Useful information, sent to I, Anonymous:
Until recently, to walk, I wore braces no one could see. My new scooter has given me freedom, but at least eight times a day someone asks me if I need help. They do not wait for a response to give said “help””and I am supposed to understand because “they were only trying to help.”
Yesterday the battery on my scooter died. As I worked on restarting the battery, not in any way needing help, a lady came from behind. “Do you need a push?” she asked, shoving painfully and directly onto my inoperable slipped C-6 disc as she grabbed the back of my scooter seat and pushed as hard and fast as she possibly could. Finally, I yelled, with the pain and all the many offers of unsolicited help reminding me that I must appear very helpless indeed. Enough!
“Never, never, never grab a disabled person or their mobility device!” I told her. “Please only offer help when the person asks for it, which in some way, we are all perfectly capable of doing ourselves!.” She looked horribly offended and I went on: “Listen, on the Internet we have sites where we organize about this stuff, and we talk about how we MUST educate people not throw us off balance by grabbing us without our permission and to stop constantly asking us if we need help when independence is what we need—if we needed help, we would tell you. That’s not just me—that’s a whole movement, with a slogan: ‘Only the assistance that we ask for! Nothing more! Nothing more!‘”
Surprised, she explained that I must not know what I was talking about, and said, “It’s our world, get over it.” [Editor’s note: Really?]
“No!” I said. “It’s our civil rights movement, you get over it! You need to be educated to stop grabbing people.” People only ask to help us because you think we look helpless. It takes up a lot of our time. STOP! You want to touch me because we know one another and are displaying gentle affection, fine—-otherwise, hands off me,my scooter,and my comrades.
STOP!
