People with missing limbs creep me out.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

We have a close family friend who is missing his right arm. I grew up knowing the guy, and it never once bothered me. One time, an acquaintance who had just met John was asking me, “What’s that guy’s name again? The one-armed man?” I just about fell over laughing. I kept picturing Dr. Richard Kimble running around looking for the One-Armed Man. (Maybe you had to be there).

Anyway, my Uncle Jim lost one leg below the knee due to complications from diabetes. A year or so later, he lost the other. He had prosthetic limbs for both. When he would take his legs off, I couldn’t stand to look at the stumps. I guess you could say that it “creeped me out.” I never told him that, but I think he could guess because I could never look at it. His favorite joke about it was: “I used to be the tallest brother. Now I’m the shortest.” He cracked himself up over that.

I don’t know why his legs bothered me but John’s arm didn’t. Probably because I always knew John like that, but with Uncle Jim, it was something different.

22

I was in Pakistan last year. Pakistan is an extremely poor country. One thing you’d see pretty regularly was beggers coming up to your car at a stop light and banging their stump on the window to show you how poorly off they were. It was pretty freaky. Things are tough anywhere for people with disabilities, but in really poor places it’s gotta be a real drag. Really makes you appreciate what you’ve got.

23

Naw, people with missing limbs isn’t so creepy, I mean, you see that stuff all the time. Stuff happens to people you know. Now what’s creepy is those folks with extra limbs. I mean, really, just where do they get those shirts with three sleeves anyway ?

24

When I was in the 7th grade, there was a girl a year ahead of me who only had 1 and 1/2 arms. She was as sweet as couldbe, and worked to overcome her disability. She was captain of the cheerleading squad, class president, and worked at a grocery store as a bagger to earn extra money. I never had a problem with her, she was a doll.

There’s another guy, who comes through drive thru every now and then, with the same problem. Well, he did until we politely informed him that if he ever came to our store again, we’d call the cops on him. He would make rude comments to the females working, he would stare, and he just generally creeped everyone out. We didn’t see him for awhile, so most of us forgot all about him. Last week I was changing the cash drawer in the back drive through booth, and he was at the window. He kept staring at me, but ddn’t say anything. I put the drawer in the safe, and went up front. The female manager up there was literally shaking because of his presence. Yeah, he’s a real charming guy. The fact that he’s missing a limb just makes him creepier, but he’d still be an asshole, regardless of how many body parts he had.

I do agree that the subject seems a bit politically incorrect. While I’m glad that it’s not me in their place, I have great respect for people who can overcome their disabilities like that. I watched my grandmother wither away, and all she had was a broken knee. she spent a good 12 years in a wheelchair because she was afraid to do anything to help herself.

25

Doctor Jackson I didnt want to quote the whole post to say this about your dad so I’ll just say it,
Wow! :cool:

26

Just after we got married, hubby and I bought an old wooden sailboat from a disabled vet. This guy had lost one leg just below the knee, but it didn’t stop him from sailing the 32’ boat all by himself for years. A few months after we bought it, we were emptying some lockers aboard the boat, and we came across a prosthetic leg! We called John, but he said he didn’t need it back - it was just his “dancin’ leg”!! Turns out it never fit properly so he had no need for it. We have enjoyed it ever since - it’s been part of several Halloween costumes and displays…

27

Exposed, bare amputated limbs creep me out also, no matter how PC incorrect it might be. They just do. When I was a wee rug rat, I remember seeing adults around town with missing limbs, wearing short sleeved shirts and having a round ended, somehow obscene stump, pale arm stump poking out. Some times, a guy would go by with a crutch, one leg missing, the trouser leg flopping emptily or would be wearing shorts and the great, pale puckered and oddly flabby stump would be exposed, lividly scarred on the end.

In later years, during the disabled rights movement, I spotted people in wheel chairs, missing both legs, wearing shorts, their stumps jutting out like strange growths, often the ends striped with pink, puckered scars.

I found them less disturbing when they wore their artificial limbs.

Even when pressure was put on us to accept these folks, to consider their minds and personalities instead of their bodies, when calling them crippled was rejected and disabled or handicapped became physically challenged, I still found the looks of severed limb stumps disturbing.

I still do, no matter that I have an extensive understanding of the reasons why, how the surgery is done, how tough the recovery process is, know about ghost sensations, ghost limbs, how artificial limbs are fitted and the limitations of them.

It’s just something I find repulsive and no amount of PC demands has ever changed it. Understanding amputation for whatever reason just does not change how I perceive people with bare stumps. In most cases, I would prefer them to be covered up. Even if they are birth defects.

I saw pictures of kids with medication related birth defects and a hand growing directly out of their shoulder or shoulders and that creeped me out. I read how the parents chose not to have the functional hand amputated and an artificial arm used and wondered, why? Did they want their child to grow up looking like a freak? Especially if a girl? Imagine the kid as a teen, going to school with a hand poking out of their shoulder and one normal arm.

