Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Yes! That Sparrow passage irritated me in a speck of mussel-shell* sort of way. I want to be that enlightened person who enables people to provide "not totally needed but non-damaging" help.

Yet a gnarly combination of pride and misplaced bravery keeps urging me to do it myself! do it myself! do it myself! Who am I proving this to? Partly it's a holdover from training and working in male-dominated fields when I was younger. Partly it's denial that I'm impaired. (Hanging with other disabled people has been really liberating in that regard, because in any group there's usually one or two people who can handle something, so we can assist each other in the way forward.) The most frustrating part is the internalized disablism which insists that access is a zero sum game, and that there is never enough to go around. That if I accept help, then someone else who needs it won't be able to have it.

* Bits of mussel-shell are inserted into freshwater oysters to make cultured pearls.