A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Rose‟s husband suggests the possibility that the acceptance of a disabled identity will lead to
negative changes in the way Rose relates to herself and that this will impact on how she
relates to others. He assumes that identifying as disabled involves „giving up‟. Rose
continues:
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using a wheelchair is… a big step… when I first started using a wheelchair… it
wasn‟t an electric chair, it was a manual one… and that means you have somebody
pushing you… well, I wasn‟t able to push myself, anyway… and that begins to
change the nature of relationships… and I think that might be when my husband…
who no longer lives with me… labelled me, in his mind, as „disabled‟… (l.1.389ff.)
For Rose there is an association of the time she started to use a wheelchair and being
considered by others to have given up. This was perceived as representing a defeat of
character. To Rose‟s husband it appears to have meant they were no longer equals. To give
in to disability was regarded as involving acceptance of a dependent and unequal status.
Rose talks of the sense she felt that, from the moment he recognised her as disabled she was
„gone in his life‟ (l.1.619ff). After being told by her husband that he would actually rather
she was dead than dependent on him (l.1:685) this resulted in an eventual decision to ask him
to leave (l.1:589). The action she took, in ending their marriage and in voluntary isolating
herself, she perceived as necessary in order to preserve her selfhood. Talking about this
experience, Rose made what I consider a very important comment:
it‟s about being made to feel, and feeling it… it‟s not just about being made
to feel, but that you feel it… (l.1:578ff.)
It is in this sense that I want, while retaining a social relational perspective, to suggest that
disability can be regarded as becoming part of a person‟s embodied reality. While hostility
and prejudice are experienced objectively, they are felt subjectively. It becomes a matter of
how these feelings are dealt with.
Please don‟t talk about pain
If, for the sake of preserving esteem in the eyes of others, it is considered important at least
to make the effort to be seen as normal, it is more important still to avoid making reference
to impairment effects such as pain or discomfort. Jennie recalls of growing up in South
Yorkshire that: