Blue badge guilt syndrome

I probably should mention that the name of this blog comes from me having a blue badge (thank you Mr Obvious). The name reflects my attitude towards disability as I try to see the ‘glass half full’ side of life. Above, you can see me on Sigiriya rock in Sri Lanka – a challenge I never dreamed I could complete until I was at the top. I have Charcot Marie-Tooth and blue badge guilt syndrome.

This morning I stumbled across a blog that captured my guilty condition perfectly (have a read here). Like me, the author of this blog does not need a wheelchair yet and still has the independence to drive his own car. We both feel the same guilt about parking in disabled spaces despite medically qualifying for a blue badge.

At 21, I take every precaution necessary to cope with and most of the time disguise my disability. I wear sturdy walking boots with custom-made insoles to minimise twisting my ankle, limping or falling over. As a result, to an uneducated eye or an unobservant stranger, I am – for want of a better word – normal. 

My blue badge guilt syndrome peaked a few weeks ago when I experienced my first accusation. I was approached by a man in the car park of a shopping centre, he proceeded to tell me that the space I had occupied was for people in wheelchairs. He ignored my explanation that I in fact am disabled myself and possess a blue badge. He continued to tell me the space was not for me and walked away without hearing a word I said, leaving me shocked, offended and extremely upset.

Unfortunately, I believe the universal symbol of disability being a wheelchair is misleading and inaccurate. It leads an unaware proportion of society to believe if you can walk on your own two feet you cannot possibly be disabled. It removes the understanding that disability is not always visible and is not necessarily consistent every single day. The problem is you can’t put all of that information in a symbol for a parking space.

Before graduating from university I wrote my dissertation on the representation of physical disability in literature and film over the last two centuries and got the best mark I ever received throughout my degree. What I found was shocking. Very little has been written on Disability Theory in comparison to other minority groups and this was upsetting for me. I felt proud to have written a piece on the awareness and understanding of disability and wished I had a copy on me to force the man in the car park to read it.

My point is that disability comes in a wide variety of forms and it is wrong to assume that the absence of a wheelchair means you are looking at an able-bodied person.