The Body Bubble

Today someone touched my leg while I was getting off the train. While he was a train worker and trying to help me get off the train, he didn't use his words for a simple action that really just could have been said. It bothered me way more than I expected it to, so I decided to delve down into those feelings to figure them out. As I sat in the feeling of being violated, I tried to understand why a simple touch was so off-putting. I realized that as a disabled woman, I for the longest time have been touched involuntarily by doctors, physical therapists and by misguided well-meaning people. Lots of people don't understand that my wheelchair is an extension of my body, so if you come up behind me and push my chair without asking, you are essentially pushing a person walking.Now while it might look like you are helping me, if you don't ask--you're not!! You are actually harming the relationship of trust between able-bodied people and disabled people. As someone who works incredibly hard to build a trusting relationship with my body about control, and learn to love it, touch is an incredibly powerful in trust in my relationships. Try to enhance the bubble rather than pop it.