(Devs Only) Devvy childhood memories

[Maurine]

Since many of us have been aware of an interest in disability since our childhood, I'm wondering what childhood incidents you remember that hint at your devness.

I've got lots of memories like that. My whole life is full of them.

A particularly devvy incident for me was when one of my best friend's father was in a serious accident at work one day before my fourth birthday. I fantasised about visiting him in hospital. He always needed crutches afterwards and I was eager to watch him walk with them.

I had loads of devvy fantasies, but I kept them all to myself. I hated when it came to medical subjects, because I was worried people would know that I had strange fantasies about these things.
When I was six, my best friend at the time wanted to pretend that she was in a wheelchair and sat on my desk chair, which had casters on it. I didn't feel comfortable with that at all and told her that I wanted to play something else.
I kept almost all of my fantasies to myself, neither told anyone about it, nor did I express any interest in disability. On the contrary, I claimed to strongly dislike talking about medical things. I once painted a picture of an amputee, but I regretted it afterwards as I was terrified that my parents would find it. Although I wrote a lot, I hardly ever dared writing about my devvy fantasies. It took until I was twelve that I slowly got the courage to write about my fantasies and draw pictures of them, but I wouldn't let anyone but me look at it.

[Clair deLune]

Interesting question! I wonder how many of our answers will be similar!

When I was very young I was mostly interested in casts and injuries. I don't think I really understood about permanent injuries or about disabilities. There was a picture book in the non-fiction section of my elementary school library about hospitals, each page was a full black and white picture, and I checked it out tons of times to look at the pictures of people in casts and braces, and then I'd make up scenarios in my head about people who needed these things and what happened to them and what their recovery would be like. When I was in second grade one of my classmates, who one of my friends had a huge crush on, was hit by a car and was in one of these huge casts, and I had this horrible feeling that it was somehow my fault, that I thought too long and too hard about people getting seriously injured and had somehow made it happen to him. Oddly enough, when I went to visit him, it was pretty easy. I wasn't speechless or stunned or awkward or feeling guilty or unable to stop staring at him.

There was a children's museum in my hometown that had different rooms in it where kids could play. There was a grocery store room, and a school room, and a fashion room, and an art room, and a construction room, etc. The hospital room was my very favorite, of course, but I remember not wanting anyone to see me trying the wheelchair or the crutches. I don't think I ever actually did, I just looked.

I had a next door neighbor that I would sometimes play Barbies with and she and I once made all the Barbies get in a horrible accident and put casts on them made of toilet paper. Her mom caught us and praised us for being creative. I always wanted to play that again but the other girl never wanted to.

Later in elementary school, in fourth or fifth grade, we all had to do reports about famous people with disabilities. That was when I discovered the biography section of the library where I could read real stories about disabilities, and this was a treasure trove of information for me and I think this is when I made the distinction of a permanent disability vs an injury that would eventually heal.

I also considered this interest my deepest, darkest secret and did everything I could to conceal it. I stopped checking books out that weren't fiction, instead reading them in the library so the librarians wouldn't notice what I was always taking home. Fiction I felt I had a little more leeway with because the cover and title didn't always give away what the book was about. I started writing and drawing things that I would hide in my room, even announcing that I was old enough to deserve some privacy and NO ONE was to look in a certain drawer. I wonder if my parents looked anyway, and have known ever since then about my interest? They didn't say anything, but they've never been even remotely respectful of my personal space, so maybe?

I had a best friend in elementary school, and, crazy as it sounds, I TOLD her about my interest. I made her swear never to tell anyone and she agreed. I remember shaking when I told her, and I remember her not having much of a reaction other than "ok." Then I told her a story I'd made up about a girl in a wheelchair. She just listened and told me a story she'd made up about aliens.

I had a classmate who I am pretty sure was also a dev. She would do the same weird things I would do, blurt out information that kids don't usually have, and latch on to anything disability-related like a magnet. I worried that if I could tell this about her, then could everyone tell about ME? And I vowed to be more careful than she was.

And I would make up stories in my head about befriending a boy in a wheelchair. That was about as far as it went for a very long time. I never made the connection on my own that this was more than just an interest but an actual attraction, not even when all my friends started having crushes, and not even in high school. It took the high speed internet in my college dorm to clue me in that this was something SEXUAL and I remember just sitting there in absolute SHOCK, being like OMG, THAT IS WHAT I AM! I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE!

[Emma]

This is a cool idea for a thread. I have some stories to share but don't have time right now.

