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I am curious to know how people address having scars and birthmarks or other visible medical concerns like oxygen tanks or wheelchairs. It's a common topic for books and movies, which I hear people complain about from time to time. I'm going to assume that people are correct to disagree with the way that scars, birthmarks and etc. are shown in movies and TV. However since it is not something people generally talk about in person I don't know much about it otherwise. I have noticed that villains tend to get scars, and sad guys, which is obviously nuts since most of my scars are from mountain biking which is good clean fun. A buddy at the gym is scarred up from a boating accident. I do notice that people look, but I don't know what goes through their heads. He looks like a military guy so some probably think he is a veteran, but I have not heard anyone ask. Do friends and strangers ask rude questions? Have you had a birthmark removed? Are there words that are annoying to you? Are wheelchair accessible things actually wheelchair accessible or is that just dressing? What did your girlfriend think? Did it change something about your life you did not expect? Do you get annoyed when people want you to be inspirational? Has it affected your job? etc. Obviously don't say anything you don't want to say. I would like book recommendations also, nonfiction, if there are good options.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:44
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Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body is a fascinating read on this subject, and I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone curious about human embryonic development, variation and mutation (no xmen sorry).
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Apr 1, 2016 01:20
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I've got a friend who's blind, with clearly messed up eyes, and being out in public with him is interesting. Most people are either super polite and slightly nervous, or don't react at all. People stare sometimes, but it's not like he gives a drat. If anything, he uses his disability as leverage occasionally. Like "Well, I know it's past the 30 day return limit, but it's so hard for me to get around on my own..."
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Apr 2, 2016 15:09
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I was at university with a few blind people, and used to earn money by reading textbooks to them, while they recorded it, to listen back to later. One guy was Scottish, and he was reimbursed for it by the Scottish Office. All I had to do was read for an hour, and then ask him how many hours he wanted to put down on his claim book. "Ah, just write ten". He made all his drink money from that, and I would get about a third of it - which gave me my drinking money. And on a sadder note, a blind girl he was friends with was raped, in a fairly public place - she reported it to the police, walked all the way to the station with her white stick, and the first thing the cop asked was "what did he look like?". Duh. Happily he did get caught and sent down for it though, as some witnesses who thought they were just having rough sex in the open came forward after a police appeal on TV. Shithead got 10 years in the Big House.
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Apr 2, 2016 18:22
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I have a couple of very visible scars on my arm and leg, and I walk with a limp. I use a cane when I have to stand or walk for long periods. bedel jews posted:Do friends and strangers ask rude questions? Because my scars are obviously due to an injury, this is probably a bit different for me than it is for, say, an obviously blind person or someone with a birth defect. The number one question I get is 'what happened?' Also, its cousin, 'wow, that looks like you have an interesting story!' I was honestly surprised at first how many total strangers would come up to me and ask what happened to me; I've never even thought about doing that to someone else. It's not that people are rude about it, but the sheer volume of questions I get would probably surprise you. If it's warm out (so I'm not all covered up with clothes) and I'm out and about like normal, I get approached by at least one stranger a day. When I'm wearing long sleeves and pants, but I'm using my cane, people very rarely ask questions. Maybe because they think it's less likely to be an 'interesting' story. quote:Are there words that are annoying to you? Here's what really bugs me. When strangers ask what happened, I'm pretty happy to explain it to them. But a small percentage of the time, they immediately launch into a diatribe about cycling is so dangerous, cyclists are irresponsible, this one time a cyclist flew out in front of my car and he's lucky I didn't kill him, etc. I'm like this, by the way, because I was riding my bike in a bike lane, obeying all the rules of the road, and an irresponsible driver swerved across the road and hit me. This conversation has happened maybe... ten times over the last year? And every time, I get really upset. It's not that they're wrong - cyclists do a lot of dumb poo poo, although wildly less often than drivers, in my experience! It's more that they choose to immediately respond to me like that. It comes off as if they're trying really hard to somehow explain away what happened to me as being deserved, instead of just bad luck in a cruel and unjust universe. quote:Are wheelchair accessible things actually wheelchair accessible or is that just dressing? It depends. Here are some things you might not have thought of: - Those loving swipe card doors that unlock for three seconds when you swipe in, then lock again. The one on the front of my apartment building was inaccessible to me when I used a wheelchair, and is sometimes tough for me to use now, since the swipe box is 5 feet from the door. I'd unlock the door with my card, wheel forward, and grab the door handle just as the loving thing locked again. - Maybe half to two thirds of handicapped bathroom stalls are reasonably accessible to a manual wheelchair user, at least in my experience. I ran into a lot of situations where, with some time and effort, I could use the bathroom in a public place. But it only worked out because I'm fit, strong, and had one usable leg to help me transfer out of the chair. If I'd been weaker or had to transfer using only my arms, it would have been impossible. - Throw rugs. If you have a friend in a wheelchair, get rid of your stupid throw rugs. - People like to casually park their grocery carts/bodies/whatever directly in front of the only curb cut within 50 feet. It doesn't seem like a problem if you're not in a wheelchair, since you could easily just step up on the curb in any other spot, right? But one thing non-wheelchair-users don't notice is that the curb cut is the only spot where we can get onto/off of the sidewalk, and there often aren't that many of them. If something is blocking one, we have to detour. quote:What did your girlfriend think? I'm married, and my husband doesn't mind the scars or anything. He did injure his knee pushing me around in the wheelchair. You might underestimate the wear and tear on a caregiver's body, especially if the injured person is pretty immobile 
