THE CRIPPLE’S OUTLOOK

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4235, 24 January 1940, Page 3

THE CRIPPLE’S OUTLOOK

IT SHOULD KE NORMAL. (By “A Man With a Stick.”) Little is heard to-day of the hundreds of children who fell victims to the infantile paralysis epidemic in 1938. But though few people realise it, each crippled child inevitably must meet an additional disability which is not physical, and which depends, in the degree of severity, on the capacity or incapacity of those they meet in their daily life to understand—one thing—a crippled person is not necessarily abnormal. Despite slight deformity and certain atrophied muscles caused by infantile paralysis 20 years ago, I am able to move about with the aid of a stick in a manner quite satisfactory to myself. Yet, a few months after my illness, when I was incapable of anything but lying inert, a doctor said that probably I would never regain the use of my legs. After a year of rest I was able to sit up, and I had the full use of my arms apd shoulders. I was sick of bed and my mother allowed me to sit on the floor. I could not crawl, for I had no power in my knees, but I propelled myself by my hands, with my legs trailing uselessly. Soon I was dragging myself at will all over the house and yard, even out into the street. My mother made no comments—except of approval—refraining from remarking on torn and dirty clothing, so that it was never forced upon my mind that I was doing something undignified or unnatural. She bought me boots and told me to try and walk. I thought it was great fun. After a while I could walk six steps without falling over. When I fell over I was not picked up, kissed and fondled, and when, within a few years, I could struggle along fairly well, the doctors were highly pleased, and said it was all due to courage and cheeriness.

Such courage and cheeriness can be found in all children who are not molly-coddled. A young woman similarly but not so severely stricken had the misfortune to be a child of wealthy parents, who decided that no expense would be spared to provide her with every comfort and save her from pain. She has air cushions, rugs, hot water bottles, an expensive invalid chair. They have taken her for trips all over the world and bought her every conceivable boon. At least one loving parent is always with her—forever rearranging her pillows, fetching her things. Occasionally she walks a few steps—with both parents assisting her. If years ago she had been left to her own devices she might now be able to walk better than I. Unfortunately she has the outlook of a cripple; she is selfconseious.

THE “THIRD DEGREE.” Through the various stages of my boyhood and youth thoughtless people seemed to do their very best to make me self-conscious, to give me a feeling of inferiority. Men and women, some sympathetic, most of them idly curious, stopped me in the streets to inquire the precise details of my trouble. Over and over again I was subjected to an agonising third degree. “Have you had an accident? No? Then what is it? Paralysis, eh? Born with it? No? What age were you when you got it? What doctor are you gaing to? Are you getting better? Can they cure it? Isn’t it a pity you can’t run like other boys?” This is a small selection from the series of probing questions asked so frequently. Left to myself, I was never conscious that I was different from other children, and thus I was all the more sensitive when these clumsily inquisitive people made me aware of the difference.

people’s “bright suggestions” had a very depressing influence. Some knowledgeable person would stop and say bluffly. “You shouldn’t be walking without crutches. It’s a shame to see you hobbling along with only a stick.” Often I was told of some remarkable treatment that would cure me within a week or so. This was, of course, ridiculous; dead muscles cannot be recalled to life. But these medically minded lay folk were too confident to be convinced of this; One man told me it was shameful to see me Walking at all—“criminal.” He gave a discourse on the subject. Now why, even if he was sincere, should he have said those things to me? He succeeded in making a happy, carefree lad utterly miserable. ' a?

NATURE NOT CRIPPLED. By the time I was 20, I was thoroughly conscious of my physical defects; of my difference to other people. I was diffident and reticentmany of my actions, much of my life was affected by this complex, and my state of mind was worsened by the many people who stared at me in the streets with frank curiosity. If well meaning people were to remember that a child’s nature is not crippled, though his limbs may be, they would understand how ashamed I felt when a woman rose in a crowded tram and offered me her seat. .

The crippled child will usually

prefer to climb the rough track in his own way. Most likely he will be able to get up more easily by himself than with the aid of some zealous but uncomprehending heavyweight.. Usually he can board a tram quite easily by himself, but finds it extremely difficult when some kindly fellow forcefully seizes his arm and throws him off his balance.

It is the outlook that counts. Y'ou cannot stop cripples from wanting to do things, and they will do them, in their own way, providing you do not make them self-conscious by reminding them that they look rather peculiar and awkward when they exert themselves physically.

To-day, when a stranger remarks. “Pardon me for saying so, but that’s a nasty handicap you’ve got,” I say. “It doesn’t worry me, and if it did there wouldn’t be much sense in

mentioning it,” I am hitting back now, and feel more complacent, for I have got over my “complexes.”