Being overlooked

So a couple of weeks ago I damaged the soft tissue in my ankle. I've been on crutches to keep the weight off it while it's healing, and mostly people have been very helpful - holding open doors for me when they see me behind them, holding the lift, letting me go first etc. Because I'm just one of them, but I'm temporarily hurt. It's nice that people are being helpful.

On Monday I had a day in London with some of my family. We were going to the Natural History Museum, and my mum suggested we borrowed a wheelchair rather than me hobbling around on my foot all day, so that I didn't get too tired. Great idea, I thought.

So I got into a chair, and started wheeling myself around. After the first few moments of 'Woo, this is fun! Look, I can go backwards! I can turn this way too!' it got a bit tiring on my arms. Then I started to notice a shift in people's attitudes and even perceptions towards me. I was no longer 'one of them', who needed their assistance. I was an object that was in their way. Everyone looked over the top of my head, apart from the children for whom I was at eye-level with, but even they regarded me differently. I was now 'other'. When people realised they'd been standing in front of me blocking my view (it was rather loud and saying excuse me didn't always get heard) instead of acknoledging me, saying something like 'oh I'm sorry', or 'I'll be out of your way in a minute', they muttered under their breaths to the people with them and quickly moved out of the way embarrassedly. It was like I wasn't a person to be interacted with, I was differently-abled, and therefore 'other' and 'different'.

I was having to be careful of my foot - the thing which hurt, and was also the most protruding part of me and easiest to trip over - while wheeling myself around. People backed into me, or just stepped over my extended leg to get to places. No one said 'excuse me'. In fact, no one other than my family said anything to me. I felt quite invisible.

I was only in a wheelchair for 3 hours, and in a few weeks I'll probably be off crutches as well, but I experienced a huge shift in attitude towards those in wheelchairs which I hadn't been conscious of before. It's hurts to think that some people must live their lives experiencing this kind of prejudice. Why aren't people just treated as people? I'm definitely going to make sure that when I'm having a happy, 'smile-at-everyone' day, I smile at everyone.