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Apr 2, 2016 18:46
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I don't even have any permanent visible scars etc. but right now I've got a walking boot on and everyone wants to know why. It's none of your loving business. Sometimes if I don't feel like explaining (it's a long boring explanation) and just give a clear gently caress off answer like "kicking the last person who asked" or "fighting grizzly bears" they will continue to demand that I tell them what happened. Some will start guessing and at least a third of the people I encounter make a domestic abuse joke  After surgery on my foot if I had to go a long distance I'd grab a rental wheelchair and wheel around instead. I noticed people treated me like I was mentally challenged when I was in the wheelchair vs. upright on crutches. Didn't matter it was blatantly obvious that I was in a wheelchair due to my foot being non-weight bearing. Wheelchair instantly meant being talked down to slowly in simple words. People are also dicks when you're in a wheelchair, I was waiting for an elevator in a crowded area and when it opened everyone rushed in front of me and didn't leave me any space. I had to wait for the same elevator multiple times because it'd fill up before I could get there.
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Apr 3, 2016 01:57
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I had a childhood accident at 14 that resulted in burns to 65-70% of my body. I spent 5 weeks in hospital and a further 18 months wearing a pressure suit to help reduce the scarring. I was pretty chubby and lazy as a kid, I used my burns as an excuse to get out of PE classes at school. My diet was pretty crap to begin with and by the time I got to uni, my weight ballooned by another 30kg to over 130kg (285 lbs). I had body image issues due to my weight, not my scars, so I would always wear a tshirt to the beach or in a pool. I never felt the need to cover up my scars, it was a feeling of shame at how overweight I was. At my heaviest 2 years ago, I was 142kg (312lbs) and 185cm tall. For various reasons, I decided to turn my life around and get fit. I now weigh 95kg (209lbs) and I am a little taller due to improved posture and less weight around my stomach. I also go to the local public pool twice a week and swim laps without a tshirt on. One of the major differences that I have noticed since losing weight is that the scars have become much softer because I have significantly reduced my bodyfat. I also assumed that my veins weren't visible due to the scars, but as I've been working out and losing weight my veins have become visible. I have some moderate burn scars on my face, so I can't grow a full beard. Because the scar tissue is a little bumpy, I need a bit longer to shave. There's also a spot where the scarring means I can't use a razor to shave a small area, so I have to pluck it with tweezers. I don't get too many questions about my scars, when I do, they're just general curiosity. My scars are fairly moderate for how severe the burns were, so I don't generally have people stare at me. Kids are curious and will sometimes ask about them, but I don't mind because they're nice about it and genuinely curious.
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Apr 15, 2016 07:14
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I can only tell you about my experience living with my dad. My dad has only his thumb, index and middle fingers on his right hand while his left arm stops at the elbow range with a nub on it. Birth defect, related to thalidomide in the early 60s. I never really thought of my dad has having a defect or issue as a kid growing up. I suppose this was because I was both used to it, and because my dad can do basically anything anyway. He drives a regular car, cooks, cleans, shoots guns, makes his own bullets for said guns. The man taught me how to tie my shoes, although my husband comments that I tie them oddly, they are effective. Anyway, my parents really never went to any school functions together when I was a kid[my mom and her mom would go], but in 6th grade in my area you have the option of joining band to learn an instrument. I did so, and at one of our first concerts, my dad went. After the concert, I heard my parents talking to my grandmother. Basically the parents of a girl (somehow I figured out from the conversation who it was, I don't recall how) asked my dad to "leave" because he would make their daughter uncomfortable. I never liked that girl afterwards. Edit:I totally know my left from my right. Bonapartisan fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 08:02
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I have a bunch of scars on my arm that are very clearly from self harm (long time ago). They're not the massive needing-stitches kind, but since there's a lot of them, it's very obvious that they're not cat scratches or the result of an accident. They've faded quite a lot now, but they were more visible a couple of years back. People asking "Hey, what happened to you!" is one thing, but you wouldn't believe the amount of random people who'd go: "WOAH, what did you do to yourself?!" Mostly I'd just shrug my shoulders and say that I was sad a lot when I was 14, and move the conversation on to something else, but depending on the situation and how pushy the person was, I'd basically confront them about the question they were asking, like: "What do you think? Please, take a good look, what do you think I did to myself? Give me your best guess. Do you want to know why as well?" They'd get pretty sheepish at that point. It's just such an amazingly thoughtless question to me - you can clearly see that yes, I cut myself a lot at some point in my past. What the hell are you hoping to accomplish with that question? Somehow I don't think you were after a deep and meaningful conversation about physical trauma and emotional anguish.
