Dear Denise and List, > There have been a couple of comments about people who looked quite able > bodied using disabled parking spaces. I'd like to tell you a bit about my > youngest sister, Tina. (snip) >
How I can sympathize with your sister! I've had arthritis since my mid-twenties. There were bad times at the beginning - months on end when getting me out of bed was the big achievement for the day - but it's settled down, and I've learnt a lot about how to cope since then. One of the things I've learned is that good days can be turned into bad days by overdoing it. There are times when I've looked and felt reasonably normal, and pain doesn't necessarily appear early enough to be a useful message: it may not come on until the next day, and then take ten days or a fortnight to go away again. Also, however much I may take care, there is an accumulation of residual damage over the years. So there have been times when I've looked young and active, and still qualified for my permit. And I can understand why others might look askance, when I've often forgotten myself that I've got to take care. However, what annoys me now is that the presence of my walking stick means I get frequent offers intended for the over-65s when I'm only just over 50 years old. Despite doing my best to dress well, dye my hair, (drug treatments drained a lot of the colour by my early 30s), and stand up straight and walk properly, these things will keep happening. Now, I can understand when youngsters do it - to them, everyone over twenty is 'old' - but when people of my own age or a lot older do it, I can't help but feel affronted. And the worst insult of all is when people assume that a movement disability is bound to mean a brain disability, and so they treat me as if I were a small child. But then I suppose that's an improvement on the times when I've had to use a wheelchair: then I've met a lot of people who assume it means I'm like a baby in a pram, and they direct all their conversation to the person with me. Well-known as the "does he take sugar in his tea" syndrome: I suppose it saves them having to conduct a conversation with someone who is below their eye-level. This has even happened to me at academic conferences at universities, (even at Oxford University), where I can only suppose that other attendees assumed that my sister had brought me along in mistake for her briefcase . . . Well, I'm sorry for this long rant - I can see that I must have needed to get these things off my chest, and I'm grateful for the opportunity of your attention. To get back to parking for my conclusion. It doesn't worry me at all to show my permit if I'm asked; it has my photograph inside, so I can be identified as someone who has been checked out repeatedly by the government medical authorities, and has really 'earned' her permit. It doesn't surprise me, either, when parking attendants tell me that mine is the first genuine request for special parking that they've seen all day. How odd is it that fit people are willing to take on the bad social perceptions accompanying being seen as a disabled person, just for the sake of convenient parking? It's often said that someone who becomes blind or deaf develops other senses to compensate for their loss. Whatever and whenever disability strikes, the thing you need to do most is to develop your sense of humour. Looking on the bright side, I suppose that the recent trend to providing easier parking spaces and easier access to shops for disabled people is part of a wider recognition that we might have money to spend - which seems to be the only guarantee that you are a qualified human being these days. At least we're not automatically designated as witches any more! Yours sincerely, Linda Walton, (in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K., where it's grey and gloomy, and is forecast to be wet and windy, a great day for sitting indoors and making lace, but I've got to go out and chair a committee meeting). To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
