Excuse me. Where is your Carer?

For those of you who know me well, despite having cerebral palsy and a speech impediment, I am a very independent person. My motto has always been to ‘never give up.’ I drive my own car, and I can get about reasonably well by myself. I handle all my own business, except where I need to make phone calls and my mother helps me with these. With most things such as banking and shopping moving online life is becoming much easier for me, I am always thinking and looking forward, and with technology moving how we live our lives into a new era, I am all for it, I often hear of people not being happy with the faster moving pace of life because of technology, life moves on though.

I sometimes walk into a shop or a petrol station going about my own business and a person will either comment, or in fact ask me where my Carer is? To which I reply, ‘I don’t have one.’ I have even had a person try and physically take my car keys off me whilst saying ‘sorry mate you shouldn’t be driving that car with legs like yours, I am phoning the police.’ I am not even going to type what I replied to this person here as this blog post would probably be taken down.

Asking somebody where their Carer is just damn right rude and derogatory! Again, this all comes down to lack of education, not every disabled person needs a Carer, and these days, people my age, who may need help sometimes pay for a little extra help now and again, they do not call these professionals their Carers, they are Personal Assistants, who are enlisted or even are employed to help with only the daily activities which are just out of or are beyond our capabilities.

Respectfully, please if you see a disabled person in the street going about their business and are perfectly comfortable in what they are doing, embrace them, be happy for them. Alternatively, in the event of a disabled person needing assistance, they will ask.

Best wishes,

Gavin