Hello,
I thinks its seeing abled-bodied people nonchalantly walking out of a disabled person’s loo and you’ve been desperate to get to the loo. Too anxious to get in so not able to give them a piece of my mind.
Thanks,
Patrick
What is the definition of “able-bodied”? Can you tell whether someone has MS and/or a bowel/waterwork problem, just by looking at them?
Oh yes, I gave the same response Anitra when I was 8 months pregnant and my friend had just had her ankle fused. I had SPD and although could walk (in intense pain mind), couldnt get up off a loo without a frame to lean on, and my friend couldnt bend her leg so needed extra space. The toilet at the cinema was locked, and not with a RADAR key, so we had to ask for permission. We were told “you don’t look disabled, use the public toilets 3 floors down” Eventually we got to use the toilet, but I put a big complaint in resulting in them changing the lock to RADAR so disabled people didnt have to ask permission to go to the loo, and the staff at the cinema were given disability awareness training. Even now my SPD has finally resolved 5 years on, I simply can’t walk the distance to the public loos so have to used the disabled toilet, it’s the only way I get to go to the cinema. But I look able bodied. I have to wave my RADAR key in front of me like a talisman to go unchallenged.
Can see both sides of this one, but it does sometimes seem like an awful lot of apparently able bodied people use them. In my local costa coffee the ordinary loos are upstairs, so everyone uses the disabled one downstairs. I once waited for a woman with a pram to vacate a disabled loo (unusually there were no baby change facilities in it) so I’m guessing she used it so as not to leave the pram unattended. I can understand that, but she might have afforded me the courtesy of holding the door open for me to get in when she left. It was too heavy for me to pull while sitting in my wheelchair. Now that made me mad! Also people who park in blue badge bays without a badge because they are only going to be a few minutes.
easily sorted, just make them all RADAR key fitted.
And I have some wonderfully offensive stickers for car windscreens when they have no blue badges.
I was just thinking of having lunch with my friend, earlier this week. I have MS, whilst she has dementia and a bowel problem (unrelated, as far as I know). To look at us, nobody would suspect either of us had anything serious the matter: two nicely turned-out ladies, neither with a stick. You can’t always guess.
T.
Last year I went to watch professional boxing which was being shown live on channel 5, I went to use the disabled toilet and it was being used by a well known British Heavyweight. He is 6ft 7in, so I said nothing as he came out, but worse still he “clogged it up”, I just hope nobody in the queue thought it was me!. Peter
Bear this in mind they are not toilets soley for the disabled but toilets that have adaptions for the disabled.
patrick
my honest answer is nothing nowadays! but i have spent along time working out why we get angry and its usually cos i think i am right and other person is wrong. and that is never the case with reality! we all can see our view/opinion but we aint always good at seeing anothers.
i get frustrated but thats to do with my own inabilities-not frustation at someone else.
i have spent many times outside the disabled loo waiting to get in (cos i am in powerchair i need the room now) and this often means that pad is overflowing so i need changed. but i never get angry (now) because i dunno what they were doing in there and i dont feel its my place to judge
all that aside-are you ok patrick? i have read many of ur other posts and this sounds out of character for you (if my memory is correct!)
take care eh…ellie
What makes me seeth
Prejudice in any form.
Life is short so I try very hard to see someone else’s point of view. Often there are no right or wrong ways but just different.
Very few believe they are wrong and the word “sorry” has all but disappeared. Nowadays some just seem to scream abuse if they are challenged on their behaviour when really a simple “sorry” for a mistake is all that is required. Seems to be a very angry world out there, but there are of course exceptions. One simple kind gesture from someone can restore our faith in the human race.
Let’s all do something tomorrow to try and raise a smile or a simple thank you from someone.
dinks
brill reply!
thank you
Well not quite what I meant - certainly raised a smile though - I walked into a shop door in my usual trying to do several things at once, trying to find my purse rummaging in my bag whilst trying to walk not looking where I was going and crash. Could have sworn that pesky door was open! Moral of the story don’t multi task. Before anyone asks no damage done except to my pride.
Hello Chocorange and everyone else
Sometimes I do see red but after a couple of minutes I cool off. It was the attitude of the person who came out of the loo that annoyed me. I was in a mobility scooter and obviosly needed to get in. She came out, nose in the air, did not say a word and walked on her way. She struck me as someone who knew she should not have been in a disabled persons loo. There were no other signsd to loos outside in the corridor.
I am a reasonable guy who takes things in his satrid but just occasionally I get annoyed. Recently a big black 4WD parked inb a disabled space, 4 young people ran into the shopping centre, no blue badge, I just shrugged my shoulders.
I believe nearly everyone is wound up by one thing or another but we have learnt to bottle it
Patrick
Aid4disabled
Neurologists who don’t listen to a word I am saying. When I say a symptom happened it did and I am not making it up. It just makes me think next time I have a neuro appointment I will say nothing and then at the end I will say to them “well are you not going to ask me if I have had any new symptoms?”. Seething !