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Apr 15, 2016 20:40
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I had a kidney removed via a midline incision on my chest when I was 3. I've had a stem-to-stern scar since that time, and in almost 40 years, almost no one that I was not already friends with has asked about it. I just spent two straight weeks on a cruise ship and went to the pool every day, and even the same handfull of people I hung out with every day never asked what the deal was. Had you not posted this thread, I wouldn't have even thought about it. I don't notice it when I look in the mirror. When I was younger and I'd hook up with a girl, almost always, immediately after we, uh, finished, she'd immediately ask what the deal was and I'd explain it. Sometimes they want to touch it and ask if it hurts (?). Sometimes this leads to a second round. :-)
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Apr 15, 2016 23:57
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I have two fairly noticeable scars on me. One is on my forehead, and since its not easy to cover I do get asked about it from time to time. Its a story I don't mind telling though- basically, when I was a toddler, I was playing tag in the house with my dad and cut too close a turn around a door and bashed my head against the edge of the door. Wound up going to the ER to get stitches, and the doctor decided little kids did not need painkillers ( wtf? ) so I got stitches without them. Unfortunately for him I was a fast learner, and my dad had the habit of cussing out other drivers, even when I was in the car. Cue everyone in the waiting room hearing a toddler call the doctor a cocksucking motherfucker. My mom was less than thrilled. The other scar is just below my ribcage. I had pyloric stenosis as an infant- basically my stomach was unable to pass food into my intestines because the muscle that opens and closes between them was stuck closed. Apparently now the procedure is even less invasive and barely leaves a mark, but I'm stuck with a four inch scar. I was more embarrassed about it when I was younger, but these days I hardly even care when I hit the pool or wherever.
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Apr 16, 2016 21:03
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Thanks everyone for telling me about it so far. The experiences are different so it is interesting.Bonapartisan posted:Anyway, my parents really never went to any school functions together when I was a kid[my mom and her mom would go], but in 6th grade in my area you have the option of joining band to learn an instrument. I did so, and at one of our first concerts, my dad went. After the concert, I heard my parents talking to my grandmother. Basically the parents of a girl (somehow I figured out from the conversation who it was, I don't recall how) asked my dad to "leave" because he would make their daughter uncomfortable. Did the girl ask for this or were her parents like this? That is a very severe demand and for an entirely unfair reason. The parents should have explained either way. Thank you for sharing.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:31
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I was born with (or developed, I guess I'll never really know) trigger finger in my right thumb. My mother noticed when I was about a year old that I was having a hard time gripping a bottle correctly, and so I got surgery. The surgery is basically them slicing open the sheath that holds the tendon in place, and that released my thumb. It also gave a pretty well-defined V shaped scar on my hand that's clear as day as an adult. On top of that scar is another scar - thats from slicing my hand open trying to get the cork out a wine bottle  I also have a fat dent in my head. One time, after a football game, I hooped a fence in the school field. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the solid steel air conditioner above my dome, and whacked my head on it. Turns out head wounds bleed a lot. A Festivus Miracle fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 09:34
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I was in a car accident at when I was 18 (7 years ago) and i have scars covering about 60% of my face. Through use of vitamin e oil they have faded to just look like I had really bad acne as a teenager. For the first few years people would constantly ask if I'd been in a fight ("drat, I'd hate to see the other guy!") I don't understand what possesses people to ask very personal questions about others bodies. Especially random strangers, maybe it's the way I was raised but I just find it very rude.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:56
