Don't Fence Me In

For years, I have been trying to explain why I don't want help in many situations. It's a shocking thing to many people.
"Fiercely independent"? That may be part of it.

The thing is that I feel controlled when someone opens a door for me... At that point, I must go through or somehow offer up an properly gracious explanation. Or go for my fallback--start yelling because I feel I must assert my independence--and I'm not very skilled at that...

I have a bit of agoraphobia. I also fear the stranger... Well, not "fear", but I keep a mental buffer around me when I'm out in public. I very easily go into "overwhelm" mode. I don't know that I need to control everything, but when people do things for me, I feel that it puts me under an obligation. What if I don't want to go through that door? What if I want to finish something else before going through it? Instead I feel herded and obliged.

Ideally, I'd like for nothing to be different. I know that cannot happen. I lost a lot of ability and I joined a separate category of person.

I'm still groping about in the dark trying to figure it all out...

(Photo from: Wilmington NC Fence Contractors)

Without Restraint

I used a mix of strategies to get around. Public transit is an important component. Trying to find parking in San Francisco is a dreary adventure at best. So, I use p.t. and I embrace it for the broader societal benefits as well.

Public transit is--well not quite, but when I think about it I tend to reach for my hyperbole--hell. Basically, if I get on a bus I either consent to be restrained in a way that would be illegal on a mental ward (not that there aren't some notable similarities between clientele of both institutions), or I sit there knowing that if there's an accident I could go hurtling off in a random direction--strapped to an unsecured monster of two or three hundred pounds that could trap me against any seat, window or floor we happen to land on, if it doesn't break my neck outright.

(Note, this is not a post about the San Francisco Bay Area's intercity heavy rail, BART. BART has different issues. I will get to them, just not in this post.)

There are a number of things I could say about lifts and ramps and seats that fold up and all those accouterments, but that's again something for another time.

When I am finally ensconced in the appointed place, the strapping in begins...
Often the bus driver asks me if my brakes are on. This is one of those unanswerable questions... I don't really have "breaks" per se on the power chairs, at least not as I understand it. If I turn off the motor, the wheels don't go around--I'm not sure that's a "brake". But I make sure I turned off my motor and say yes.
Then there's the whole finding of the belts. Remember, this is a public bus. Things get broken. And worse. So there's the regular seat belt thing that goes around my waist. Sorta. Sometimes, in that shoulder belt to the other side that you have in car, it goes over my shoulder and in front of my chair, because without legs to hold it in place, it slips off my lap... So, I wonder what this is doing for me in a practical sense.
And then there are the red belts. At least that's the color they are on AC Transit. These are the industrial, series restraints. You have two or three of them, inshallah, and they attach to your chair...
Wait, they shouldn't attach to the arms, the arms are designed to be taken off or swung up and aren't really attached to the chair that securely.... Of course, bus drivers don't know this (neither does anyone else) so I have to tell them. Perhaps, you begin to see why I'm turning to a blog in hopes of finding a wider audience...
One thing I can say about my green chair, was there were solid attachment points--four!--on the damn thing. I haven't found anything on the pink chair. I'm not sure where people and hooks should go. Story of my life, I suppose.
Anyway, you are supposed to be able to attach these two or three red belts to solid attachment points, and then tighten the red belts (they have built in ratchet type things) until the chair cannot move. All of which is fine.
But... the damn ratchet sites are where the red straps connect to the wall or floor of the bus. Completely out of my reach.
Of course, if I were paralyzed or had jerky motor control I might not have the option of tightening myself up and loosening myself when I'm ready to get off the bus. But, I don't see why I should be denied that opportunity. I want to do it myself. I am not a parcel. I am not inanimate. I can tighten my own damn straps!
Or they don't work, as I said. Or the bus driver doesn't want to use them because they are a pain and he has a schedule to keep... And one time, when I was ready to get off the bus I undid the seat belt and one end of it got caught in my chair arm. That thing was not going to move. I mean really, it was like one of those seat belts that you have to let go all the way back to neutral before it will stretch out again and it was caught. The driver had to call central so they could dispatch someone to come and fix the damn thing.

Introduction

A few years back, I was run over by a train and both my legs were amputated between the knee and hips. (There's some history here: chukkasupport.blogspot.com/ )

Life in a chair is interesting. There is, often, a sort of laziness in the way people regard the disabled. It's very much "I will follow the ADA, but not do a single thing more." And the institutional indifference is oddly contrasted with the sheer goodwill that so many civilians show me. It sort of drives me nuts. I'd like for the cityscape to be better engineered for my needs and for people to be more educated about what my needs actually are.
(I suppose that's a common complaint. Just think of some modern woman, oh, I love Bill, I just wish he understood me.)
So, among other things, this blog is an attempt at educating the world about the things that frustrate me every day. Sometimes, it's pimples on my ass that won't go away, and I really have no choice but to sit on them. Sometimes, it's people standing in curb cuts, or otherwise in my path. (Hey, sometimes that is metaphorical, as well.) Sometimes, it's a nothing more that a rant, a rant that may be educational or entertaining, or maybe just ugly.
Other than that, I'm middle-aged, a woman, heavy (and heavier than I was before the accident, there's a whole lot of incidental calorie-burning that I miss out on now), underemployed and widowed. All in all, an unfashionable sort of person.
I have a wicked sense of humor though.