I’m Allowed To Park At This Dis-Location

I am physically disabled. I got a placard for my car and a wheelchair at the age of eighteen. At the time of this event, I was twenty-three, but looked younger.

One day, I was at my local grocery store trying to go about my life. I was parked in a disabled spot and was walking towards my trunk to get my wheelchair out (I am only a part-time user).

This elderly customer (who looked in her seventies) saw me at the parking spot while I was sitting down in my chair. 

She comes up to me and starts ranting at me about how I’m lazy, that I’m too young to need a chair and parking spot. That I’m stealing that spot from someone who REALLY needs it. 

I kept trying to explain to her I’m disabled and need both the spot and chair, but she kept yelling over me.

At this point, she had called me lazy, fat, and a bunch of slurs I’m not comfortable repeating.

She finally says:

Customer: “Prove you’re disabled. PROVE YOU NEED THIS SPOT MORE THAN A REAL DISABLED PERSON!”

So, I do. I started to manually dislocate my left shoulder, followed by some of my fingers and wrist. I even went and started to do the same to my knee before she told me to stop.

Customer: “Are you crazy?! It’s disgusting for you to do that in front of me!”

Me: “Believe I’m disabled now?”

She walked away.

Before people ask, I have EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). I’m so lax in my joints I can purposely dislocate most of them. It is not something I do on purpose often.