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Adequate Panther posted:I was in a car accident at when I was 18 (7 years ago) and i have scars covering about 60% of my face. Through use of vitamin e oil they have faded to just look like I had really bad acne as a teenager. For the first few years people would constantly ask if I'd been in a fight ("drat, I'd hate to see the other guy!") I don't understand what possesses people to ask very personal questions about others bodies. Especially random strangers, maybe it's the way I was raised but I just find it very rude. This is totally bewildering to me. On top of what I mentioned in my earlier post, I have a couple of visible scars on my face from an unrelated incident. There's one cashier at the pharmacy I used to go to who asked me about them every single time she saw me for months. Once the explanation finally stuck, she switched to always asking me 'how my cat was doing'. Now I avoid that pharmacy, and if I have to go and she's working, I try to check out at the makeup counter instead. I'm not saying it's bewildering just because it bugs me, I'm saying that because I honestly don't understand. I can only think of a handful of times in my life where I've even seriously wondered about somebody's visible disfigurement or disability, and it's never crossed my mind to ask them about it. I figure the odds of it being a funny or interesting story are a lot smaller than the odds of it being something they don't want to talk about and I don't want to hear about, or else something completely mundane. Or even if it isn't a touchy subject - like I said, I really don't mind talking about my scars that much, as long as people are respectful about it - they've probably already been bothered about them a million times that day.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:31
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God Over Djinn posted:This is totally bewildering to me. On top of what I mentioned in my earlier post, I have a couple of visible scars on my face from an unrelated incident. There's one cashier at the pharmacy I used to go to who asked me about them every single time she saw me for months. Once the explanation finally stuck, she switched to always asking me 'how my cat was doing'. Now I avoid that pharmacy, and if I have to go and she's working, I try to check out at the makeup counter instead. poo poo like this never ceases to amaze me. I've had some variant of "so the cat doesn't like you, huh?" two times: once years ago from a customer when there were several cuts under my eye from an incident at home. (Non cat related.) That one I could understand their assumption despite it being rude. The second was just a few weeks ago in response to a surgery scar. Which is six inches long and runs from behind my left ear to half way under my right cheek.  I'm generally happy to explain if someone is curious but if they're rude like that then it either makes me mad or just upset if it's been a difficult day. (Surprise tumour required the removal of 1/3 of my lower jaw and reconstruction involving a permanent titanium plate so that side of my face is kinda messed up. No hard foods, pain in cold weather and after cardio, pretty much constant discomfort from nerve damage.) It is a pretty bitchin' scar though I guess.
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Apr 25, 2016 03:37
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bedel jews posted:Thanks everyone for telling me about it so far. The experiences are different so it is interesting. I think the parents just asked as the girl was no where around at the time. My dad never went to any school functions afterwards, though even ones I would have liked him to. ETA: I was looking for a photo, because I had been talking to my mom about this thread and we were discussing why people ask questions that can be inappropriate. We don't have a lot of photos of my dad (or anyone in my family, we all genetically hate cameras) this is the only one I could find, and its actually from around the same time this incident happened -- early 90s. You can't see his arm with the three fingers, but the other is visible. I don't know, I'm used to it so I don't even find it phasing, but I also had a hard time thinking someone would find him horrific looking either. 
Bonapartisan fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 00:40
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^^^ your dad is a perfectly presentable dude, and those other parents were cockwights from the douchedowns. I have a point on one of my ears, on the back top quadrant. Throughout elementary and middle school I got teased, called an elf, etc (I'd correct them that I was only half elf). Come high school that all stopped, and I periodically had girls ask to touch it. Gooo figure.
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Apr 26, 2016 02:26
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Blue Footed Booby posted:^^^ your dad is a perfectly presentable dude, and those other parents were cockwights from the douchedowns. And just think, now that's a popular body mod. 
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Apr 26, 2016 02:31
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Because of cancer and poo poo, I had a loop illeostomy for a period of time. Plain english, I poo poo through a bag for a period of time to let the rest of my poo poo heal after major surgery, which was later reversed. Obviously was unable to run around in speedos anymore like I used to, and generally people don't notice, but sometimes when you raise your arms or bend in certain ways and your shirt lifts, people will notice. For the most part people would ask what it was, and I'd say "My Business", and they'd get the hint. I don't enjoy talking to people, and make it very obvious. Every now and then I'd get an idiot who would either insult me about it, or not drop it. I found the easiest solution was threatening physical violence followed by "draining the bag of poo poo attached to me on your chest after I've knocked you flat on your rear end". That one really helped getting the point across. It also helped that I'm bigger than a lot of people. Most people are reasonable. It's that small subset of people who weren't taught to not be shitheads that make it annoying.
