Wheelchair and Mobility Aid Users, how can I write a character to represent you?

Okay, thank you for clarifying because that wasn't the way I read what you wrote. It does literally say "do not post" and "I only want responses from people who use mobility aids, particularly wheelchairs.". I do think it's also important to get perspectives of people around those with disabilities since, obviously, they don't live in a vacuum.

I think that Youtubers are a good source to get different perspectives from different people. One person I follow on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/MisaOnWheels1 She does a lot of positivity posts.

A Youtuber I like to follow is Molly Burke. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwf9TcLyS5KDoLRLjke41Hg She isn't a wheelchair user, but she is blind and uses a service dog and she opens up about the troubles that can come from it.

I don't follow any wheelchair users who vlog about their wheelchair experiences, but I am sure there are plenty out there.

I have plans to create a character who is blind so I have watched a bunch of different blind Youtubers to gain more understanding of their experiences and how different they can be from person to person. Obviously, not everyone is going to have the same opinion or be at the same comfort level with their disability.

I'm not a regular wheelchair/mobility aid user myself, but my father has been in a wheelchair for as long as I remember, so I'll comment a bit on living with a wheelchair user and/or details that might be useful when writing about a character with a wheelchair.

1. I always know when my father is coming and really, if he's up and moving about, exactly where he is in the house. You can hear the wheels, and there's no real way to mask the noise unlike how you can with footsteps. Obviously this might not apply as much if outdoors.

2. There are multiple types of wheelchairs. The manual wheelchair he can wheel himself around with his arms, but we also help push him using the two arms in the back of the wheelchair. We as children sometimes played around with his manual wheelchairs and did wheelchair tricks (e.g. pushing wheelchair up so that we're suspended on 2 wheels instead of the full 4, like a bike trick)

3. Whenever you go eat or go to movies (basically anywhere you get up and sit), you must find somewhere to park the wheelchair. Sometimes the attendants will help you, sometimes we will do it ourselves.

4. Don't forget to keep the crutches somewhere on the wheelchair, otherwise when you've wheeled to a location and need to get up and walk a short bit, you're screwed. Sometimes my father holds them and puts it on the footrest, but there's a space where we can velcro it on behind his wheelchair. If you don't velcro it on tightly, it can fall off.

5. The first time my father tried an electric wheelchair (the type where you use a little joystick to navigate the chair), he ran into things. A LOT. Like smacked into walls and chairs and things.

6. We need to keep the house pathways cleared and wide enough for a wheelchair at all times, otherwise we may render some part of the house/room inaccessible to him.

7. After we park somewhere, he's always looking for the curb. Oftentimes if we go out to eat we'll walk up to the restaurant but he has to wheel all the way around, due to the nature of the curb.

8. He has a handicap parking pass, which in the US allows him to park on blue spots, green spots (while ignoring the loading zone times), parking meters without paying, and residential parking without a permit. It's pretty sweet, parking-wise.

9. He also has proof of disability (I'm not sure if it's an ID card or what, I never asked). When we were small, we skipped ALL THE LINES at theme parks. We would go for 2 hours, hit up all the rides, have a great time, and leave. I was a bit shocked in high school when I went with my friends and realized that normal people have to wait for hours just to ride a ride once. ^ ^;;

10. Wheelchair travel! So we always had a van and in the back of the van was this sort of electric lift which the wheelchair was strapped to. When we parked he would use a little remote to maneuver the lift (the wheelchair was "hooked" onto the lift) and basically you lift the wheelchair up, turn the arm so the wheelchair swivels out of the car, and then lower the wheelchair to the ground and unhook it. This was an electric wheelchair. Manual wheelchairs mostly fold so they are easy to carry.

11. Wheelchair travel continued; in recent years my mother obtained a tiny little folding electric wheelchair, that folded slightly and had removable parts (like its battery) so that it can fit into a regular car trunk. Very useful little thing.

12. Foot pads. Don't forgot to open the footpads lest you want your handicapped person's foot to drag on the floor. Usually my father can do it himself, but thought it was worth mentioning

13. Electric wheels are usually more heavy duty than manual wheels and are better for gravel/harder surfaces etc.

14. Free bag carrying! Whenever we're out an about with my father, we hang all sorts of stuff on his wheelchair and in his wheelchair basket. Purses, bags of food, groceries, water bottles, etc etc. He's also particularly good at sneaking food into a movie theater, no one ever checks him lol.

15. He can run over things. He ran over my foot a couple times (my foot is fine) and the dog's tail multiple times. The dog is impatient and always tries to squeeze past him when he's in the hallway... not a good idea, but doggo never learns.

