Ask family for help. If you have family members who are willing, this is usually the best choice. However, don’t let real dependence attract codependence; sometimes the risk of getting help from family is being trapped in unhealthy family relationships, especially where they behave in abusive or patronizing ways. Understand your family relationships and if it appears that you’re being harmed by such interactions, seek alternative sources of help. A second option is to ask friends for help and reciprocate with things that you can do. If you lack mobility but you’re good at webpage writing or listing auction items online, maybe you can trade such work on a friend’s website or listing their items to sell, in return for housekeeping help. Naturally, don’t continue to help when it’s not reciprocated - your time and effort are as valuable as those of abled people. A reliable option, if you can get it, is to seek local resources for independent living with disability. Some cities, counties, hospital programs, and so on, have either charities or government programs that help disabled people close gaps in their self care needs. You may be able to get a personal assistant who’s paid to come over, spend time with you, run errands or drive you around if you’re incapable of doing these things on your own. Search online and phone your local hospitals, clinics, government offices asking for contact numbers. Don’t give up thinking there is nothing offered; you don’t know what resources you have until you’ve checked them out. Consider moving to a new city or area with better resources made available to help disabled people live independently. You have a right to live in a clean, comfortable environment and to get help keeping a clean body if you can’t manage this on your own. It’s not your fault if you can’t do these things on your own and it’s not a character flaw. Accept help graciously and actively seek better alternatives if the people helping you are patronizing, cruel, or abusive. This is important in the long term - what’s acceptable in an emergency might be “any port in a storm” but don’t let yourself be trapped in a bad situation. Seek help lines and outside assistance from state, provincial, regional, or federal/national agencies and charities if you’re in a bad situation and need help getting out of it.
Don’t be ashamed if you can’t exercise the way other people do. Exercises are designed for people with standard bodies and a full set of normal abilities. Don’t measure your progress against other people’s. Judge your progress realistically in relation to your own past efforts and results. Stop if it hurts, especially with back injury and disability, bad knees and any other condition that can cause sports injury. Remember that the Special Olympics has it right - everyone’s a winner. If you manage any exercise at all, or any improvement in physical function, you’ve won something. Effort does count a lot more than it would for someone abled. Don’t expect your results to be the same as someone who’s abled and decides to change a sedentary lifestyle.
Be aware that many people are nervous about how to act around someone who’s disabled. They’re afraid of embarrassing themselves and may be patronizing without really realizing it, in an attempt to see themselves as nice people. Be firm when refusing unnecessary help – that’s another big social pitfall. Be generous with other people’s nervousness. Educate them politely, once they’re used to it they’ll get to know you as a person. Many people seem to hold the idea that disabled people ought to be pathetically grateful for unwanted advice and any attention at all. The more you don’t play those games, the easier it is to start filtering your acquaintances for people who treat you with respect. Demand respect, and stay calm when you do. Keeping your head in face of all the social challenges of disability builds real courage. Eventually all the lousy stereotypes, idiotic reactions, codependent mind games and patronizing attitudes of others will become familiar. Each situation has its own effective counters. Learn to become assertive rather than aggressive or passive. You will need more social skills than someone who doesn’t stand out as different. There’s a stereotype that disabled people must be sweet, saintly, nice to everyone, and never have a bad day. Being nice to everyone on first meeting and cutting people some slack for initial bad reactions can help, but if it doesn’t help, seek effective, assertive ways to deal with difficult people. Learn which friends you can genuinely trust. Don’t let “be nice to everyone” become “be everyone’s doormat and never express anything negative. " You don’t have to be Tiny Tim to demand human respect.
Accepting your disability means grieving the loss of a normal status with no stigma against you and a life without enormous inconvenience. It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not good. There is no up side to it but on the other side, it’s not something wrong with your character either. Grief takes the time that it does.
Seek support groups with people who face the same challenges. Think of them as challenges rather than thinking of yourself as a victim, this is a big step up from self-pity. Remember that your social challenges are real. Don’t agree with people who are putting you down or laughing at you, that’s perhaps the hardest thing to learn. You can’t hold on to attitudes that denigrate disabled people or you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Obnoxious acquaintances aren’t worth hanging onto. Obnoxious friends and family may get a longer chance to work on the relationship and more effort on your part, but recognize that sometimes that’s a brick wall.
After a while, people you connect with regularly online or offline will get used to your disability, you can even not tell them you are differently able. The internet has lots of sites for just chatting with other people about all kinds of thing so if you don’t feel your being differently able makes any difference to how you contribute, only share what you want to about yourself. Other sites allow role play where anyone can be anything, or a cat, or a penguin, you know the sort of site. Since no one on role playing sites is being themselves, you might like to try role playing yourself. People online very just like in the real world, most of them will stop treating you any differently or may never treat you differently. The hardest time is at first when you find out who your real friends are. Building a solid social network, online or in the real world, is essential to living well, disabled or not. This is something the able bodied might learn from you.
