Published: June 11, 2009 07:15 am      

Adapted in TC: The stares say something

A few summers ago, I drove to a baseball game to meet family and friends. I got my wheelchair out of my car and got into it. I shut the car door.

A man walking alone suddenly appeared. We made eye contact, and smiled at one another. I reached for my keys to lock the door. The next thing I knew the man had opened my car door, picked me up by the scruff of the blouse and put me back into my car. He then picked up my chair and shoved it onto the seat next to me. Before he shut the car door, he said, "I was staring at you and it looked like you needed help."

As I sat in the car in disbelief, I watched him walk into the ballpark. I had no idea as to what he had seen when he was staring at me. His assumption had been wrong.

I'm stared at all the time. In 33 years of using a wheelchair, what I often miss most is my anonymity.

I have had to develop a repertoire of skills to cope with hurtful staring. I have done everything from ignoring it (not always easy) to performing for the starer. I have tried to avoid snarky verbal comments (not always easy).

If staring is looking intently, then the intent becomes important. All emotions can be expressed nonverbally through staring -- anger, fear, sadness and happiness.

Staring in and of itself isn't rude.

People often tell me they don't see my wheelchair. I think they mean that they don't ONLY see it. I don't take this as the compliment they often mean it to be. I self-identify as a person with a disability. It's nonsensical for someone to say they don't see the obvious.

I have been stared at so strongly by some people that I have become invisible to them. They are looking, but not seeing. I might as well be a computer screen they've been staring at for 12 hours. I'm a blur, an object. I cease to exist for them. This serves their need, not mine.

I would rather someone look at me, preferably in the eye, than look away from me. Often, not looking is infused with a facial expression of shame, pity, judgment and uneasiness. The person looks at the ground, the ceiling, anywhere but at me. Because the person works so hard to not look, they draw more attention to themselves.

When I first started using a wheelchair, I longed to attend a university only for people with disabilities. I wanted everyone to be like me. Of course, such a place doesn't really exist. Nor is that what I really wanted.

What I wanted, and still do, is for the able-bodied world to stop evaluating and judging people with disabilities as less than them. I have heard many able-bodied people say it's hard for them to look at people with disabilities. It often seems as if anything to do with people with disabilities is difficult for able-bodied people.

It's not our health challenges that make life hardest for us. It's the ignorance and insensitivity of our community members that creates the bigger obstacles.

Parents are often anxious when their children stare at me. I've seen parents nearly rip their kids' arms out of the sockets as they spun them away from me.

One mother screamed at her questioning child that the reason I was in a wheelchair was because I'd been bad and my mom had put me in one as a punishment. She said the same thing would happen to him, if he didn't shape up.

Some parents, sensing that their kids are curious, ask if I wouldn't mind telling them why I use a wheelchair. I always say yes. I know I can educate the next generation by speaking kindly to both the child and the parent. Recently, after one such conversation, a preschooler told me I was sort of like the movie character "Wall-E."

People like me, and others who have experienced some major loss, remind the rest of the world that tough things happen to regular people every day. Sometimes our burns, shaking, baldness from cancer, scars, stammering, birthmarks, deformities, artificial parts, limps, vocalizations or tics happen with an apparent randomness that can be scary.

Not looking will not protect anyone.

I watch people looking at me -- I stare back. I look at the way people walk. I look them in the eye, I smile, I say hello.

Susan Odgers, a resident of Traverse City for the past 22 years, has used a wheelchair for 33 years. She is a faculty member at Northwestern Michigan College and Grand Valley State University. She can be reached via the Record-Eagle. For more Adapted in TC columns, log on to record-eagle.com/susanodgers.