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Disability
How To Walk With a Disabled Person to Show You Care
My experience runs the gamut
If you really care about someone with a mobility challenge, one of the best ways to show it is to try to walk at their pace even if it’s much slower than you are used to walking. I’ve been in relationships with people who have run the gamut from patiently walking next to me to those who walked 25 feet ahead of me, rarely looking back to see if I was ok.
I somehow believe it would come naturally to those who love someone who has trouble walking to walk by their side; they would have compassion for their difficulty and not make it worse by being impatient and going ahead of them. This behavior makes having a disabling condition feel much worse. It’s bad enough when you can’t walk properly; constantly being shown you can’t keep up adds to your misery.
The most notable case of a partner who wouldn’t walk with me was my soon-to-be-ex-husband. We were married 13 years when I suffered a crippling stroke at age 35 during the sixth month of my second pregnancy. I miraculously survived but was left with a permanent movement disorder which caused me to limp and carry a cane when I walked. My husband claimed he was unable to walk at my much slower pace. He said it put him off balance despite being physically fit.