16. In tight corners that we normally think nothing of (e.g. between the kitchen table and kitchen counter), he sometimes has to do 3 point turns to maneuver into position

17. He's short (when sitting). Technically he can help himself up with a hand on the counter or something to reach higher objects (e.g. a cup from the kitchen cabinet), but it can be quite laborious, especially if he needs to do it repeatedly. We keep dishes in the dishwasher so he can access them easily.

18. My father is pretty buff... on the upper body. I don't think this is true for all wheelchair users, but he used a manual wheelchair for many years, wheeling it around with upper arm strength, and he swims. He has no use of his legs so when he swims, he swims entirely with his arms.

I can't comment on what is considered respectful or not, but hopefully these details are helpful to make your story more realistic! Note tho that my father has been in a wheelchair since youth (like very very young), so he's probably more acclimated to it than someone who had got in an accident.

Look, I'm not disabled or anything like that, but I think that you are looking for the wrong perspective or you don't understand what you are really looking for. Being in a wheelchair is not something like being gay, trans or some minority it is a TRAGEDY, so I think that what you are looking for is EMPATHY, and the most common thing that people will answer to you is that most people (maybe everyone) feels frustrated about their condition because they depend on others to do their stuff. So, don't try to see disabled people as minorities, a gay guy can be disabled, a trans girl too, being disabled its just a tragedy, and writing disabled characters are usually tragic stories with hopeful messages, because thats what those people want, HOPE.

Also, I understand if you want the perspective of those people for a more accurate representation, because you don't know how much limited can be their lives, but since when disabled people are used as joke? I have seen a few examples than I barely can remember but usually, they are the victim or they have an ego/pride and tries to do things by themself and they can't do anything and that's just for dark humor.

In conclusion, disabled people are not minorities, are tragic victims of accidents or illness.

Hey there are a few YouTube channels I follow that give great insight into what it's like to live as a quad or amputee.

First up: Roll with Cole and Charisma
Charisma and Cole talk very frankly about their relationship as an interabled and interracial couple. Cole is a quad and his insight into regular wheelchair use would probably be very helpful to you. They are all about education and showing the day-to-day life they lead. They even video their full morning and night routines. They are also absolutely adorable and I binged all their videos in a couple weeks.

This channel might help with your dragon accident perspective. Jo, on her channel Footless Jo, talks about the horse-riding accident that severely damaged her leg. After over a decade of surgeries, she eventually decided to amputate that leg. She uses a bunch of different mobility aids and documents her journey about being fitted for different prostheses. She still loves horses, and like your main character, doesn't hold the horse that threw her any ill will.

So if I have one eye of different colors that makes me part of a minority? Being part of a minority for what I understand is being part of people that society doesn't want to recognize because they want to keep them hidden, if LGBT people were treated as normal they wouldn't be a minority, but they are persecuted, they are oppressed in several countries, that's why "most" people are straight, but nobody knows that some of them are just part of the LGBT community trying to fit in.
If you consider disabled people as a minority, then cancer people should be a minority too, and any kind of person that suffers any kind of illness that not everybody suffers.

Give them hope is not equal to pity, plus your father didn't born disabled so when he got disabled he did feel terrible for a moment right? But he overcomes that, he now sees his life in a positive way and that's why he doesn't accept that people feel pity for him because he knows that his life didn't end and he can keep going. Besides, not everybody takes that situation equally so what's wrong to give them hope? Because you find it offensive? So it's better don't show any hopes or empathy? What about those that are so depressed that preffer suicide? Your father may be strong but not everyone is your father.

You're right--but this applies to disabled people too. Depending on the country to live in, it can be really difficult to be properly accommodated if you are disabled. The Affordable Care Act is constantly being jeopardized when we fight over different aspects of medical law. Just like any minority, disabled people have to contend with people speaking over them; with not being able to find accessible parking or get into buildings because they are made for able-bodied people; and in awful cases, where it isn't just that they're being ignored but they're actively being discriminated against, there may be lack of legislation to guarantee their safety or autonomy. In the US, where I'm speaking from, you can apply for disability, but that means that the government can take it away the second that you try to earn extra income for yourself. It's no coincidence that disability and poverty often go hand in hand. And that is something that statistically follows being a minority--if you are a small portion of the population that is facing challenges, that compounds other difficulties such as financial status.

So if I have one eye of different colors that makes me part of a minority?
then cancer people should be a minority too

The reason why these do not match up is because there is not active stigma and/or disrespect happening against these groups on a large, systemic scale. People with cancer are, if we don't get into individual financial/familial situations, given treatment and supported. People with an eye that is a different color do not have an adverse effect on their life unless there is a disease attached to it, making them blind, and then they are disabled.

Minorities face discrimination, and people who are disabled are not exempt from that. Among many, many other examples I could pull up, they were sent to death camps/executed along with other minorities in the Holocaust.

Your father may be strong but not everyone is your father.

Not everyone is her father, but also, not every person who is disabled is like you describe. Not all of them are the result of chronic illness or connected to chronic illness. Some people are amputees because of injuries. Some are born without limbs or with deformed limbs. Some have invisible disabilities. You cannot group them all in the same frame of "being ill." Just like any minority, whether it be ethnic, LGBT, whatever, there are a broad range of experiences within their community/communities. People who identify as Deaf instead of just deaf, for instance, have a broad set of communities with different cultures.

We're not saying you shouldn't show them empathy, but saying that all disability is a tragedy is really patronizing. Yes it affects their life, but discrimination is as much part of their battle as their condition itself. They can find it really patronizing to treat them like charity cases when many have adapted (or want us to give them legal resources and laws that make it easier to adapt!) to their condition and just want you to listen to their voices instead of speaking over them, because there ARE ways for them to live well, though not as easily as abled people, if you just listen to their requests and show them the same respect you would show an able-bodied person.

My mother is disabled and two of my best friends are, all in different ways. My mother needs a cane in order to walk; Friend A just needs to compensate with a limp but is also almost completely blind; and Friend B requires a motorized scooter/canes as her mobility aids. I didn't previously comment on this post because of the OP's wishes, but I have a lot of experience with knowing people with different types of disabilities.

Yes, I remember that some characters in series or movies are treated like nothing happened to them, but their disability still being a big scar of what happened to them. Hiccup lost his leg against the giant dragon, so every time that we see his missing feet we remember that incident. Hershell lost his leg by a zombie and Merle lost his hand trying to escape, but well those are different circumstances.
I guess not all perspectives can be covered

The same happens with LGBT people, it's a nonstopping conversation about how they should be represented, "being effeminate is offensive" "but I'm effeminate and I don't find it offensive" and it never ends, so, ok leave it like that, you have your point and its valid too.

I follow so many creators with disabilities that have to walk the "oh but you don't look like you have anything" line; where at the same time they're told they're not a minority and don't get access to a lot of help, but also can't have most of the opportunities because of their health, or worse, told it's for being lazy and not wanting to break themselves further for a salary. Depicting people that need any kind of mobility aid requires just as much care as any minority because the experiences are different and yet there's a lot of similarities to other problems; not just the technical stuff, but learning about their experiences well before making a writing mistake. Research research research, can never have enough of it.

Thank you, @eloquent, for putting that far more eloquently than I ever could have.

I wanted to add that in terms of discrimination, just look at the social institutions around you. Look at some of the examples I listed. Wheelchair bound folks forced to go around/take the long way at so many places where accessibility wasn't built in as a top priority. There are many places where there is NO accessibility at all, and thus they can't access it, period. It's definitely not equal.

And back to empathy - I'm not arguing that you shouldn't show a disabled person empathy. In fact, I think it's a good thing in general to show most people empathy. I'm not going to comment on the myriad of assumptions you made about my father and his life, but I just want to say that you haven't been particularly clear on how you plan on giving people hope. And that no matter how positive the interaction, if you attempt to give people "hope" while maintaining very clearly that they are the "other," that they are "different," (which you seem to indicate by how TRAGIC their life is), such an attitude may not give hope at all but instead make folks feel worse by singling out their differences. Maybe it'll help some, but not others, but in your post you have generalized and objectified them all to "those people" and are giving this advice applied to this entire group, so that's the issue here.

tl;dr there's nothing wrong with being empathetic. The issue is that you've lumped all disabled people into one group, assumed they all have the same experiences, and then forced a TRAGEDY label onto this group... this is by nature not very empathetic

This thread is a train wreck. Being disabled isn't a positive thing, being able to overcome and recover from your disability is what is positive.

I believe OP said this not only before you but said it better. (I could be missing your point too but whatever)

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I read that, i'm just browsing through here and tired of seeing these responses on every disabled thread. (i'm disabled myself)

For what i have read here (i may have missed some comments tho), people are not saying that being disabled is good. No one here would break their legs on purpose (or at least i hope so )

I can understand your frustration. A badly excecuted attempt to inspire disabled people often comes as condescending, patronizing and sometimes fetishising.

That`s a good point. Sadly, recovery is not always viable, so overcoming it sometimes comes in the form of learning to live a good and happy life despite it.