[eva]

Like Emma, I don't have much time right now but I definitely remember one neighbour who must've been a teenager (I was maybe 6 or 7) who broke his leg. Cast and crutches... I loved it. Besides I already had a crush on him. Then I was ALWAYS fascinated by wheelchairs, a real head-turner for me, discreet of course I must've been 14 when we went to a friend's party and a boy our age had a kind of bone disease which made his back kind of twisted (it was really obvious). He was also really cute. I remember my parents telling me how nice it was of me to dance with him. Mmmm, yeah

[Emma]

In 1st grade (age 7) the assistant teacher in my classroom sprained her wrist and wore a brace on it for a longtime. I remember being fascinated by it, wanting to ask her about it but also hiding my interest. I never asked. I had a classmate in maybe 4th grade break her leg skiing and she had a full leg cast for quite a while. I was very interested in how she used her crutches, remember seeing how she had to sit and similar things. I wasn't really friends with her but wanted to ask her a lot about it.

I've written about this before but my earliest memory I have is from a newspaper article my Mom shared with me. It was about a girl around my age who was born without arms and legs. I was so interested in the article I carried it around for days. I couldn't read the text since I was around 4 or 5 years old and not reading yet but remember liking the picture and being very interested in how she did things.

I never wrote stories or drew pictures of people with disabilities. I think I didn't feel like I had any privacy to do that since everything I did like that was looked at by a teacher or my Mom. I also didn't look for stories about disability or even non fiction books at a young age. The first book I remember being interested in that was somewhat devy was in high school, 9th grade (age 15) was a book about sports injuries. It was sort of a text book with lots of line drawings and I remember it had lots of examples of more severe types of injuries. I liked that book so much my Mom actually bought it for me at the time. I didn't discover the really good devy books with pictures of actual amputees until I was in college and working at a medical library.

[Deleted]

I don't have any memories of a devotee nature but I do remember reading a book with a boy in it who broke his leg and I think I had feelings of arousal then....
Also I used to write a lot or made up stories in my head and I just know that my characters always had to endure some kind of struggle in their lives but it wasn't really of a physical nature...I did dig out these stories not too long ago to investigate what I thought back then and I just had to shake my head thinking wow, I had issues back then...I just didn't understand any of it...
With that I think it was always inside of me but I just couldn't pin point what it was that I needed...I was always interested and open minded about people with disabilities
I do remember while writing this that I used to always want to play with and understand a girl in our neighborhood who had Down Syndrome and a boy who also had a mental disability had a crush on me for a long time, I was already like 17 then and he would walk his dog every day when I would have to push my ten speed bike up a hill and he would sit on a bench at the top of the hill and I always talked to him and sat with him sometimes...it wasn't a turn on for me but I wanted to be nice to him and I was very interested in those kids and I wanted to understand them and also be a tolerant able bodied person...
It is kind of interesting because my older son (16) has for a few years always taken up electives in school where he would work with the special education kids and he is doing it again now in 11th grade and when I talked to the teacher he praised him so much how he was so wonderful with the special ed kids which made me very proud...I think it is wonderful for a 16 year old boy to spend time with these kids...I keep telling him to think about careers in this field but he keeps declining...
I have to say too that my mom was and is the kind of person that always has that "sorry and whining feeling" about people with disabilities or tragic life events and as long as I can remember she always said these things and expressed that and thinking of it now, it is annoying but it may have something to do with the way I am wired...

[kayla]

I have a lot of devvy childhood memories, but there's a couple of things that really stand out to me.

Where I live there's a televised fundraiser every year for special needs children, and they usually feature a few kids on the show who have CP or other physical disabilities... I remember watching it when I was younger and the kids on the show were around the same age as me, and for some reason I was always strangely fascinated by them and their stories.

I also had a distant relative with severe CP who would sometimes be at family gatherings. I found him kind of fascinating, too.

And yeah, my Barbie dolls tended to get injured a lot, too. My friends were actually pretty good at playing along with it, surprisingly.

[savannahgirl]

The first time I saw the episode of Highway to Heaven that was guest starring Jim Troesh, a quad. I was only about 7 and absolutely fell in love with the character he played. I spent hours pretending to be on the show interacting with his character, usually as his physical therapist. It just continued to grow from there.Honestly I think it goes back farther than that but that is my first clear memory.

[ruthmadison]

Oh so many!

