Why I came, why I stay

[mrjefffurz]

this grrl had been,,like,,,obsessed with the fact that the tool is still kewl,,bringing that up..no pun intended,,,everytime we had conversation,,,being a lil bit giggly my gay g/f gabbz & i decided to go hit on that gal,,one from each side,,,we messed with her head a bit,,,lol,,,according to gabbz anyone really wanting to have sex with that other grrl was weird...lol...by the by,,,i hate to sound my own horn,,but i happen to be a gr8t w/c guy...sorta,,,in a stupid-ass kinda way

[wheelie37]

If you lived in the uk , i would meet up with you

[mrjefffurz]

if you was out here in the wyld west id meetcha in a heartbeat

[vivi]

Lucretia, I understand your situation completely because I'm in a very similar one myself.

There is a guy I met online, whom I really, really like and I will be willing to travel for him, even if it is not that easy for me, if things go well between us. I'm also really shy, and not used to making advances, but if I see a guy I really like, who knows?

[BA]

Hey, a guy I know from another site (non disability related) met a girl in the UK and they are getting married. I know it's a rare kind of thing, but the net makes the world alot smaller than it used to be.

[LadyLuvsParas]

I'm willing to relocate too for the right guy that is! I do think there's such a thing as too far away though. I recently met a really nice guy who lives a day and a half away by plane! There's no way ordinary people could afford enough trips like that to really get to know each other. I think making a move that far away based on the extremely limited amount of "face time" a couple could have might just be disastrous!

[wheelie37]

i agree, it is very expensive, and always heart breaking when you have too say goodbye at the airport

[damedevo]

Lucretia wrote: "But I really felt that a lot of people were really trying to get their minds wrapped around the concept that they were not alone."

Just last week, I came across the contentious debate at Apparelyzed and realized, with astonishment, that I was not alone. I'd never before heard the term "devo." So, here I am--trying to wrap my mind around it.

I'm curious to know how many devos loved to play with crutches and makeshift orthopedic appliances, in childhood. My friend Chrissy and I sure did, especially around puberty (eleven years). We adored the crutches my brother had once used after an injury. We sequestered ourselves in my basement to practice with them. We tried fashioning a leg brace from a metal frame used for forming creases in pant legs. It was unsatisfactory.

We loved the "Ironside" and "Longstreet" TV series. Those heros always managed to beat the disability odds--and the cruel insults from perpetrators--and catch the bad guys.

Chrissy and I also played an odd version of the usual girls' game of dress up--we dressed up as old ladies. Other girls were disgusted with the matronly selection of 1950's skirt suits my mother had donated to my collection, but Chrissy fell right in with me and played old lady. We both felt like frauds playing with the princess dress-ups at other girls' houses. We had little sympathy with such frivolity.

I now wonder at my mother's selection of cast offs for my enjoyment. I also wonder at the hackneyed joke my father always made to clerks and waitresses: He would refer to me as his mother. "My mother, here, would like the grilled cheese." Some thought it was funny; others were nonplussed. I very much liked having a special joke with my dad. I'm not sure I liked the joke itself, very much. I was always mortified when a waitress was so square that she didn't get the humor. My dad was quite the lady charmer.

Chrissy and I met each other again in our mid-twenties, having lost touch in seventh grade. We discovered we shared something else--we'd both recently taken to spilling our guts at meetings for "adult children of alcoholics," which was a rather new concept, at the time. We had both concluded that our fervent crutch play had been an expression of feeling maimed, lame, and neglected. Whether she continued as a devo or not, I don't know. I did not confess my disturbing fascination with cute guys in wheelchairs. Last I knew, she was married to an able-bodied "dry drunk."

Flash forward to a new generation: My own daughter was highly indignant at age seven, when I was using crutches to support a trashed hip joint and refused to buy a pair for her. Said she: "It's not fair! You have two pairs, and I have NONE!" I argued that crutches were something no parent wanted for their child, but she was not mollified. So, I got a tiny set on Ebay, and she was thrilled. My husband was mortified but got over it. The crutches were such a hit with her friends that a few of them began to beg for their own set. Recently, one of those friends proudly showed me the pair her aunt had given her--by request--for her eleventh birthday.

So, maybe crutch play is totally normal and goes underground as a perversion only when children are shamed about it, just as they are shamed about sexual feelings and fascination. For sure, children are routinely shamed for staring at disabled people, much less for asking them questions (and finding out that they're human?). I clearly recall my mother admonishing me, "I think you have a morbid fascination with The Crippled People!" (I use capitals, because I thought her use of "the" was odd--as if "the crippled people" constituted a distinct religious sect, like "the Mormons.")

"Educators" (whoever they are) like to explain to parents that puberty is the time of budding sexual awareness. But they don't often speak of puberty's broader preoccupation with body image, including physical integrity and the ability to achieve self reliance. Surely, it's all one ball of wax.

One more observation about me and my friend Chrissy: We also went on a blindness bender, although I took it to extremes. I made my own white cane, used it secretly outside at night, and took Braille classes with mixed blind and sighted children. I know for me it was largely about trying to master my terror that blindness could ever happen to me. As with the crutch play, I wanted to prove to myself that I could become totally self-reliant (and preferably catch perpetrators, as Ironside and Longstreet did). My worst fear in adolescence and young adulthood was becoming disabled and being unable to get away from my parents. That fear had some basis in reality, since my first hip surgery interrupted college and plunged me back into unhappy home life.

I apologize if I am babbling and taking up too much bandwidth for a newbie. I hope I may be indulged. I've never before thought about these things from the perspective that I may not be alone in my freakishness. I would love to hear from others--both devos and wheelers.

Thanks to Lee for making this forum available.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

[wheelie37]

you think you will try to re-learn sign language?

[Chan]

Oh most definitely. It will probably be after I somewhat master Russian, though. Sign Language is just too freaking easy to not learn.

[wheelie37]

I tried it but i havent the patience. never was good with languages

[Chan]

I bet you're good at math then, aren't you?

It always seems to be one way or the other. For me, it's to the extremes. I scored in the top 1% nation-wide for the English part of my ACTs. As for the math....bottom 8%. So pretty much I went from being a super-fucking-genius in English to mildly retarded in Math.

For a while there, I got so freaked out about math and numbers that I couldn't even look at a clock without feeling anxious. But yeah, most languages come pretty easily for me.

[Triassic]

I'm the same way; linguistic/verbal stuff is a snap, but any real down and dirty math-like using formulae, is damn near impossible. A 'D' in basic high school algebra was truly the best I could do. It was like I could almost feel my intellect straining at it's limit.

[damedevo]

"I got so freaked out about math and numbers that I couldn't even look at a clock without feeling anxious"

I went through a period where I persistently tried to tell the time from the wall thermometer and worried about tripping the circuit breaker when I turned on the faucet....

[obscure]

chan said:

Oh most definitely. It will probably be after I somewhat master Russian, though. Sign Language is just too freaking easy to not learn.

Signed English, or American Sign Language?