Ever since the day I was first issued my handicapped parking placard, I have been waiting for someone to give me a hard time about it. I’ve heard horror stories from other patients with invisible illnesses – complete strangers yelling at them, nasty notes left on the dashboard – and I figured it was only a matter of time until something like that happened to me. Recently, someone finally gave me a hard time about it – but not at all in the way I expected.
I was in the car with my husband, both of my boys, and a friend. We had decided to take the kids swimming at the local rec center, but when we arrived it turned out to be extremely crowded because there was a gymnastics competition going on that day. Since I was dealing with intense fatigue and knee pain that weekend, my husband decided to park in a handicapped spot to make the afternoon a bit easier for me.
To make room for everyone in our car, I was sitting in the back seat, squashed between my sons’ huge, rear-facing car seats. As I awkwardly clambered out from in between their seats, my friend joked “maybe you ought to look a little more disabled if we’re going to park here!”
Now he wasn’t saying that I shouldn’t park there. He has seen me struggle with pain and knows that I deserve to catch a break wherever I can. In fact, this friend has encouraged me to make use of handicapped parking and seating many times. He was only making a joke to diffuse his own discomfort with the idea that someone might look over and wonder whether we were using the placard legally. He was probably just as nervous as I have always been that some stranger might try to give us a hard time.
Because the thing is, there seems to be some sort of expectation that people should be able to tell whether you “deserve” to park in a handicapped spot just by looking at you. Most people probably believe that you should be old, or in a wheelchair, or walking with a cane, or wearing a cast – something to make it visibly obvious that you deserve the placard. When people think about handicapped parking, most people don’t picture a young mom hauling her two young kids (and all their gear) to the pool. And so, because there is no visible sign of the amount of pain and fatigue I am experiencing, people judge. People assume. People decide based on how I look that I don’t “deserve” it.
But nowhere in the state of Colorado’s requirements for being issued a handicapped placard does it say I have to look disabled. My doctor and I met all the state’s requirements, so I have every right to make use of handicapped parking whenever I determine it is necessary or even just useful.
I just wish it didn’t make me – and the people around me – feel so uncomfortable.
The post Invisible Illnesses & Handicapped Parking- appeared first on Cancer Crush.