Falling in love with Long John Silver when I was eight and read Treasure Island... Being fascinated by the wheelchairs at my grandmother's nursing home...a childhood friend who used a walker and I would just watch him...playing with my Ken doll by building him a lego wheelchair and wrapping his limbs in wet toilet paper that would harden into casts...a family friend with CMT that I was always tongue-tied around...reading The Pinballs over and over again until I felt like I was hot with fever...daydreaming marrying Matthew Maddox from A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

[Valkyrja]

I know that lot of you know about my childhood memories, for them: sorry!!
jajaja
When I was like 5 or 6yo I remember I used brooms like crutches. It was funny because, like I said before, I used to have all a story in my fantasy where the one in crutches wasn't me.
Then I evolved to the wheelchair. I remember turning upside down my mom shopping cart and I sat there moving the little wheels with my hands. Again, there was a story about that in my mind.
Later, when I was like 10, I moved to "play doctor" with my cousin (poor guy!!) and in the game he always had an accident that "used to break his back".
Then I found a good use to the "barbies" (I hated dolls before that)... "Ken" was always seated in the armchair and he "couldn't walk".
My sister hated that because when she asked I told her "No, ken cant walk because he has an accident". When I was like 12 (30 years ago we still played with dolls at that age!) it wasnt an accident anymore but it was much more elaborated like: "he fell from the horse and he hit his back on the fence and he broke his back in the waistline and a piece of bone damage his bone marrow"
jajajaja.... As you can see, I had very elaborated fantasies even when I was a child.

[ruthmadison]

I did the thing with the brooms too! I forgot about that!

[savannahgirl]

Dec 4, 2014 13:22:35 GMT -5 Valkyrja said:

I know that lot of you know about my childhood memories, for them: sorry!!
jajaja
When I was like 5 or 6yo I remember I used brooms like crutches. It was funny because, like I said before, I used to have all a story in my fantasy where the one in crutches wasn't me.
Then I evolved to the wheelchair. I remember turning upside down my mom shopping cart and I sat there moving the little wheels with my hands. Again, there was a story about that in my mind.
Later, when I was like 10, I moved to "play doctor" with my cousin (poor guy!!) and in the game he always had an accident that "used to break his back".
Then I found a good use to the "barbies" (I hated dolls before that)... "Ken" was always seated in the armchair and he "couldn't walk".
My sister hated that because when she asked I told her "No, ken cant walk because he has an accident". When I was like 12 (30 years ago we still played with dolls at that age!) it wasnt an accident anymore but it was much more elaborated like: "he fell from the horse and he hit his back on the fence and he broke his back in the waistline and a piece of bone damage his bone marrow"
jajajaja.... As you can see, I had very elaborated fantasies even when I was a child.

Holy cow, I thought I was the only child who imagined such things. Mine was always a car accident in which my "boyfriend" would break his back and be confined to a wheelchair. I really thought I was weird back then.

[LaMara]

Wow this is so interesting! I have so many memories as well!
When I was very young, maybe 4 or 5, I remember my auntie's best friend, an old lady who had lost a leg but could ride a bike: to me it was the coolest thing ever. Shortly after some of my Barbie dolls had... uhm... accidents involving a scissor
Around 8 I clearly remember falling madly in love with a (mediocre) blind singer, and asking my dad to buy me this guy's album... which was awful, but the singer was so cute!
Then I started writing stories (and I never stopped) and an obvious pattern emerged: there was always at least one character that was either paralyzed, blind or an amputee. I knew even then it was an unusual interest and so I always kept it secret.
Even now, a good number of my short stories and all of the longest ones have a PWD in it.

[bakingbella]

Wow!!! I love everyone's stories. This makes me feel so much more normal.

I was always interested in anyone disabled (male or female). Being a little kid is was very easy to always just go up to them and say hi. That's all I did too!! I just said hi.

Also, a couple of years ago, I found a diary I kept while in middle school. I confessed my devness in it. I went on ego I didn't want a guy who "was regular and walked". I talked about how I wanted the guy I married to be in a wheelchair... I loved finding that.

Also, I constantly daydreamed about disabled men. I had relationships with many AB men and enjoy it, but there was that thing missing... I'm so glad I have it now!

[Valkyrja]

I remembered one more: when all the group from the neighborhood gathered, we used to play "heroes and villains"... so, I asked my best friend (I was like 12 and he was 14 and I remember I was madly in love with him!) to be Steve Austin (you know, the "six million dollar man") but at some point I always achieved to make him fell on the ground because one of the villain "had broken" his "bionic legs". The poor guy always ended seated on a chair unable to walk. (I was the one who made the plot during the games but I never understood why he always allowed me to do that with him!)

And yeah... like you girls, I was really worried when I was a child because I knew I was so different.
I could see it with my family and friends; my games were always so different.
And remember that it was during late 70s and middle 80s, when disabilities were even more a taboo than now.