That's generally what you end up having to do when you
explain any of your disability-related problems: you end up being embarrassed, and having to be contrite.

But you know what? It's fucking annoying experiencing a sea change in the way people react to you. My dad was a fit army man but got a serious head injury, so he experienced it first hand. But it's something I've only had to experience gradually, what with slowly improving mobility/general ability to do stuff since birth. Here's how it works:

Total dependence on a wheelchair: everyone goes out of their way to be nice, apart from some twats who throw rocks at you and call you 'spacker' and some idiots who lean over you and think only the person pushing you can talk and accessing any facilities whatsoever, with people often quite blase about which facilities are accessible and which aren't. DOES ANYONE CARE? Honest.

Wobbling obvious-crippledom: people are nice to you on the face of it, and then ditch you once it becomes obvious you're slowing them down; certain people still go out of their way to help, but it wears really thin as you start working out how to do stuff; certain hardnuts - PE teachers, mostly - make a point of humiliating you in public, which is great. ALL I AM IS A PERSON! JUST TALK TO ME LIKE YOU WOULD YOUR MATES.

Medium un-coordination: people start denying you have any disability whatsoever; parents move their kids out of your way because they think you're the local paedophile; hardliners shout at you if you use the disabled seats on the bus. PISS OFF I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO SIT HERE! I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR KIDS. I HATE KIDS.

Good days: people treat you like they would treat others, except when you EVER mention you have a disability, in which case they either start bumbling around and saying "Oh... erm... I'd never have guessed", or they get really angry and tell you about a member of their family who is much more disabled than you are and start shouting "how can YOU say YOU'RE disabled?!", meaning you become the Incredible Hulk and injure them badly. DIE.

It's true - even if you've had a disability for 25 years, once you reach a certain point you lose the right, in the eyes of the public, to be disabled.

It's as if everything you fought for was a lie.
(sjflangehound, Mon 5 Apr 2010, 6:37, 1 reply)

these replies are a testament
to the fact that disability can be just as damaging psychologically as physically, as you intimated Trauma.

I have had chronic back pain for 8 years since 18, has been an absolute bitch and ruined a lot of things for me. Find myself getting bitter when I look on Facebook and see all my friends, old and new, doing nice things together, or having a good time in photos, and I get jealous. If my back didn't fuck up I could have been there, if I wasn't sore all the time that could have been me, it should have been me.

Which is, of course, silly. Can't change what you did, or who you are, just have to get on with it. Doesn't make it easy some days. Sorry, I needed to type that out, been getting a bit much recently. I say! I nearly started crying!

I think you are in an unluckier than normal position having crutches, as someone said, people usually assume it is a temporary illness and therefore one they can relate to. It's important to not get bitter about people trying to help you, however hard it is, but I guess you know this and it was a semi cathartic rant like mine.
(Lannes, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 0:37, closed)