I’ve been thinking about the National Companion Card program since going to the theatre with a friend where the topic came up more than once, first in the booking process and after the show by a well-meaning mother and daughter duo.

Following up from this, I thought now was a good time to discuss it.

Even to those with disabling conditions, I often seem the most  “severely” disabled I’m pretty confident. This is arguably owing I suppose to the fact that I use a motorised wheelchair and my speech has an interesting twang. I have strong legs, but no ability to balance for any length of time on my legs. My left arm is perhaps the most obviously affected. It spasms and it bounces around. It’s amazing what you can do with one arm! The subject of hierarchy of disabling conditions is worth exploring

Despite this I have managed to get on with “it” and hold down a successful career, keep house, maintain wide-ranging friendships and other aspects of a well-balanced useful life.

I have also managed to get by largely without a offical attendant care program, for various reasons. I’m not one of those who thought I was eligible for “care”. I have had support through periods of my life from friends and family and such.

Regardless I do not pass these eligibility criteria particularly:

It will be issued to people who are assessed as meeting all of the following eligibility criteria -

• severe or profound and permanent disability.

• unable to participate in most community-based activities without significant assistance with:

- mobility

- communication

- self care

- planning and

- where the use of aids and other technologies does not meet those needs.

• their level of support is lifelong.

In my case, the second point/s are the most salient. The medical severity of my disability is largely assessed by my doctor, as is the call that my level of support (even from my wheelchair) is lifelong.

I am quite rightly ineligible I believe for this valuable scheme.

My issue is this: However well-meaning, the assumption that anyone with me is automatically my carer is hurtful but common. I quite often have situations where as soon as I am with a person who appears not to be disabled , all questions from service providers and well-meaning strangers get directed to them.

My strangest moment of this regular occurrence happened early in the new year. A very close friend took myself and another girlfriend to see a matinée performance of Mamma Mia! as a birthday treat for herself. It was just after the main Christmas break was over for most workers. The audience was made up largely of grandparents and their grand-daughters.The show was great and a lot of fun.

While waiting for the crowds to clear at the end of the show. We noticed a bright pink cane leading its young owner and her mother up from the front of the auditorium. I tend to hone in — like a radar and at least notice other people with clear and usually congenital disability. I suspect I am not the only one who does this. This mother and daughter headed straight for the three of us, standing behind me unfortunately cornering me. After initially discussing the show and the fact the girl had been very lucky to have her father arranged seats for them in the middle so she could use what sight she has, the mother admitted that she had got in for free as the carer of her daughter and seemed both defensive and shocked that Birthday friend had paid for her ticket. There was a sense this was somehow selfish of me, until I told them that no I didn’t have a card. She proceeded to show me her daughters card and exhorted me to get one because the government “owe us something”. YG had already asked my friend “what is wrong with her” (me), having worked out I was using the chair. Mother was quite defensive.

I concluded the conversation by the assurance that I work in “the industry”, and that I would look into it again.

I left feeling small and invisible. If these are the assumptions that we carry of each other, what hope do we have?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Rubbing the tummy of the person with disability
• A card carrying bone fide
• the voice Australia has a vision of loveliness
• Doing the limbo
• The email I wrote for international day last year