also capable of walking arround their house on flat floors while holding onto stuff or using other aids like a cane or crutches for short distances like the way to the toilet. They just lack the strength or coordination to walk for extended periods of time or over obstacles like slopes or stairs.

Like yea grandma can make you a coffee when you visit because she just has to stand for a short time while being able to hold onto the kitchen counter, but if you want to take her for a stroll because the weather is nice she needs a wheelchair because her legs get wobbly after walking past 2 houses. Or the dude with cerebral palsy can get out of his wheelchair to go to the toilet at the restaurant while bracing against a wall on flat ground but can't get out of the restaurant without it because that small hight difference at the door is something that will definitely make him fall.

Wheelchair only means you are unable to walk arround the way people without disability would even if you used other aids like crutches.

[u/rkei → u/black_raven98]

Yup, used to help people with disabilities during summers, several little old ladies with disabilities also had a wheelchair for long distances. They sometimes would get up & wander away from their chairs if they got bored of whatever activity was going on that day, and I’d turn around from assisting another guest and have to figure out where she went. Definitely not a always in the chair thing!

[u/rkei → u/Liquid_Is_A_Paper]

Yuuup. I was on crutches for several weeks a year or so ago after injuring my ankle. It wasn’t like, broken, just injured enough that it hurt & needed to heal. So after the first couple days to a week, I could walk if I had to, for small but increasing distances - but I definitely wasn’t supposed to. I’m pretty heavy, and because of that the doctor told me not to walk on it as much as possible until it stopped hurting to, or it wouldn’t heal properly/take way longer.

Thing is I still had to move around at work to get to cupboards etc, and walking a couple steps from the chair they let me use (vs standing like normal) to the cupboards was doable after I went back a week or two in. So I’d feel super self conscious grabbing the crutches again when I had to go further, from where they were leaning next to me, and sometimes I just brought one to use - which was kind of harder but felt less weird somehow. Probably because with just one leaning up beside me vs two, they didn’t fall over as much.