Remember those three way mirrors in the clothing department when you were a kid? (These mirrors still exist of course, but I want you to remember when you were little and seeing them for the first time.)
You were dragged before that mirror. Dragged on a Saturday to get good clothes maybe for a funeral. Maybe a wedding. It doesn’t matter what the occasion—you were there in that stuffy store, stooped, sweating, scowling most likely.
And maybe your mother said: “Wipe that look off your face.” But of course you couldn’t. For not only were you there on sufferance, you were being forced to see yourself as others would see you. A childhood ego is not as fragile as its adult successor, but even a diminutive ego hates to see itself posed for others.
That was the moment when childhood was over.When commodified staring was a fait accompli. “Sit up Huckleberry. Don’t slouch, Huckleberry.”
If able bodied people want to know what disability is like, think about this: its a forever of that Saturday hijacking where you stood before an unrelenting mirror, salesman, and grudging elders. No end in sight.
Planet of the Blind 