Not sure if this is the place to post this, but here goes. As a survivor, I have always been disappointed by others unwillingness to recognise my disability. This is an example. I belong to a Quaker Meeting and Quakers are supposed to be very caring and proud of their belief in equality. After our Meeting we always have coffee. Yesterday, there were not many of us there so people decided to make their own. As I am now mostly one handed, I did go to try but could not. To my surprise, no one offered to help me so I went coffee-less. A small example, but something we survivors have to endure. If people don’t want you to be disabled, they become blind to it. I said nothing and still no one noticed. So the equality loving Quakers were oblivious to their own blindness to the disability of another, fir whatever reason.
thanks for the post JJ. I have been reading the theologian John M Hull who is very interesting on the role of disabled people in our communities.Over a period he became totally blind. there is a short film about his life and he's written several books one autobiographical and the one I am reading is an accessible theological one called In the beginning there was darkness. mostly reflections on biblical treatment of blindness but I found it relevant to disability more generally, as I have been experiencing the world as a disabled person. it took a while to accept that that is now an important part of who I am. I still don't like it much. and my recent experience of disablism at work was deeply shocking, and I am not over it by a long way. I worked for a charity where one would expect a more enlightened approach. People just do not know how to respond to disabled people. there is much work for us to do to change attitudes.
let us know how things develop.
thanks for the post which I found very interesting.
Tony
Thank you Tony.
Hi John, it is indeed very upsetting to think that could happen, in what should be a caring community, and the same for Tony working for a charity. I wonder what it would take for people to be more observant, and then to act on something they've noticed?
I think part of it is that people do not like to admit that stroke disables you. I also think they like to support the principle of equality but are less conscious of practical implications. It just saddens me a little.
Saddens me a lot - seriously, make a friend a cup of coffee!! You are a far more patient person that me, I don't think I could have let it go!! We're all just one moment away from a life-changing experience, "Do unto others...." I seem to remember from Sunday School days.
So glad that you, Colin & Kay have been keeping in touch with Tinkerbell, I think it's really giving her confidence to know that, given time, her husband will make a recovery. It's a lonely place and time for the partners, as you are only too aware, I recognise myself in what she is currently experiencing, and how lucky I felt when I found this forum xx
As another carer, your input for Tinherbell will be a great boost. Only another SS can understand whta he is going through. Likewise only another carer will understand what Tinkerbell is going through.
Dear John
I am so much in line with your observations and thinking. Dealing with the rest of society is mindblowing.
I still think we should all move to the Isle of Wight and be in the company of our fellow stroke survivors.
Dont think that people can cope with any illness/disability that lasts more than six weeks. I also dont think that anyone grasps that our brains are damaged and we have a resultant disability.
Ironically, I make the coffee for everyone else in my prayer etc groups. At first I could do just two drinks at a time. Now I do ten. But no, they dont grasp what I cant do.
Colin
I would have found that to be very hurtful especially from people who I thought would have known better. I had a similar experience when a lady asked if she could go ahead of me in a queue. I was waiting holding on to my wheeled frame to pay for a bottle of water. In front the lady had ordered a very complicated coffee drink that took a good 10 minutes to sort. The lady who wanted to " jump" the queue wanted to do so because she had a bus to catch. She was fully able bodied I seen her working out in the gym at the same time as me. I explained I only wanted to pay for a bottle of water and had the right money so I wouldn't real delay her. She wasn't pleased but excepted my rationale. I' m a very large lady and I walk with a large four wheeled frame so she couldn't miss me but maybe like "animal farm" some people are more equal than others.
Hope it doesn't happen again.