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Apr 26, 2016 03:32
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I used to know a guy whose left hand was malformed due to his mother's over-consumption of crack cocaine. It was basically a little round nub the size of an Eisenhower dollar, about as thick as a packet of American cigarettes. There were little tiny bumps where the fingers should have formed. The wrist joint was fully articulated, though, so it was actually far less of a handicap than actually having only one hand, although its lack of a grasping ability was certainly a hindrance to him sometimes, but for the most part he was quite capable of doing things like playing video games, driving stick-shift, etc. He had been given a prosthetic of some sort, but he never liked it. This is common in people with a congenital deformity, they're used to their body and don't have a sense that they are missing anything because that's how they've always been. He tended to keep it in his pocket but if you knew him he wasn't shy about it at all, really. He'd sometimes lark about by rolling a condom onto it because it was about the size of a dong. He was also bi-sexual (although he affected a personality of "flaming homosexual") and had indeed used it on men and women both with great effect.
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Apr 26, 2016 05:01
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Gibbo posted:Because of cancer and poo poo, I had a loop illeostomy for a period of time. Plain english, I poo poo through a bag for a period of time to let the rest of my poo poo heal after major surgery, which was later reversed. Some people are, honestly just terrible. I get people being curious, but some people don't have those social skills. I frequent Oddee, a website with just random blurb lists of stuff, this one came up for me today and I thought some of you might like it/find it interesting. It definitely made me think of this thread.
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Apr 26, 2016 05:03
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Red_October_7000 posted:I used to know a guy whose left hand was malformed due to his mother's over-consumption of crack cocaine. It was basically a little round nub the size of an Eisenhower dollar, about as thick as a packet of American cigarettes. There were little tiny bumps where the fingers should have formed.
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Apr 26, 2016 05:29
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i like nice words
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I don't have any experiences myself, I got some scars but they are minor and basically just life happening to you. My identical twin boys however where born without thumbs, or underdeveloped ones, so they've had surgeries (right hands only so far) where they turned their index fingers into a thumb, so basically they look like they got cartoon hands, but with scars, one of them also had heart surgery to close some holes between the ventricles so he has that scar on his chest. I think it might fade pretty well, I don't notice it anymore actually. I often sit and wonder (worry) how this will affect them in the future and how people will react, but so far most people don't seem to even notice it. We've explained it to the daycare people of course when they started, and the children their age don't seem to discriminate either I've noticed, they got friends there. I'm probably obsessing over this too, just want them to be treated as the normal social and happy boys they are. Fortunately life seems to be doing that.
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Apr 26, 2016 08:36
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I have a compressive glove and arm sleeve on my left arm with more to show when I'm shirtless. My arm looks really weird bare, you could say grotesque. People who know me rarely ask about it. I was many times in a situation when an acquaintance would start saying something like "So... uh... I don't want to be impolite... and uh... I just wanted to ask you something... uh... if you don't mind..." and I know well in advance what they're going to ask about. I find it funny and even sweet that they are so concerned about upsetting me. Children stare and I hate it.  Last summer I was at a friends house shirtless and a neighbor brought his kids to check out the new cat and the kids ignored the cat and stared at me. We adults tried to laugh it off but I was really uncomfortable.Complete strangers rarely ask me about it. I go to a local farmer's market where old peasant ladies (this is Eastern Europe) ask about the glove because it gives them an opportunity to give advice and tell about their health issues. I don't mind, it's a cultural thing. OTOH, last year a random guy in Amsterdam on a beach approached me in a purposeful way and asked some precise questions. I thought he was a doctor but no, just curious. He tried being polite about it but it was actually condescending and I didn't like it. Here are my tips if you want to ask someone about something weird in a major way with their body: 1. Better to ask when you're alone with them than in a group of people. 2. If you will be seeing them more (coworker, roommate, friend's partner...) it makes more sense to ask because you'll probably be forming a relationship. If not then you're just satisfying your curiosity and that person gets nothing from it. 3. Be prepared for answers you might not expect and enjoy. It's maybe a scar from something badass and cool and it's maybe from cancer surgery that didn't work out.
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Apr 26, 2016 11:44
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Anne Whateley posted:Nubbins are flukes, not linked to anything the mother did. "Crack babies" have different issues, if any. I knew a kid with the hand thing, and it was something their family was defensive about because everyone assumed it was the mom's fault somehow. Huh. You learn something every day. He had other issues as well, a slight developmental delay (nothing you'd know just by talking to him) and some of his mental processes worked ...oddly. For instance if you asked him to provide you a given telephone number, he'd have to have a phone in front of him to produce it as what he remembered was not the sequence of numbers but the sequence of motions to dial it. He'd read you the numbers as he passed his finger over them. He also seemed to read not by reading the letters, but by recognizing the shape of the word, so a word that he'd never seen before would throw him if it looked like a word he knew. Children are just horrible about this sort of thing in general; but just remember that their mental processes are no more fully formed than their bodies, they're basically tiny psychopaths, so they have no concept to not ask you about a thing that most people would leave alone. I personally don't have what I'd consider scars or deformities, but I've worn very thick eyeglasses since first grade (negative seven and a half correction) and kids were horrible about it. I mean, yes, it's technically a malformity of the eye that causes the need for such eyeglasses, but it's so common that grown people basically just ignore it as a thing and perhaps all we'll do is criticize someone's taste in glasses (like seriously, people, why is everyone wearing birth-control glasses voluntarily today???) like any other item of fashion.
