Life from a wheelchair

 What does Ashley do for a living?

She is a student in the general communication career.

 How does her condition affect her daily activities and how does she deal with it?
She can’t do some stuff like running or walking normally, so she stays in her wheelchair instead. And the
other things she is less able to do she just does it but a little slower and in a little harder way. She says that if
she wasn’t handicapped, she would love to run. But anyways, she just goes with the flow.

 What is her attitude towards life? Does she feel disabled from certain activities?
She feels cheerful and excited towards life, even though she feels disabled to do some things that may be
challenging, but she has to deal with it and she’s cool with it. She knows that if she wasn’t handicapped, she
would be able to do those things but she doesn’t feel bad about not being able to.

 How would your life be different if you were handicapped and had to use a wheelchair? What would be
different for you?
I don’t know, I guess that is something you wouldn’t know how to face until you are in that specific situation.
Maybe if I was handicapped, I’d be way less optimist than her since I’m very anxious and pessimist, but it’s
something I wouldn’t how to answer properly. If you handicapped me in this exact moment, I wouldn’t know
what to do or how to react.

 How do you react when you have to interact with a handicapped person?
I would like to say I behave normally when I’m near to handicapped people. But I don’t, it is a situation I
usually don’t know how to behave like when I’m into it. I usually try to not be very condescending but it’s
hard for me to not ask if I can help them, at least. I know I got to be open-minded and I know their skills are
still there but because of the way I was raised and so on, I don’t act like I know I should.

 How can you contribute to improve the life of handicapped people?

Donating to ONGs and helping them with their obstacles directly as long as it doesn’t make them
uncomfortable