All my life I’ve lived as a disabled person in an unaccepting society.
I have been sheltered for most of my life; everyone around me was so nice and accepting of my disability. But now that I’m older and attending college, I’ve realized that there’s a whole world outside of my bubble, and people aren’t always going to be nice to people like me.
One Wednesday I had one of the craziest and disheartening experiences of my life. My caregiver and I had just gotten off the bus, headed home from class. I was in the bathroom when we both heard a loud banging on the door. When my caregiver opened the door, this lady started screaming and cussing at her and I had no idea what was going on.
Apparently, it was one of my neighbors that walked barefoot all the way down my driveway, highly intoxicated, to yell at us and tell us that we don’t belong here. Nothing like this has happened to me before, and it came out of left field. The lady said she didn’t like how I walk my dog because it’s “different,” and she made racists remarks in regards to my caregiver.
We don’t really know what caused her to go off like that. There were a couple of times when the Athens Transit lift blocked her in, and she got mad about that. My caregiver told her off, and there was nothing we could do about that; I have to get strapped in before the van could move.
My caregiver called the police and we barred her from our property, which was kind of nerve-wracking. I haven’t had much experience with the police at all. She has talked about how I walk my dog a couple of times, but she’s just mad for no reason.
While this experience was disheartening, I had to learn that being discriminated against isn’t my problem; people often don’t like what they deem “different.” This experience opened my eyes to the fact that—especially in today’s cultural climate—people aren’t always going to be nice to you, but you shouldn’t let it get to you.
Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash