Ableism is a reality everyone in the disability community will experience in their lifetime. My first memory of ableism happened when I was eight years old. I remember going out in public and randomly receiving “gifts” from people without doing anything to earn them. Around this time, I only used my manual wheelchair when taking longer trips, since I knew that walking would be difficult. Every time I used my wheelchair, I felt strange. My internal ableism attacked me from many places. I didn’t feel right using a wheelchair because I felt more “normal” in my walker. I was able to blend into society more easily when I walked around. Society’s negative and pitiful views of my mobility aid influenced how I saw myself.
On several other occasions when I went to my local indoor amusement park, I received free stuffed animals just because I was out and about, like a normal kid. Initially, I thought these gifts came from a place of kindness. However, many of them came from places of pity and misplaced charity. I usually identified the kind individuals. They were the people who would talk to me directly, explain their experiences with disabled people, and ask questions that I felt comfortable with. Other adults used the gift–giving as a teachable moment. They bypassed my feelings and invalidated me as I tried to say that my disability was not anyone’s story to tell except mine. It took a few years to understand why this dynamic felt so harmful.
As a teen, I took my frustrated feeling out on my mobility aid and not on society’s negative views of me. I began to see my wheelchair as something that made people pity me and not see me for who I was. Internally, my experience made me isolated. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my story. I didn’t want to be seen as inspirational for just being me and having dreams, and I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. I didn’t feel like I had a choice about when I wanted to share my story. Nowadays, I see the experience differently.