I recall going out of my way to help out people with missing limbs, then suddenly being snarled at and told that by helping them, I was insinuating that they were in need of help and actually demeaning them.

Even with all of the PC changes, all of the education, exposed stumps or certain types of birth defects creep me out. I gave up trying to change the attitude after I passed 35. I got tired of feeling guilty about my attitude and just accepted it as part of me.

28

When I was in law school, I wrote a few articles on the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). I had a very good mentor who pointed out to me the difference between calling someone ‘disabled’ as opposed to ‘individual with a disability.’

She said that calling someone ‘disabled’ somehow implied that they were less than fully able to do something, while using ‘individual with a disability’ does not. For instance…if I went to Japan and didn’t speak Japanese, I’d have a kind of disability - but wouldn’t necessarily be “disabled”, per se. Sort of a fine distinction but she was telling me that the disability is more or less thrust upon some people by society (no wheelchair ramps in place, for example) rather than their own ability to do certain things. I realize that this is a fine distinction for some people but it makes sense to me and I’m still careful to say “individual with a disability” as opposed to “disabled.” I don’t know that it is strictly UN-PC to still say 'disabled", though. Just thought I’d point that out.

Second, someone mentioned that they used to try to help people who had a missing limb, etc - but that s/he was snarled at once - and that the offer of help may have implied that they needed help. Well, I think it’s crummy that someone snarled like that. I think what it does show is that both groups need to be more open to understanding of each other. I don’t know what it’s like to be in a wheelchair - so I don’t know if someone might think, “Christ, people, could you offer to open the damn door for me here?” or if they would be more likely to think, “I’m not an idiot, I know how to open a door.” I think most people go through that little battle in their head - they don’t want to be offensive in either case. So for anyone with a disability, please be understanding that sometimes I may say or do something that feels inappropriate to you but I could sure use help because it is unfamiliar territory for me. I usually default to simply asking if someone would like help. And I will do my best (to continue) not to think that having a disability defines an individual in any way.

Tibs.

29

When I was in law school, I wrote a few articles on the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). I had a very good mentor who pointed out to me the difference between calling someone ‘disabled’ as opposed to ‘individual with a disability.’

She said that calling someone ‘disabled’ somehow implied that they were less than fully able to do something, while using ‘individual with a disability’ does not. For instance…if I went to Japan and didn’t speak Japanese, I’d have a kind of disability - but wouldn’t necessarily be “disabled”, per se. Sort of a fine distinction but she was telling me that the disability is more or less thrust upon some people by society (no wheelchair ramps in place, for example) rather than their own ability to do certain things. I realize that this is a fine distinction for some people but it makes sense to me and I’m still careful to say “individual with a disability” as opposed to “disabled.” I don’t know that it is strictly UN-PC to still say 'disabled", though. Just thought I’d point that out.

Second, someone mentioned that they used to try to help people who had a missing limb, etc - but that s/he was snarled at once - and that the offer of help may have implied that they needed help. Well, I think it’s crummy that someone snarled like that. I think what it does show is that both groups need to be more open to understanding of each other. I don’t know what it’s like to be in a wheelchair - so I don’t know if someone might think, “Christ, people, could you offer to open the damn door for me here?” or if they would be more likely to think, “I’m not an idiot, I know how to open a door.” I think most people go through that little battle in their head - they don’t want to be offensive in either case. So for anyone with a disability, please be understanding that sometimes I may say or do something that feels inappropriate to you but I could sure use help because it is unfamiliar territory for me. I usually default to simply asking if someone would like help. And I will do my best (to continue) not to think that having a disability defines an individual in any way.

Tibs.

30

I was the one snarled at and then other people started telling me that people with disabilities disliked being helped because it implied that they were ‘disabled.’ They wanted, I was told, to be treated like everyone else.

I figured a regular person like me was damned if you did and damned if you did not.

Around about that time, the deaf – oh, sorry, hearing impaired, started squabbling against hearing implants, squabbling about their members going with hearing people, and squabbling about parents getting deaf kids surgical improvements without letting them get old enough to decide for themselves.

Then, came the ‘impaired’ sports and all of these determined guys and girls in sports wheel chairs started racing all over the place, and they had stories of runners with artificial legs, up popped the special Olympics, and I started seeing really disabled kids in powered wheel chairs in the schools.

One poor guy, he must be all of 9, has a face that resembles the Scream movie mask! It’s like someone squeezed his head from the sides, elongating it and his lower jaw hangs open all of the time, he is a skinny as a straw and needs help for almost everything. The first time I spotted him, he actually startled me.

They closed a neighboring school designed for the handicapped that had been around for 40 years because, suddenly, it’s no longer OK for them to be isolated with special teachers and must be injected into the normal system. I think that’s actually done them more harm than good because their teachers were specially trained to work with mental retardation and physical problems.

Someone, several years ago, started a movement to close the school because it was politically incorrect by existing, but they did not ask the students about it, nor the parents.

I gave up. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.