When Katie Wiest stands up, she steels herself for the whispers. They keep staring at her with those eyes. Trailing her like a dark cloud, wherever she goes. It’s suffocating.
Once, when she brought her cane to school and went to buy lunch, shuffling forwards with the others in line, a student eyed her with disgust. “Hey you, with the cane, you’re faking it!” he jeered.
That was one of the first times she tried out her cane at school.
Heads swiveled in her direction. Wiest shrunk for their accusing stares. She grabbed lunch as fast as she could, hurried off, hiding her cane from view.
“He sounded like he thought there was a ‘right’ way to use a cane,” she recalls. “Like, ‘sorry I don’t have a limp?!’”
Again, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, when she needed an assistant’s help to access the bathroom stalls, a man leered at her.
“Cripple!” he spat. The word cracked across her like a slap to the face. She left, face stinging and seeing red.
So after that, when Wiest travels in her wheelchair, she doesn’t dare stand up. She’s heard all the horror stories of people with disabilities stretching or getting up from their wheelchairs and getting attacked by angry crowds who didn’t know shit about what it was like. According to a 2021 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, those with disabilities are almost four times more likely than non-disabled people to experience nonfatal violent crimes, despite accounting for only 12% of the U.S. population.
In fact, Wiest feels the most vulnerable when she sits in her wheelchair, the instrument meant to balance, support, and protect her.
“I’m afraid for my life,” Wiest emphasizes, eyes grim. “If someone yells at me, I just feel bad.” She lowers her gaze. “And sometimes I don’t stand up as much as I should.”
But why do strangers seem more inclined to turn against her?
Humor me for a second, reader. Picture a regular wheelchair, with the two big wheels on both sides and sleek handles and rigid seat–who do you see sitting there?
A question posed to 2700 students in a survey, responses poured in–a bald, old man, said one. A cripple, an amputee, a grandfather, someone clutching at the last tethers of their life. In short, someone who looks the part–meets the unspoken criteria.
POTS has long been known as an “invisible disease.” Patients may appear healthy on the outside, but are suffering from indescribable, unimaginable pain inside.
Wiest likens her mobility cane and wheelchair to glasses. Glasses are used for specific activities reading or driving, and not for other things. This is the same with mobility aids: people need them for certain actions and not others. Wiest uses her cane to stand up if she’s dizzy. She needs her wheelchair if she heads outside for a long time or if she experiences more pain than usual.
“Just because I’m not using a mobility aid [in the way] you’re familiar with, doesn’t mean I’m faking it,” Wiest says.
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