I have spent more years, more time, on crutches than I care to remember. <Knee injury as a teen, took years to get fixed right> I often felt invisible when negotiating sidewalks and hallways and such on them. Annoying, and it hurt at the time.
Much more recently I had surgery on my left foot <heel spur repair, called a Plantar Fascia Release> that necessitated me being in a wheelchair for the month of Dec.'99. The couple of times I got Mr Bear to take me shopping for presents I was completely ignored by almost everyone. And, I kept getting stuck, and he’d have to back me out and find another way around the store because the aisles weren’t wide enough for the wheelchair. The walkways between racks was even worse. And, no one would move out of my way, or help me get by a rack of clothes <most of which hit me in the face or arms as I attempted to get by>. I’ve never felt so invisible in my life, before or since.
I thank God every day that it was only temporary for me. Too many people can’t say that, and have few options. I gained a new appreciation for what handicapped people must face every day, everywhere they go. I can’t even tell you that one person actually looked down at me, at my face. They would address their remarks to my hubby, as if I wasn’t there.
So, yes, to answer you, lee, I felt invisible all last December. Except to my family and close friends of course.
:wally
I know exactly what that’s like. I was in a car accident that broke my left leg, left arm, 3 ribs, I hyperextended my right knee, and hit my head so hard I now need to wear glasses (well, I’m supposed to, I rarely do). While both legs were healing, I was being pushed around in a wheelchair. I’m already cranky that I’m in the damn chair, and then someone would completey ignore me and ask my mother, sister, or father (whoever was puching the chair at the time) how I was doing. While usually I would be ok with it, not wanting to talk about the accident anyway, occasionally that would just grate my last nerve and I’d answer before anyone else could, in my most sarcastic voice, “I have one working limb, I can’t move, I can’t even bathe myself, it hurts to breathe, but other than that I’m fuckin peachy.” This kept up after I got out of the wheelchair and during my stint on canadian crutches (yep, had to do that too). People didn’t start asking me how I was doing until I was using just a regular cane. (I walk just fine and unaided now, if anyone was wondering)
I just don’t understand why ask someone else a question about someone who’s right there.
all the time.
:rolleyes:
whenever i was with my ex and we ran into friends, a whole conversation would ensue without my being introduced once, and then if i was, it was after i said something like, “hi, i’m nobody important, just this guy she hired to eventually take home tonite, my names Allan piàcere!..”
and then she’d be both upset at my snide self introduction, and embarrassed at her mistake. In retrospect, i enjoyed those moments most and least at the same time. HEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOOOO! YOU LISTENING???, SHEESH
i am invisible.
For those that think you are too mouthy to become invisible, you are wrong. You might not stay as invisible for some breif moments, but believe me, if you were disfigured, in a wheel chair, on canadian crutches, then ppl would treat you as invisible by default and it would take constant battling not to stay that way.
To add to this topic, one of the difficulties that my husband and I faced when we were first together was that people got mad that we would be affectionate in public. Even holding hands drew stares.
The student union would be littered with couples actually laying on top of each other groping and liplocked and yet if I sat next to him, his arms around me, and me occasionally kissing him, then ppl got mad. We were asked by a school official not to be affectionate in public because of his condition. We were told that it was simply innappropriate for him to act like that. Has anyone experienced that sort of thing?
That doesn’t even make sense to me. What possible justification could they have for asking that you two not be affectionate? That sounds like plain old prejudice, and as such, stupidity.
yes lee, a girlfriend i had 3 years ago, we worked together, and it was the same thing. We were told not to show any type of affection on the floor, yet, any married couples there (there were 2) would be groping at given moments and not a word was said to them. i was still invisible to her friends though.
Hurt my leg on a trip–way to spend five days, ugh–and to cheer me up, my friends and hubby took me to my favorite restaurant. It was packed. All the benches were taken in the waiting area, so we moved out of the main walkway. I think every person there took some serious time to look me over. I felt like I’d run over somebody’s dog. Not one of them smiled sympathetically or offered to get up so I could sit (it was obvious I was struggling with the crutches). My friend noticed all this and said jokingly that I should know better than to upset these nice healthy people with my ugly injury. How were they supposed to enjoy their meal with me hobbling about? If I was really hurt, I should have just stayed home. That got me laughing, which caused some people to actually grimace. Wow.
Finally, a bunch of people were seated in the restaurant and an older gentlemen who had just arrived saw that a bench was free. He came over to me and insisted I take the bench. When I thanked him and my husband explained how strange people treated us, he replied sadly, “Just wait until you’re old.”
Gave my perspective a serious whack into alignment.
…then there was the time i broke my foot and incurred a contusion in my heel from a rock climbing fall, was on (american?) crutches for 2 months, nobody let me sit on the subway the way i always do for others with physical disabilities or who just look plain tired, nobody bothered to move aside just a bit or help me out going up stairs on the subways the way i always did, just ignored the guy with crutches. A lady even stepped on my foot once, then gave me a dirty look. rat bastard b!+*$ that she was. made me wanna stop being nice to anyone. just completely invisible. perhaps it’s a talent of mine. i love the way the general populace just stares at someone and doesn’t move to do anything, hope they all realize that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to them just the same. putzes!
People try to make me invisible. I am a not beautiful, not skinny, not white, not male person who, at first glance, seems mousey and unassuming. I also try to be polite and not butt in to other people’s conversation.
Then the waitress passes by me for the fifth time without pausing. . . and I trip her!
See, I have no shame. I will and have embarrassed my whole family because, although I look unassuming, I’m actually very loud and attention-getting. And it is true that people will look at me as if I’ve grown another head when I make my presence known.