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Apr 27, 2016 02:02
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Scarring is something that has always puzzled me. Along with the human spine. I have a Harry Potter type scar on my forehead from a (minor) car crash, about 15 years ago. Why does human skin decide to scar, and not just regrow as normal skin? Likewise, why is the human spine so lovely a design, that virtually everybody gets a "bad back" at some time in their lives, often permanently - even without heavy lifting or anything?
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Apr 27, 2016 14:30
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My wife would hate to read this, but she doesn't look at SA so I'm safe. She has massive scars on both hips from hip replacement surgery. She's only 40, but the doctors wouldn't do it until a few years ago. She should have had it done at 25 but everyone refused. The funny thing is, I think they're cute. Not a fetish thing or anything, but they're a part of her. Scars are just scars. It doesn't change the person. My toes are partially webbed and look like creepy baby feet. It isn't so bad, just weird. Plus, they're finger toes so I can use them to do cleaning and such, pick up things, use them like a clamp when working cross legged, etc. All people are just people. La vie c'est bon!
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Apr 27, 2016 15:34
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Ohnonotme posted:Likewise, why is the human spine so lovely a design, that virtually everybody gets a "bad back" at some time in their lives, often permanently - even without heavy lifting or anything? It's a great design if you're a tree-climbing quadruped like our evolutionary ancestors.
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Apr 27, 2016 16:01
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Ohnonotme posted:Likewise, why is the human spine so lovely a design, that virtually everybody gets a "bad back" at some time in their lives, often permanently - even without heavy lifting or anything? Gabriel Pope posted:It's a great design if you're a tree-climbing quadruped like our evolutionary ancestors. This is wrong, quadrupeds have a C-shaped spine with vertebrae of similar size because their weight is distributed through all four limbs. Humans and close human ancestors have an S-shaped spine with vertebrae that increase in size towards the pelvis. This is a specific and very characteristic adaptation for walking upright on two legs (bipedalism). People get bad backs due to bad posture, wear and tear. Even though humans have a ton of adaptations specifically for bipedalism, all your weight is still on your spine so it's gonna wear out with age.
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Apr 27, 2016 16:16
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Ohnonotme posted:Scarring is something that has always puzzled me. Along with the human spine. People sit around too much and do nothing physical and when they do something they aren't used to it and do it incorrectly and/or their weak back muscles aren't up to the task? Totally anecdotal but my parents are nearing 65 and have done physical labor since they where teens (farmers), still working infact, they have no back issues. They're probably both more fit and springy than me who sit in front of a computer all day.
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Apr 27, 2016 17:30
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Ohnonotme posted:Scarring is something that has always puzzled me. Along with the human spine. Scarring is basically covering a wound that doesn't get healed over fast enough by normal cell growth by filling the whole area in question with a lot of collagen to seal it off. If you considering scarring evolved long before we started working with bandages and sterilizing wounds, you can see why a system that fills in an injury pronto is favored by natural selection, you want a fast way to seal wounds before infection sets in and kills you. The collagen is organized a lot differently than that of normal tissue hence the appearance and other changes.
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Apr 28, 2016 00:27
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I have a very visible trache scar, that I got when I was 13 that the doctors told me would go away. 13 years later and it hasn't. Cunts. It still looks like it's fresh. Anyways, it's not a big deal and I mostly forget about it, but it can bug people. Sometimes, if they're not socially accumulated they'll ask how I got it and it will bug me out and upset me, but I just tell them a really short version about it or lie to get off the subject. It's not like I don't like to tell the story I just don't like how long it is (I got it from a rare virus etc etc etc) Any romantic interests I have I tell them right when I meet them and I never hear anything about it again. I used to get really annoyed when people wanted to propel me and such for "surviving". My mom used to do this to lower her bills and such, i'm sure she still does even though I don't live there. It effected my jobs in that I live in a small town so everyone knew what happened to me so they kind of treated me lightly at first.  I'm a pretty shady looking individual by nature so the scar doesn't help matters either lol. If you have any other questions I can answer.
