Anonymous Interviews: A Disabled Person
In this continuing series, I conduct a completely real, completely anonymous interview with a person I find interesting. Identities are protected to emphasize the truth. This time, I chatted with a person with a physical disability.
What are some ways that your life has been different from an able-bodied person?
There are so many aspects of life that are just not built for disabled people. For instance, the homes that we live in. My parents weren't expecting to have a disabled child and they didn't have a lot of money. They didn't have a house that was set up for a disabled child, nor did they have the money to make their house accessible. So I grew up in a house that had stairs going into my house, stairs inside my house. Not being able to reach the sink, having to learn how to climb in and out of the bathtub - things like that.
A lot of times people are surprised that I have no idea how to get anywhere. Because from a young age, I never could even see outside of a car when people were driving. So I never bothered to learn my way around or think about directions anywhere. Things that are just ingrained in you are not ingrained in me. I'm clueless about certain things. Like, I don't know how to cook. I still don't know how to cook because most ovens or stoves are just a little bit too high for me. There are people that will buy a new home and make their home very accessible for them. But I've never been able to do that. I’ve never had the money.
What are the main things you wish you could do that you can’t?
I would say cooking would be one of them. That's something I could learn how to do, but there's still a challenge there. It would be cool to be able to go to the beach. I love beaches, but I've only been to two in my lifetime where they actually had beach wheelchairs available. Those things are really cool, but they’re very rare. I can’t really get around on a beach. And beaches are awesome.
That’s something that wouldn’t even occur to me. Of course you can’t go to the beach.
When I was a child, that kind of thing actually never really occurred to me either because I was really small and easy to pick up. People would just carry me everywhere. So growing up, I didn't necessarily think the beaches were inaccessible, because my dad would carry me on to the sand and out into the ocean. Then you get older and that becomes much harder for anybody to pick you up and carry you around.
What are some of the hoops you have to jump through to get through life?
I would say one big obstacle would be finding employment. No one wants to hire a person that they're worried is not going to be able to get around. They'll assume that you can't do things even if you tell them that you can. I actually got rejected once at a McDonald's interview. I mean, that sounds ridiculous. Everybody gets hired at McDonald's. And I had even worked at another McDonald's previously. I would sit in the drive-through and take people's orders. There are jobs that people with disabilities can do. But people would just kind of look at me and not want to hire me.
Do you wish you weren’t disabled?
Yes and no. I do wish that things were just easier. It’s not that I wish I could walk. But I wish that I didn't have these challenges. It's very stressful and it can be very alienating. I would feel more of a part of the world and society if I weren't disabled.
You said ‘yes and no.’ What about the ‘no’ part?
I wouldn't be me if I weren't disabled. I would be someone else. That's actually part of what Disability Pride is. I'm actually proud of my disability because I've overcome a lot. If I were an able-bodied person, I might have different thoughts. I might be doing completely different things.
And you like the person you are.
Exactly. I like my life. I like who I am.
Are there any advantages to being disabled?
You and I could go to Six Flags right now and just get on a ride and not have to wait in line, which is pretty cool.
I do see the nice side of people from being in a wheelchair. I feel like I've seen a different side of humanity in some ways.
How so?
For example, if I were to fall out of my wheelchair in public - everybody would come to help me. People you would think were total assholes would stop and help a person in a wheelchair. People will stop and grab the door for me. I feel like I have seen people's kinder side. Because people do care.
How would you say your personality has been shaped by being disabled?
I spent a lot of time in my childhood very still because I couldn't move. So I feel like that made me learn how to be happy without even having some sort of activity involved. I've learned how to be happy just by being there, just being alive. And I think that it probably helped me get inside my own mind and get inside my imagination.
How happy of a person are you?
I can confidently say that I'm a happy person, but I can also confidently say that I am filled with constant depression and sadness from feeling alienated and isolated from society. I was a very happy child. When people would come over and meet me when I was really young, they would always say “he's such a happy little boy.”
And then, I got a little bit older - probably around like 10 to 12 years old - and I started to get quieter and sadder. And then people said “I thought he was such a happy child. Why is he becoming more introverted?” I started to see my life and how I fit into the world. And that probably made me shut down a little bit. Then in early high school, I started to find a real friend circle and I started to learn how to make myself happy. But there was always that underlying sadness of the reality of being disabled.
