Dear Ukelele Teacher

[mme_hardy]

 We hit it off.  You're fun to talk to, you meet me at my level, and you've figured out what I want to learn and how to get there.  You're a good dude.  I look forward to learning from you.

"You don't LOOK disabled!" is never, ever an appropriate thing to say.

Comments

[genarti]

Ugh and oh dear. I'm glad it sounds like everything went really well aside from that, but ugh.

[kore]

LOVELY

"But you're not lying in a hospital bed! You don't LOOK sick."

[mme_hardy]

There was a head-to-foot "But you're walking!" look first.

However, the moment was self-educating. I said (without thinking) "Chronic pain condition" and he looked embarrassed and flinched. I bet he'll think twice about saying that to somebody else.

[kore]

Good for you. (My dad is but completely unable to understand why I am on disability when "you're the same as you always have been" and don't have some life-threatening condition. SIGH.) (Well no, I guess depression is life-threatening, just not for the past 2-3 years or so.)

[julian]

I ththpt at him.

[adrian_turtle]

Good for you. It's so hard to respond in the moment when those things happen. At least he had the decency to flinch, rather than doubling down, and I hope he won't do it again to anybody else.

[rachelmanija]

That is so obnoxious.

I keep getting "But you look great!" No I don't, I look really thin which you have been culturally conditioned to see as attractive, but which in this case is a sign of illness.

[mme_hardy]

I once had to snap at my sisters-in-law "It's because I'm suicidally depressed!" because they would not stop asking me how I'd lost all the weight.

[rachelmanija]

Hopefully that taught her not to ask that question again.

[thistleingrey]

Good.

[ironed_orchid]

UGH!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

The thinnest I've ever been in my adult life was from PTSD after a difficult birth. I mostly told people it was the breastfeeding, which I guess had some truth to it, but was far from the whole story.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Did you tell him?

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I smiled and said "Chronic pain condition," and he recoiled in embarrassment, so I'm pretty sure the situation itself educated him.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Oh, clever.

[sabotabby]

What the everloving shit?