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Apr 28, 2016 02:18
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I was born with a fairly noticeable case of pectus excavatum. For the most part, people don't notice because I have a shirt on, but it has certainly had an effect on me. When I was younger I was much more self conscious about it, even though it was less obvious back then (it's seemed to grow with age, and honestly the more in shape I get the weirder it looks). I remember when other kids first noticed it, which was embarrassing, because I never thought I was any different. However, as I've grown older I've come to like it. I was worried girls would think it's weird, but honestly they tend to like it. Some girls think it makes resting their head on me or cuddling more ergonomic, some flat out think it's hot. In general it's just a quirk that helps to differentiate me from other people, and I wouldn't trade it for a normal chest any day. One friends mom once called me 'chicken chest' which has never sat well with me, but she's the only one to say it and it certainly wasn't meant to be intentionally hurtful so I don't begrudge her.
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Apr 28, 2016 07:52
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I was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. Somewhere around here from a few years ago is an A/T thread I did about it but to answer your questions: - Do friends and strangers ask rude questions? Friends, no. Friends are generally smart enough to ask questions in a way that isn't rude. Strangers, yes. A lot of strangers assume I'm also mentally handicapped, or they act like I just can't hear them as they talk incredibly rudely about me. People are assholes to the disabled. Not always overtly, but there is always, always going to be staring. I'm not even including kids, who get kind of a pass because they're kids. Adults are rude, condescending shitbags a great deal of the time. Before anyone says "not me I'm a nice person," that's cool but others aren't. - Have you had Tweaked that a bit. The major surgery for people with dwarfism is limb-lengthening and no I have not. It's a pretty horrific process of breaking a bone and then slowly yanking it apart so it grows back together, and you get a few inches max. Unless they come up with something that can give me 10" so I'm 5' tall, it's not worth it. The closest I've had was the breaking of my lower jaw to push it back and of the upper jaw to pull it forward, that's the surgery that changed my appearance the most but even that was medically necessary because of hosed-up dwarfism facial stuff. - Are there words that are annoying to you? The word "midget" is rude as hell and people who use it are generally either ignorant or assholes. If they're the former and take polite correction, cool. If they don't, they move into the rear end in a top hat category. I also have a personal hate for the term "little person" which is, unfortunately, the current PC term for people with height disorders. Little People of America is our national advocacy group. I just think it sounds condescending as hell. - Are Speaking in terms of accessibility as a whole, for someone like me it's generally a joke. It's impossible to cater to everyone but goddamn I wish the toilet options in public bathroom weren't either "handicapped bathroom with toilet at waist height" or "normal bathroom with toilet at butt height." I have literally never sat on a toilet and been able to rest my feet on the floor. Hell, I've never sat on a toilet and not had to basically pull myself up onto it with the force of my abs. - What did your girlfriend think? I've had two serious relationships. Neither one of them have even commented on it, it wasn't a thing. I'm up front about it on dating sites when I've used them, and I have a pretty finely-tuned sense of when someone's interested in me for me, and when someone has a weird small person fetish, which is more common than I'd like it to be. - Did it change something about your life you did not expect? It's not really a change since I was born this way, but I think there are aspects to life that I view differently as an adult. Like stairs. Imagine that 90% of stairs hit you at the bottom of your knee. I hate stairs for this reason. With few exceptions, they aren't built short enough to be anything other than uncomfortable. Same with what I mentioned above about toilets, chairs go along with that too. I've never sat on a chair and had my feet touch the floor. I've done that on things like steps, but never an actual chair. I've never been able to use a kitchen without a stool. It's little poo poo like that, that I really wish I could experience. - Do you get annoyed when people want you to be inspirational? I get embarrassed by that, yeah. I'm just a person. I've got poo poo I've dealt with but so have other people, it's just that my poo poo is maybe a bit more physically exhausting than some will deal with. On the other hand, I also hate people who totally brush it aside and act like it's not a big deal -- people who don't slow down when they walk, people who don't understand that there are parts of life that are significantly harder for me than for them. - Has it affected your job? One of the "great" things about having a long-term disability is that you rapidly learn to recognize when you're turned down for a job because your appearance grosses people out or they don't know how to handle you. I've gone into interviews where the tone in the emails or phone calls has done a drastic 180 when they saw me.