Then, there was a time in my early to later twenties when I was a much more depressed person than I am now. I was super withdrawn, didn't say much. People thought I was just a really quiet person. In fact, around that time I wanted to die. I thought a lot about how I wanted to kill myself. There was one time where I was riding my wheelchair on the road and there was like a truck coming in the other direction and I felt tempted to just turn my wheelchair and run right in front of the truck. Because back then, I just had a hard time knowing what to do with myself. No women were sexually attracted to me or at least that's how I felt.
And that's terrible for a guy in his twenties.
Yeah. When you're in your twenties, that's what you wanna be doing, right? You wanna be having sex with people. But then a little later, I started becoming less depressed. I don't know if smoking weed had anything to do with it, but it was also around that time I started smoking weed and becoming more confident in myself. I started dressing more in clothes that I wanted to wear and taking myself more seriously as a person. I guess I had more self-respect or something at that point.
What do you think changed? Because when I look at my depression, what changed for me was getting into therapy and changing my perspective that way.
Well, I actually never went to therapy, so I guess in a way maybe I was my own therapist. Because I feel like part of being disabled is that you learn how to survive on your own. There's a feeling of being alone in the world when you're disabled. Even if you're surrounded by people who love you. Which I am. I have a great family. But you just feel alone because there's not really anyone who can relate to what you're going through. So you learn how to survive on your own. So maybe that's one of the advantages to being disabled. You learn how to be a survivor.
Growing up, most of us go through an angry phase. I imagine that anger at the disability must be another level of anger.
It is. And I've never really known how to handle that. I've been known to fly off the handle sometimes because I bottle up that anger. I still do. I've gotten better though. It's been a while since I flew off the handle at somebody. But I used to do it a lot more. It has damaged my friendships over the years and I've had to work on that.
The powerlessness you must have to deal with.
Yes. And the reaction to that powerlessness was just me yelling. Because what else am I gonna do? I can't stand up. I'm not gonna get up and walk away. So I’ll just lose my shit.
What are some of the weirdest reactions you've gotten from people when they first encounter you?
I think a lot of people often wonder “can he speak? Is he mentally disabled as well as physically disabled?” So I feel like sometimes people don't necessarily know how to talk to me when they first meet me. They'll talk to me like a little kid or something. I've gotten that a lot.
When I first met you, I thought “this guy’s fucking stoned.”
Yeah, well - that’s accurate.
What are the worst ways you’ve been treated?
I used to get insecure about how children would react to me. Because children often act shocked when they see me. I've had children have outbursts. I'll just pass by them in the mall and they'll be like “what was that?” They'll just yell it out loud to their parents. Now I think it's funny and I'll smile and wave to them if they react that way.
But then it becomes sort of your responsibility to comfort a kid. You didn’t ask for that shit.
No, but I've had to get used to it.
How responsible do you feel to represent disabled people in a certain way?
I actually feel very responsible. Everywhere I go, it’s right there in the front of my mind. I make a point to smile at people. And I know that all disabled people aren't like that. They might see it as a weakness to feel the need to smile all the time. But I don't see it that way because I want people to see the happiness that I really do feel in life. That's why I smile at people and, and try to be as friendly as possible. When people pass by me, they might expect to see a miserable guy in a wheelchair. I want them to see I'm a joyful person and there's a lot more to me than the fact that I have a disability.
I get to walk around and not have to think about any of that.
That's why I used to shut down when I was younger because I felt like I shouldn't have to do that. And then at some point, I realized that it's not that I have to do it. I want to do it. I want people to see that I'm not just a sad guy in a wheelchair. I'm not being phony. I actually like people. I like my life. But I do it with purpose.
It sounds like a mission in some ways.
Exactly. It’s like a mission.
What do you wish were in the world that would make things easier for you?
There should be more education about disability in schools. If I had had a class when I was younger about sex ed for disabled people or gym class for disabled people... I grew up having to go to gym class and just sit there and watch people do stuff. And occasionally there would be an activity that I could get included in, like pull-ups or something. But I would just sit there. Those kinds of things really make you feel very separate from society, separate from everybody. I still struggle with relating to people because of things like that.
What do you want to say to anyone who's reading this?
It's important for people to understand the perspectives of disabled people because you're going to encounter it at some point in your life, whether you become disabled or somebody that you know and love becomes disabled. A lot of the challenges that I've had in my lifetime have been simply because of a lack of understanding of how disabled people can fit into society. And I'm still trying to figure it out. I think society is still trying to figure it out. The more we all can understand it, the happier we will all be.
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