Do any other wheelchair drivers hear this a lot?
It always amazes me how people, usually those without any impairments at all, feel entitled to ask this and pry into your life. Does anyone else find that the answer “I can’t walk” (or “I can’t walk far” or “I can’t walk without pain”) is deemed to be insufficient by the nosy person?
Why does anyone feel they have the right to know this?
What bugs me even more than this is the number of people who tell me that I could walk if I only I tried, or if I tried harder, and I shouldn’t give up. Then they tell me some supposedly inspiring story about some friend of theirs who lost a leg, usually in a warzone, and that they never gave up on walking and so neither should I. Thanks, now that makes me feel like I’m useless too, wonderful. How do they know I can walk again? Have they stopped to think about how much it hurts? How exhausting it is?
Why are they so bothered about whether I walk or not? Why is using a wheelchair seen as “giving up” anyway? Actually, what gives them the right to demand that I put myself in pain or risk injuring myself anyway?
Answer with an equally irrelevant question:
Why are you wearing shoes?
Why are you wearing glasses?
Why do you drive a car?
Why do you have a raincoat?
Or you could opt to completey deny it:
I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
Lasciame sola.
What wheelchair?
The wheelchair is a paradox.