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Apr 28, 2016 16:15
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I'm covered in little brown dots. Learned a lot later in life that they're called lentigo. Some are the size of a pinhead, others about the size of a grape. All the really big ones got scraped off and tested for melanoma, so I have some puckered scars, mostly on my back and legs. The spots come and go. I had a spot the size of an oat flake on the side of my forehead for 3-4 years. Just appeared one day, stuck around, then faded. They've shown up everywhere from my earlobes to my genitals. There's one my opthamologist found during an eye exam on my eye socket wall. After that I had nightmares about doctors scooping out my eyeball to test for skin cancer. I also have a chicken pox scar on my nose. My mother was collecting me from the babysitter one day, saw what she thought was a bit of dirt on my face and tried to wipe it off. Next day, even more bumps. Less noticeable now that I'm an adult though.
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Aug 22, 2016 07:03
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While it's not anything like a scar or birthmark, I have this hip deformity (I forget if it's valgus or varus) that causes my feet to point out like a duck when my knees are pointing straight. Fortunately it isn't the type of thing people usually notice unless they're specifically looking at my lower legs or watching me run, but people do occasionally notice it. Generally the reaction is just "why are you standing/running weird", after which I'll explain and show them how I can make my feet parallel to each other while pointing in opposite directions, which people tend to find pretty shocking (and occasionally lets me trick people into thinking that I'm super flexible). Honestly the only notable downside (in terms of the way others perceive me) is the fact that I can't run without looking goofy. It was also annoying when I had to keep explaining to my Taekwondo instructor in college how it's literally impossible for me to do a proper roundhouse kick and has nothing to do with me not being flexible enough, so I guess a deformity like this can be pretty obnoxious if you have a hobby/sport that involves using legs/hips a bunch.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:46
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I had two family members in wheelchairs, one of which also had mental problems, the other had amputations. This all happened when I was a kid though so this is from both an outsider's and little kid's perspective: Do friends and strangers ask rude questions? There were a couple questions, but it was mostly out of curiosity. Are there words that are annoying to you? Everyone always referred to her as mentally handicapped. I'd never heard the word retarded or disabled til I was older and even then it didn't exactly describe the situation. I think once I heard her described as retarded and it made me confused and a little angry. Are wheelchair accessible things actually wheelchair accessible or is that just dressing? We had to have a ramp built into the house that took forever but once it was built it was a god-send. What did They still loved them up until the end but it did cause some intimacy problems. Did it change something about your life you did not expect? In a way, their condition helped shape a significant portion of my childhood. I learned that bad stuff happens to good people and vice versa, and poo poo happens and you just got to deal with it. The universe wasn't cruel, it just was. You wouldn't call a tiger cruel, it's a tiger being a tiger. Do you get annoyed when people want you to be inspirational? I can't speak for my family on this point but it wasn't inspirational to us. It was tough. People would tell us how good we were for taking care of them. It felt wrong being praised for it because it's just what you're supposed to do with people you love. It felt like they were saying it was okay to not want to be there for them. Times were though that it wore on you and you wished and prayed things could be normal instead, so you felt guilty about it. When they're not around anymore you feel even more like crap because you worry if you loved them enough.
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Aug 22, 2016 21:52
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I got 2 sets of scars that are noticeable, one on the inside of my left forearm is about 6", it's faded a bit in the last couple years but used to be fairly contrasting as it was really pale. People asked every now and then what happened. Sometimes I'd give em some line of bullshit but most of the time I'd just tell em the truth. "Got it doin laundry" Was doing laundry in the dorms at college and I reached inside the dryer, my forearm got caught on the little magnetic catch on the door, was a bad scratch and didn't think much of it. Well since it was a gross dorm, it got infected real fast and took like 3 weeks to heal. Other scar is fairly noticable if I shave off my beard/moustache, or if I purse my lips tight unshaved. It's on the left side of my mouth vertical across both lips about a half inch either side. When I was about 8 I was out at garage sales with my mom, while she was looking at junk I was playing with this dudes big rear end dog. Super friendly but it jumped up on my shoulders and I jumped back and fell. Somewhere in the fall one of the dogs canines caught my face and cut me open p.good. I ended up getting about a dozen stiches that day and the dogs owner felt like complete poo poo. No charges were ever even thought of and the dog wasn't reported to animal control. Still love dogs to this day but that first incident with stiches and an unrelated blood test shortly after gave me a fairly healthy phobia of needles I still get uncomfortable about 20 years later.
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Aug 23, 2016 06:10
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I have a ton of cutting scars on both the inside and outside of my forearms from when I was depressed. When people notice them they give me a horrified look. I covered one arm with a tattoo but the other arm is still exposed which sucks. Luckily I can usually use the excuse "cats". My leg has a HUGE scar an inch wide and three inches long and I just say I had an accident while cleaning but it's actually cause I cut myself too deep. The day after it was pouring pus. That was fun.
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Aug 26, 2016 18:31
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