It’s getting better as I get older, but it used to be horrid if I went out to dinner with some chicks. It’s like the waitress was thinking, “Hmmm…young women. They look fairly bohemian. Won’t leave good tip. Not out to impress anyone. Low on my priority list.” I took to bringing toys into resturants, and playing with them while waiting to order. THAT usually got thier attention quickly, a customer with her head in her hand playing with a collapsable string doll.
My father is a disabiltity activist (not professionally,) and I wish invisibiltity was the only problem. It’s pretty hard to be seen when you can’t even get into the building. Feh.
purplebear, pinky, swiddles, i notice you. you’re not invisible. hell pinky, i noticed you didn’t trip the waitress at dinner at nyc doperfest, and we were definitely being ignored for some time, what gives? that’s the least i could’ve seen since there was no puke…
So many of your stories have prompted me to make a renewed effort at politeness and courtesy to EVERYONE! I’m aware of the problem; one of my good friends has a severely mentally handicapped daughter. She’s often ignored. Of course when I see her I always greet her, kiss her or pat her head, as I try to do with any child. My friend’s sister-in-law is the worst, though; one time she brought McDonald’s for all the children and skipped Emily. Like the kid doesn’t eat!
And, if it’s ok, I’d like to off hugs to soulsling and Pink Slinky. Hope that’s OK. You’re very visible and very beautiful, to me. :o
I have had the opposite problem, Normally I am not invisible just get normal attention like anyone else. I took to wearing my hair long a few years ago and in a pony tail, since I bear a slight resembelence to the actor Steven Segall (sp) people began paying too much attention to me , some of his teen-aged fans called me “Nico” one of the characters he played on screen. When it got to the point I felt some of them wanted to try kick-boxing, I said enuf is enough and cut it short again. Now I am back to normal visibility. I pity those people who have become so well known they get the opposite treatment, they are too visible. I imagine it is as bad in its own way as being in a wheelchair.
About disabled “invisibility” feel that it is often that people do now want to stare, and are trying to be polite but overdoing it so they refuse to look at all.
Okay, I’m thinking, I won’t post again… because it will sound mean. But then I think to myself if I don’t post, I’m not being true to myself.
So, I have to be true to me. I already know a bunch of folks are just gonna jump my butt but:
GET OFF YOUR DUFF!
I think it was Eleanore Roosevelt who said, “No one has the right to make you feel inferior unless you give them permission” or some such.
Are you being ignored? Are you letting yourself be ignored? Then speak out! I can’t do it for you because Gods know I would if I were with you.
If you won’t take up your own space and say here I am world I have a hard time doing it for you.
I’m not Cindy Crawford, I’m not Brittany Spears, I don’t even look like these women on my best days but Gods know, you will see me.
I’m not yelling or screaming or practicing scales… I’m just me. I’ve had my entire face bashed in with an oar… ugly and dark and really, fucking, scary… but no one ever ignored me. I’ve hurt my body I don’t know how many times during boating, hiking, whatever… that doesn’t mean I become some washout, relegated to the back fence…
Who the fuck do you people hang with that you get treated like this? Not only that but why the fuck do you ALLOW yourselves to be treated that way?
That is obscene. Someone needs to get a clue and I think it’s you.
I would NEVER let anyone shove me into the corner and I don’t think you should either.
Sometimes I would like to have a nice dinner out, sometimes I just want to have a good time. The constant crusade to remain visible is tiring and has gotten me kicked out of more than one establishment. I boycott places that persistin doing that to either of us, but I see no way to prevent people from acting like that in the first place.
“Excuse me, I am standing right here and just asked you a question. Why are you talking to my companion instead?”
Sometimes when one of us says that, the person being addressed leaves rather than deal with the person being ignored.
…then there was the time i when all my friends and i were tripping and somehow i ended up being left behind in a room for 4 hours watching a scorpion hunt, kill, and eat a grasshopper in a small tank only to find out that afterwards all my friends had come back from their outdoor adventure in the 5 boroughs to end up in Staten Island and were looking for me there for the past 5 hours before realizing they left me back at the dorm with the scorpion and that they should hurry back to see if i was still alive…
** Pinky ** I thought they stuck you in the booth on purpose. As it was, what with me moving every 10 minutes, I think the waiter would have quit on the spot if he had to contend with the Foot of Pink.
and ** Soul ** you’re not invisible. Trust me. If acid can make the walls melt, it can make you loose track of who is adventuring with on a particular day.
Whaaaa? Why would you stare? “Golly, gee, that chick’s in a wheelchair. I ain’t never seen nuthin’ like that. That’s almost as excitin’ as when that black guy came to town a coupla weeks ago, ah-yup!” Prejudice is prejudice, regardless of what your rationalization is, :wally.
Byzantine you’re having trouble with empathy. You’re unable to see another’s point of view. As inconceivable as it is for you to be ignored (apparently), for others it is just as inconceivable to be assertive. I can’t completely characterize the feeling because I tend to be more gregarious than retiring. However, to tell someone to just shake it off and buck up is as unrealistic as telling someone who’s clinically depressed to just cheer up.
Actually we’re talking more personality traits rather than disorders, so that may be overstating it a bit. Still, a little more sensitivity on your part would help us examine the problem and discover solutions, rather than smiting those who’re experiencing it.
Thank you soulsling. You are such a dear. I definitely notice you too. <and flirt with you every chance I get!;)>
{{{{{{soulsling}}}}}}
Byz, I see your point, but it’s not that simple. Like lee said, the constant crusade to remain visible does get tiring. Sometimes, it’s just easier to take the path of least resistance. I’d give you some examples, but I don’t want to upset hubby, so I won’t. <no, it’s not anything he’s ever done>
piàcere!..”