2026 marked the twentieth anniversary of me using wheelchairs and, in my experience, things haven’t improved much or really changed for the better – including the way people are patronising.
Before I get in to it, anyone who reads this and tries saying ‘But they’re only being nice!’, shut your mouths and take a seat.
That excuse means nothing to me and will not change what I’m about to say.
Help
I don’t go to many places, mainly because of my multiple conditions and the pain they cause, and the population of the village where I live is only just over 1000 people.
But even though it’s small, ableism still abounds, even in small, insidious ways.
What I’m about to describe may sound insignificant to some. Take it in the wider context of discrimination against disabled people and social views of disabilities, though, and it still counts.
It’s still frustrating, insulting and condescending.
What is it?
It’s people seeing me in an electric wheelchair, stopped and still for even a few seconds, asking me if I need help and not taking my ‘No’ for an answer.
Take yesterday for, example…
I decided to go out for a coffee just for a change of scene. I took my little dog, Mia, with me as she needed a walk, even if just a short one. After finishing my usual latté we started wandering home.
There’s a section of pavement here that is very narrow. The local pub has lined up a load of big black bins, pushing a small public bin into that narrow pavement, making it even trickier to navigate in a wide electric wheelchair.
When passing that place, I often put my wheelchair’s strength to use, push the small freestanding public bin into the row of the pub’s bins, moving them all up and creating more space on the pavement.
Yesterday, I stopped to do this and had paused for only a few seconds when a stranger saw me and asked if I needed help.
Before answering, I sighed, knowing what was coming.
I replied with a ‘no, thanks’.
She then asked me three times if I was sure I didn’t need any assistance.
When she finally accepted me telling her I didn’t, she asked ‘Why are you in that?’, referring to my wheelchair. Read Don’t to find out how I feel about that fucking dumb and insensitive question.
I told her ‘For lots of reasons’, when what I wanted to do was either ask her why she thinks my medical history is any of her business, or say something about the trauma that put me in it to hopefully make her feel awkward for asking in the first place.
When it comes to asking if I need help, she’s far from the only person who refuses to take one 'no' for an answer.
Last week I was out with Mia and stopped to lift her from my lap and put her on the ground so she could continue walking. Again, I had stopped for merely a few seconds and, to me, it should have been fucking obvious that I was just lowering my tiny dog and had no issues doing so.
But, no.
Despite Mia’s paws being safely on the pavement and me sitting back upright in my wheelchair, ready to move off, another stranger asked if I needed help. I had to say ‘no’ four times and reassure her that yes, I was sure I didn’t need her assistance.
It’s not just the question being asked numerous times and one ‘no’ not being enough that are problematic, it’s also the way in which the question is asked.
Connotation
Body language and tone matter. Both can massively change the meaning of words, how they are received and how they make the recipient feel.
Telling others to not let words bother them is all very well and good, but it’s also naïve and smacks of someone being ignorant of human nature.
We are social creatures who have only survived because we banded together.
Our evolution depended upon body language and the impact of words mattering.
That head tilt and higher pitch show how many perceive adult wheelchair users – as incapable.
It is infantilising.
In my experience, that ‘Do you need any help?’ people ask is usually (by which I mean 99.9% of the time) delivered with a patronising head tilt and in the high-pitch tone adults usually reserved for babies young children - our dogs too.
That head tilt and higher pitch show how many perceive adult wheelchair users – as incapable.
It is infantilising.
Cross them with having to repeat ‘no’ four or five times, and the condescension feels intense. It is ableist. All of it. And I, for one, am fucking sick of it.
If I need help – which I sometimes do, like when I can’t stand up out of my wheelchair to reach something off a shop shelf – I will ask for it.
The person who asked if I needed help when I was lowering my dog was, after my second ‘no’, lucky I didn’t say something sarcastic as I sat there thinking I’m probably more educated and intelligent that she is.
After all, she lacked the brain to see I was managing perfectly well without her...
Plus, studies do link bigotry – like her ableism – to lower levels of intelligence.
The way people need to hear ‘no’ numerous times and ask ‘Are you sure?’ is not only condescending, but also carries the connotation that, as a wheelchair user, I am somehow mentally deficient, unable to know my own needs, my own mind.
And that is ableism.
It’s seeing the wheels and making a judgement.
I don’t care if you think it’s ‘just people being nice’, because it’s not.
In an intrinsically ableist society, it’s yet another symptom of the discrimination disabled people face every damn day.
Switch the narrative a little...
It would be racist because it would be white people seeing that person as unable to decide if they needed help, based on their
skin colour.
If white people saw a person with brown skin standing still for a few seconds and constantly asked if they need help then refused to take their first, second, third, fourth or even fifth ‘no’ for an answer, it would be racist.
It would be racist because it would be white people seeing that person as unable to decide if they needed help, based on their skin colour.
It would be the white person seeing them as less mentally astute than themselves simply because of their skin colour.
Seeing wheels and deciding the person using them doesn’t know when they need or don’t need help is just as bad.
Learn to read body language.
Learn to read situations.
Learn to see wheelchairs and not judge the person using them as unable to know if they need help.
Learn to ask if disabled people need help without using a patronising head tilt and infantilising tone.
Learn to take one ‘no’ and accept it without needing to hear it numerous times.
Don’t stop being nice, but learn that there is being nice, and then there's reducing us to wheels...
…And being condescending.
