By now I knew a little of what it was like to engage the world in a chair, after having gone to the zoo a few months earlier in a manual chair. It was like tasting chocolate for the first time – now I knew what it could be, and I definitely wanted to have some again, because who doesn’t want more chocolate?

Since then things have been both chaotic and stagnant. There’d been a lot of shuffling around recently. Old workers are moving on, new workers are coming in, and new support systems and support workers. It’s all been for the best though, and this was the most stable my team had been in a very long time. My support coordinator got everyone on a phone call together and got the team on the same page about what had to be done and who was doing what in what time frame. It was really beneficial for me as a consumer. It felt like what I wanted mattered, that there was accountability, and that I could understand what was actually going on.

My OT had arranged for me to do an electric wheelchair trial. These chairs even broke into pieces and folded up to go into cars so that I could still go out with my mum and my friends. I didn’t want to be stuck needing a Maxi Taxi every time I went out, because I knew financially that would form another causation of isolation.

She and the wheelchair representative came to my apartment. I have a very long driveway as I live in an apartment complex, so the plan was to go up and down the driveway and onto the footpath. He brought three along and all I could think of was the layout of the local shopping centre and the idea of being able to go there. They now had three different bookshelves. Three! I had to go and see that.

The first chair was joltier than I am, and I couldn’t drive straight (cue my friends making gay jokes here), so we quickly moved on to the second chair. This time, I wasn’t ready for how I'd feel.

I drove down my driveway and onto the footpath and it was just amazing. This idea of moving without my joints aching out underneath me, let me know I was no longer safe. For me, a chair wasn’t just about getting out, but the biggest part was being able to safely get home again. If I could do that, I could feel confident going out again. I wasn’t even allowed to go past the letterbox without my walker, and now I was out on the street, pain-free and unafraid.

In the past when out with an (old) walker, the wheel tried to fall off when I was out the other side of the city from where I lived. This was terrifying. I was stuck, waiting for someone to collect me. I didn’t want my support networks to be on alert whenever I went out. It made me feel like a burden, and I stopped going out unless I was already with someone so that I didn’t disrupt anyone’s life any more than I needed to. Hello internalised ableism and low self-esteem – nice to see you again. But this was beyond safety and actually transcended into joy. I could see a world where I could enjoy things again.

Between the second and third chairs, it was comparable. I was always useless at saying ‘1’ or ‘2’ at the optometrist, so we picked the lightest one. As we were doing the trials, there was a domestic dispute going on down in the complex. For over an hour, there was shouting going on. This was normal for me, and I’d reported it to my team in the past, but as guilty as I felt that my team were getting subjected to this, it was validating that someone else had finally seen what was going on. Unfortunately, this meant that the wheelchair representative said that it would not be okay to leave the ramp outside as he worried it could be stolen. I was also not allowed to lift it by myself. I understood why they were saying this, but I felt trapped again. I was now dependent in a new way.

We brought it inside and set it up on the charger. I covered it (badly) in a blanket – I have three cats and didn’t want cat fur all over a rental, especially if the next person using it was allergic (note – I did tell the wheelchair representative that I had cats so they could have that conversation if necessary with future renters). The chair and the ramp just seemed to stare at me, as though teasing me about what they could do and that I couldn’t do it.

Two of my friends were getting married at the beach. I’d been looking forward to it for months, and they’d even invited my mum so that I could have help getting there and back and during the ceremony and reception. Before the day my mum came over to test everything out. She took the ramp down – super mum – and we wheeled it out to her car. When we got to the car, however, my mum couldn’t lift it, even when broken down. That was it for me. I just couldn’t cope. This was something else getting in the way.

I asked them to return the rental, telling them about how we couldn’t get into my mum’s car. Also, my cats kept getting underneath the blanket. They’re so cheeky. My mum and I joke ‘lucky they’re cute’ whenever the cats do something silly. Emotionally, though, I just couldn’t look at it anymore. It hurt so much, and it took up a significant part of my loungeroom so I couldn’t really ignore it. The staff were all very empathetic – cannot fault at all how caring and supportive everyone was every step of the way. They were very understanding and returned the chair and the ramp.

As horrible as I felt now though, things were about to change. One-wheel forwards, two-wheels back.

About the author

Ferris Knight is a queer and disabled writer, producer and advocate from Melbourne, Australia represented by Champion Health Agency. Ferris mainly writes about their lived experiences with mental and physical health conditions, as well as queer politics, poetry and fiction. They have also worked with organisations such as Arts Access Victoria, The Dax Centre and Women with Disabilities Victoria. In 2019 they produced their first Melbourne Fringe Festival show LEtGO of Stigma, walking 80 metres across Lego to talk about living with hidden pain and the resilience of those with mental illnesses. In 2020 they were a part of the anthology Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear from Et Alia Press, writing about sexual harassment.