The search for autonomy for an independent life is like the search for happiness: it is often the little steps or little achievements which make you claim a victory. This search is always a subjective matter and varies from person to person, also according to each person’s objectives, but do not be misled by the title; the search for autonomy for a disabled person is an ongoing personal challenge in a world that is a competent expert at being a battleground, with daily obstacles that must be overcome to perform even the silliest of actions.
Personally I haven’t won any gold medals in this discipline that has nothing Olympic about it, but together with my wheelchair I try to leave tracks that can be turned into rails and used by those who live the same condition. And I do this by talking about my own experiences.
35 years living in a wheelchair provide you with a certain familiarity with everyday spaces: school, home, the office or places of entertainment. My condition, for example, does not allow me to be independent even in pushing a manual wheelchair; due to my upper limbs being short I can’t even reach the wheels comfortably. It may seem silly, but the knowledge of having to share your life with someone at your side at all times (or behind me, in my case) is not always an easy thing to accept – you have a limited life space. Then, all of a sudden, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to use the word autonomy if I didn’t put some effort into it, if I continued to take it easy on the back of others. It was not an immediate decision, but I realised that the only way I could raise the bar and aspire to moving independently was to buy myself a motorised wheelchair.
It doesn’t take much to change your life and it changes everything. Now I have the right to claim that I am independent: I can travel about freely almost everywhere and I don’t need a licence, just familiarity with the joystick.
The transition from a super lightweight manual wheelchair to a motorised one, in my case, was an absolute breakthrough, because it allowed me to get out of the house by myself, even just for a walk, for living spaces with greater freedom and to indulge my own tastes without having to reach a compromise with the demands of people by my side. Of course, even motorised wheelchairs have their limitations: for example, it is important to bear in mind that you cannot fold them up or transport them easily (there are very few folding models and they are not easy to handle) and that if you want to use one in the place of a manual one for going on long journeys, you need to find yourself a car where you can get in and remain seated in the wheelchair.
Also, since they can’t be folded, they won’t fit in every type of car and this may cause a few limitations in your social relationships, with friends or boyfriends etc.
Choosing to take this step definitely brings you an emotional benefit, but it means a change of life and the positive or negative aspects vary according to each of us: what we are willing to sacrifice in exchange for something else.
Success in becoming autonomous or achieving a higher level of autonomy is a step towards breaking down those physical and mental barriers, as any person ought to do, if they want to define their own existence as life.
