#8 Life with a wheelchair in it
Dec. 9th, 2014 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettAlas, part of the reason I am so wrung out, so strung out, so tired and sad at the moment - is precisely that I have been living a life without a wheelchair in it, that I've been avoiding not been able to face the mechanics of getting it up stairs and dealing with buses and on and on and on. I just... can't. And in turn that means I get tireder, and it's all a bit grim.
Democracy is the worst form of government ever tried, and all that. I resent that I am ill enough to need a chair. I resent that it forces interactions in public space. I resent so much.
None of it is about resenting the chair. The chair means I can sit up without things hurting; the chair means travelling 500m doesn't exhaust me (I don't even know how to deal with the idea of gradually building up stamina when walking 500m on one or even two or three consecutive days isn't a problem, but beyond that I don't recover, I don't get better or stronger or faster, I just get ground down).
And yet: it is so difficult not to resent myself, not to resent the tools I need, because of the ways in which interaction with the world work. And it's further complicated by the fact that resenting my body ends up resenting the chair by implication, not because my body necessitates it but because it is part of my body. I'm not quite sure how to explain this to people without the relevant experience, but -- it's an insensate part of my body; thus the intimacy of people-who-are-permitted-to-touch-it-without-asking and thus the revulsion and horror and discomfort when people not in that set do.
Perhaps that is some of why I'm finding this hard to talk about: fundamentally I think I think about life-with-a-wheelchair in approximately the same way as I think about life-with-my-brain or life-with-my-hips: essential, unreliable, often inconvenient, doesn't play nicely with others, and of necessity something to nonetheless be kind and compassionate to. Over and over I learn patience, and I do what I can with what I have, and I keep my head down and get on and try not to break my heart dreaming about the impossible. Or, to circle back around: it's a lot like living with my brain.
Democracy is the worst form of government ever tried, and all that. I resent that I am ill enough to need a chair. I resent that it forces interactions in public space. I resent so much.
None of it is about resenting the chair. The chair means I can sit up without things hurting; the chair means travelling 500m doesn't exhaust me (I don't even know how to deal with the idea of gradually building up stamina when walking 500m on one or even two or three consecutive days isn't a problem, but beyond that I don't recover, I don't get better or stronger or faster, I just get ground down).
And yet: it is so difficult not to resent myself, not to resent the tools I need, because of the ways in which interaction with the world work. And it's further complicated by the fact that resenting my body ends up resenting the chair by implication, not because my body necessitates it but because it is part of my body. I'm not quite sure how to explain this to people without the relevant experience, but -- it's an insensate part of my body; thus the intimacy of people-who-are-permitted-to-touch-it-without-asking and thus the revulsion and horror and discomfort when people not in that set do.
Perhaps that is some of why I'm finding this hard to talk about: fundamentally I think I think about life-with-a-wheelchair in approximately the same way as I think about life-with-my-brain or life-with-my-hips: essential, unreliable, often inconvenient, doesn't play nicely with others, and of necessity something to nonetheless be kind and compassionate to. Over and over I learn patience, and I do what I can with what I have, and I keep my head down and get on and try not to break my heart dreaming about the impossible. Or, to circle back around: it's a lot like living with my brain.
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Date: 2014-12-09 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-10 10:14 pm (UTC)In the past six months MyGuy has been around to play taxi, and I've been using my chair less and less. Now that I'm revisiting the walking world (with a rolling walker or canes), I'm re-encountering the process of moving between tall and small. There are so fewer barriers when I'm tall; it's so much comfier when I'm small. Sadly my cultural context privileges other people's comfort over my own.
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Date: 2014-12-10 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-18 03:55 pm (UTC)Must admit my reaction was pretty much OMG! when I saw the stairs you have to get the chair up to get it to the street (Engineer-Brain keeps toying with winches and tracks...)
This! So much this! WRT crutches at the moment, obviously, but I just can't get the rest of the family to understand that I don't want my crutches taken and stood in the corner (or worse, out of sight) if, say, we're out for a meal. But they'll be in the way! My sister is absolutely horrendous at not understanding this one. And other people's fascination with them as playthings.... {shudder}.