While the challenges that come from living with a disability vary a great deal from condition to condition, there is sadly one aspect of this kind of life that’s more common than many people realize.
Although most people know to keep accessible parking spaces clear for the people who actually need them, we can often see that when someone’s disability isn’t obvious at glance, they’ll be targeted by the very people purporting to help them.
One might think that the presence of a placard on that person’s dashboard would help prevent these stressful confrontations, but we’ve seen multiple cases that make it clear how little that sign can matter to some people.
Because even if someone can only walk short distances, their disabilities are invisible enough for someone to feel justified in harassing them.
And that situation recently led one woman to take a measure her family apparently thought was too extreme.
Three years ago, the woman suffered a serious car accident that occurred after a drunk driver ran a red light and led a semi truck to crash into her vehicle.

As she explained in a Reddit post , this meant that her leg had to be amputated along with a finger and the tip of another one. It also gave her chronic pain throughout her body and PTSD, but she has since worked through the latter condition.
After some insurance payouts, she now has a prosthetic leg that doesn’t look much different from her original one when it’s clothed.
It was in this context that she drove to a store with her family and parked in an accessible parking space.

But despite the fact that she has a placard indicating she has a right to be there, she was nonetheless confronted by a man with a disabled companion who lost out on that spot.
Not only did this person accuse her of stealing the spot from people who “actually” need it, but he belittled her for being a 21-year-old who he assumed had “no respect for those who are truly sick and suffering.”
In her words, “My group was urging me to just walk way but this has happened before and once the police were even called.”

That being the case, she was tired enough of dealing with people like the man confronting her that she got back in her car and pulled her prosthetic leg off to show it to him.
But rather than turn sheepish at this revelation, the woman said, “He walked away calling me disgusting and r**e and said I could have just told him and I made him look stupid.”
The woman’s family then told her they were embarrassed and that the woman had made the situation awkward because there was a crowd.

But when she asked Reddit if they were right to think that, commenters could only swell with pride at her response to that man’s accusations.
As one user said , “I think you answered the call perfectly. And the man wasn’t embarrassed about his behaviour — he was embarrassed that he got caught and looked stupid. The exact thing he was trying to do to you.”
Others were also disappointed by her family’s reaction, with one person saying , “I’d take a moment where you can talk and be serious and remind them that while this is happening AROUND them, it’s happening TO you, and this isn’t the first time.”
h/t: Reddit | Superb-Watercress-28
Last Updated on March 10, 2022 by Mason Joseph Zimmer