Hey Invisible disabilities can be tough. A disability parking pass can be a great help for people with ME/CFS, FM or chronic pain but since your disability is often largely invisible you might run into the situation where someone believes you're faking... That would not be pleasant.
When someone with the airlines contested my healthy looking ex-girlfriend she pulled up her shirt to reveal scars running up and down her back from failed back operations. She was livid!
How are you about disability parking passes? Love em - use them with no problem? Or concerned an ugly situation might develop? Let us know...
And another story
When someone with the airlines contested my healthy looking ex-girlfriend she pulled up her shirt to reveal scars running up and down her back from failed back operations. She was livid!
How are you about disability parking passes? Love em - use them with no problem? Or concerned an ugly situation might develop? Let us know...
Canary in a Coal Mine posted this on Facebook:
An ME patient explains why she barely uses her disabled parking pass:
"Thanks so much for bringing attention to the issues people with invisible illness face regarding handicapped parking. I have Fibro and ME and can only walk short distances, so I have a permit. I've had it for nearly a year but only used it a couple of times because I'm so afraid of people judging me. Each time I have used it I've gotten stares - I know I should ignore it, but I can't.
I have to park close, but I won't use a handicapped spot even if I need to. This means I avoid shopping centres, supermarkets, the city and other places where finding a park close to the door is hard. I didn't even want to like or comment on the post because I don't want my friends to know I have a permit - I don't think they'd understand. I'm in constant pain and can only stand or walk for about 20 minutes maximum."
And another story
Mom's Open Letter To Handicap Parking Shamer Reminds Us That 'Ghost Illnesses' Deserve Respect
Meagan MorrisApril 14, 2015
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Harley Jo Skorpenske, who has Lupus, found this note on her car windshield in a CVS parking lot.(Photo: Corinna Skorpenske / Facebook)
One Ohio State University student’s quick trip to a Cleveland, Ohio, CVS prompted her outraged mother to post an open letter on Facebook appealing for people to understand that just because an illness isn’t visible doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“You should be ashamed!” read the note tucked onto Harley Jo Skorpenske’s windshield. “When you take a handicap spot an actual disabled person suffers. You were not raised as you should have been.”The issue wasn’t that Harley didn’t have a handicap parking sticker — she did — but that the person who wrote the note didn’t believe she had a disability because of her ability to walk in and out of the store unassisted.
However, what wasn’t visible was the 20-year-old’s intense battle with Lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that at least 1.5 million people in the United States battle on a daily basis,according to the Lupus Foundation of America.
In response Harley’s mother, Corinna Skorpenske, wrote the letter and posted it, along with a photo of the scribbled note, on Facebook.
“To The Person Who Left This on My Daughters Car,
Wishing so much for you to have stopped and talked to this amazing person before leaving this. If you had, you would have known that my daughter has a disease. Since she was 16 years old, she has been suffering from LUPUS. Basically, her immune system thinks her body inside and out is something bad and attacks it. It started with her joints swelling and the pain being so bad she could hardly walk. But she continued going to school and keeping up with her community service.”
Corinna goes on to describe the intense challenges and pain her daughter has faced over the years since her diagnosis, including hearing loss, multiple collapsed lungs and constant pain, along with a month-long hospital stay that forced her to drop out of college for a semester.
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