[quote=“gunrunner”]
Bear this in mind they are not toilets soley for the disabled but toilets that have adaptions for the disabled.
[/quote] I really can’t agree with this, bearing in mind that there are numerous toilets in adjacent loos for the able bodied and mostly one for the people too disabled to use the alternative loos. What if ALL those walky guys decided, ’ hey, here’s a nice big loo all to myself’ what happens then to the person who has no alternative other than wait outside? And if that person has wet or soiled pants as a result? I think it comes down to how considerate people are. As a considerate person I never used a disabled loo until I had no alternative so I can’t get my head around able bodied people misusing disabled facilities such as toilets and disabled bays. At my lovely gym, where I go to use the pool and am looked after by staff brilliantly with ramps, lift to the disabled changing room and an ingenious pool hoist where they lower me into blissfully cool water where I can float and swim a little bit, we have a member who stubbornly kept using the changing room over years and years with puny challenges from management, who she shrugged off by saying she was disabled. And do they backed off. She had no physical need to do so and as there is only one such changing room it was really difficult when I was hoisted out of the pool into my wheelchair and sat shivering waiting for her to exit. At last, at last!! A member of staff was commissioned to explain to her it was a scarce resource and only available to those members who were unable to access the normal changing rooms. She asked to see a disabled badge or other such evidence and the member obviously couldn’t, so now she’s using the latter. Her lack of consideration said a lot about the kind of person she is. Sorry, this is a big digression but I can’t help myself writing about it because I have only just become aware of it. And I am so thrilled! Does this make me an unreasonable person?? Susi Susi
Hello Susi,
I think you understand the point I made when I started this thread. Your story turned my gripe into a real life experience. It comes down to consideration and understanding. When you are disabled that exra bit of consideraton, care and compassion is so important. It helps you to maintain a reasonable quality of life. A disabled loo is not obligatory for me, I can cope in an ordinary loo.
I can walk, its very slow progress, getting undressed to use a catheter is an ordinary loo is no joke. Often there is no peg to hang walking sticks, coat, jumper etc. so I have to pile them on the floor. Not easy bending down to pick them up afterwards either. I am disabled, I have a blue badge and DLA documentation so I use disabled facilities if they are available. I’m not as disabled as you but I still have issues.
Only too often people do not understand these problems but there is always the odd selfish idiot. Don’t mention disabled parking spaces but the argument is the same.
Patrick
[quote=“patrick_b”]
Hello Susi,
I think you understand the point I made when I started this thread. Your story turned my gripe into a real life experience. It comes down to consideration and understanding. When you are disabled that exra bit of consideraton, care and compassion is so important. It helps you to maintain a reasonable quality of life. A disabled loo is not obligatory for me, I can cope in an ordinary loo.
I can walk, its very slow progress, getting undressed to use a catheter is an ordinary loo is no joke. Often there is no peg to hang walking sticks, coat, jumper etc. so I have to pile them on the floor. Not easy bending down to pick them up afterwards either. I am disabled, I have a blue badge and DLA documentation so I use disabled facilities if they are available. I’m not as disabled as you but I still have issues.
Only too often people do not understand these problems but there is always the odd selfish idiot. Don’t mention disabled parking spaces but the argument is the same.
Patrick
[/quote] I agree with you Patrick. Care and consideration from others massively impacts on one’s quality of life and self worth. I do think respect for the disabled has been both overtly and subliminally damaged by the Con-Dem government with its attacks on disability benefits. Businesses now seem to feel they can ignore the duty to make their premises accessible - at one point we really seemed to be making headway. In lots of ways it’s easier having a visible disability and using an electric wheelchair, though in very rare I instances encounter rudeness or hostility. I know that’s their problem but it still gets to you when you are being treated like a non- person. Susi
Hello
Yes this makes me seeth with anger, the only way we are going to stop people using disabled toilets when they are not disabled is by making all the toilets ones that they have to use RADAR keys, saying that though some years back I was in my local morrisons with a radar key, I came out and shut it behind me and there was a woman about to try and get into the toilet, she was not very nice to me, she said that was inconsiderate of you to which I replied are you disabled then she said No, I told her then that she had a choice of at least four other toilets in the ladies that she could use and that I did not have a choice what I could use. She really upset me when she pointed her finger in my face and said to me in a really angry voice, you scroungers make me sick, you think you have the upper hand. What upsets me about these people they have no idea, I work full time and life is a constant struggle, I have both MS and fibromyalgia as well as other conditions and in no way I am a scrounger, I do not know how I carry on working but I do.
Take care all of you, we all have to stick together
Stairs with no railings. Total nightmare, and probably illegal now due to elf’n’safety laws.
I’m no Europhile, but any Brussels legislation that helps make stair rails mandatory, whatever the location, is surely welcome.