abuse shouted at me because I use a mobility scooter.

I think tolerance care and kindness from all sides is what’s needed!
I don’t look disabled but can’t walk very well, so I use a small mobility scooter.
I have often been asked why I’m driving a ‘fattywagon’ when I’m a skinny old biddy!
Bliddy cheek - fortunately I have a very acid rogue and can usually send hecklers on their way with red faces!

That was meant to be ‘acid tongue’ though I can be a rogue when called upon!

It's not just the government creating ill will toward the disadvantaged.
I refuse to watch anything on Channel 5 or its cohorts because of the relentless targetting of benefits claimants that is their program schedule.

And another thing star you clearly don’t understand about equality campaigns and their dreadful ‘negative’ effects - like the campaign for blue badges which means that me and others on this thread can get out and about like ‘ordinary’ people or the campaign for disability rights in employment which means I can work like ‘ordinary’ people. Yep really negative effects - all those poor ‘ordinary’ people who have to ‘suck up’ not having a blue badge or having adjustments made for them at work. I expect people like you would be happier if we were all put in institutions and then you wouldn’t have to suck up not being special because we would be out of your privileged sight . FFS

I have EDS and use both a wheelchair and a rollator and yes I have heard snide comments which I found offensive. I gave up on joining groups for my age because there so many opinions about disability ( I've lived with this all my life, 23 years wheelchair) and I have no choice in the matter. I wish I had the luxury of having an opinion! A certain age group see the "disability" first and sometimes miss the person behind it or become patronising and embarrassing. Young people are much better, my grand children accept me as I am, they see the disability but it is no barrier to my being a loving and useful Nan. Likewise my children. They live 300 miles away and I can no longer be of help in times of need (although I have done the new babies and moving homes bit several times) People ask very personal questions when it's none of their business, I am not public property and make assumptions that being disabled is something always associated with benefits. That is not so. The worst I came across was a senior social worker who was supposed to see what she could do to help and after a few visits decided she could only give me help if I was mentally incapacitated and proceeded to try and get me to agree with her! There are nice people out there who respect the disabled and there are those who want to control and humiliate and those calling names and snide comments come into that category.

There are often queues for toilets. I think some disabled people feel that they shouldn’t have to wait - not all by any means. Isn’t a disabled toilet one which gives disabled people access to an appropriate toilet, not something only they can use?
I am thinking those with sensitive bladder, a Mum with a pushchair etc. I wouldn’t leave my GC outside the cubicle in a ladies loo.

I was in a small cafe when a man drove his huge mobility scooter in. He parked in the middle and people could not carry their trays past him. I was in the queue and had to pass my tray over his head to my friend. It was almost as if he was there to make a point. He felt entitled to block the cafe, so he did.

Well clearly it’s have a go at disabled people - anymore for anymore?

star, why did an old man try to knock you off your bicycle with his walking stick?

My father-in-law had a mobility scooter. He was a death-risk to anyone else using the footpath at the same time, as he didn't seem to realise the thing had anything other than top speed, and he was partially sighted so didn't see other people on the footpath, and quite deaf so didn't hear people shouting warnings. No good trying to reason with him, he loved the scooter, it gave him mobility and independence. He shouldn't have had one, but I don't know how we could have got it off him.

Baggs probably because she’d complained to him that he was allowed a walking stick because he was disabled when she, as an ordinary person, was not allowed one ????

MillyG, have you thought that perhaps some people are obese because they are not mobile? Not everyone’s metabolism is the same, some struggle to gain weight and others struggle to keep their weight under control despite healthy eating and plenty of exercise. These sort of assumptions annoy me as much as those made about people with hidden disabilities.

Thank you craftynan! I was a size 12 before I became disabled, now although my food in take is a lot less (its true, no appetite!) I am now a size 20. It is impossible for me to exercise at the level needed to lose weight and although I do eat heathily, no sweets, fried food etc my size ballooned! I am aware of it but to have Hey Fat A* get a move on shouted at me does not exactly make my day!

I admit, I was cycling (very carefully) on footpath outside his house (middle aged woman , not a speeding teen!) . He took exception, leant over wall extending his walking stick and wouldve had me off if I hadnt stopped. I must admit at bottom of street I turned round and biked past his house again just to 'have the last word' !!

It's certainly medical fact that people's metabolisms can slow down; and NO EXCUSE EVER to make rude comments to overweight folk, but I have to observe that food MUST play a part...you don't get obesity in situations where food severely rationed (and I'm struggling with my weight too, before I get shouted down!!)

Well MillyG I hope you never end up with the multiple probelms my daughter has.She was a fit size 12 ..át 5 foot 8 .She has fibro and joint hypermobility syndrome amongst other things ...all withing the past 5 years.Until then she ran her own business and a pub with her husband and cared for ahome and 3 children.She takes 23 pills a DAY ,they dont touch the sides of the pain and they leave her with brain fog and unable to do the simplest thing.She is bedbound most of the time.She is now about a size 20 ...NOT because she eats too much ,but because of the illnesses and the medication .Every now and again she manages to get out with her girls ..she really doesn't need to be abused ,for her weight or for the fact she doesn't LOOK disabled .As for the mailonline stories.....well toilet paper has more facts than that publication .But of course there are always the gullible who are looking for someone to blame for THEIR problems .

Well said Paddyann!
Many medications can cause weight gain. When I'm on steroids, I can put on half a stone in a week, despite eating less, as I feel so awful. It is so difficult to get the weight back off again. Heaven help those who are on long term steroids and are also unable to exercise due to their disabilities.
Quite a few intolerant and unsympathetic people on this thread.

Well GG what a charming post. Any view predicated upon a story ( in all senses of the word) in the MailOnline and which therefore postulates that policies towards disabled people should be formulated thereon makes me glad that whilst my body doesn’t work very well, at least my brain does.

Well MillyG thank god you’ve pointed out that if someone’s obese it’s their own fault !!

It seems to be the last bastion of discrimination. You don’t even need a doctors diagnosis because according to you it’s obvious !

I would have thought it would make far more sense to assume ill health limited mobility and limited mobility increases the risk of obesity.

But what do I know ?

Yes Marydoll there surely are. Disabilism at its best from some posters.

Some very unpleasant experiences on here. Can we just try to make other people's days a bit better, not a bit worse? Say good morning to people, if they ignore you it's not your problem. Chat at bus stops. Treat shop assistants like real people.
Pick up a few pieces of litter. Admire dogs, congratulate owners who are actually picking up the poo. I find all this comes more easily when the sun is shining but it does work.

Yesterday a loud little girl with special needs was calling 'hello' to people on the bus as her obviously exhausted grandmother sat silent. Some passengers answered her, then a whole group of secondary schoolboys said, one by one, 'goodbye' as they got off. The little girl was radiant as she replied and the grandmother relaxed a little too. She then chatted a little to a friend who was on the bus and I realised how difficult were the lives of both women. We're all on the same human journey, why not help each other along?

I am really dismayed to read that anyone, young or old, should make nasty comments about disabled people. I have Arthritis and bad balance so I walk with a stick and have never had any comments good or bad. Perhaps it doesn't happen where I live or I may just have been lucky.

Yes, me too. With arthritic knees and a fractured spine, I parked my car in a disabled bay at ASDA's one day and on leaving found someone had spat out their half chewed grapes over my car. This during the times when the tv was airing one of those awful programmes about disabled people being scroungers. And with these physical problems I held down jobs all my working life and didn't retire until I was 68 ...........

I’m currently sporting a huge bruise on the back of my leg after being run into by a mobility scooter. No apology. In fact she gave me a really nasty look as if to say it was my fault.

I agree with the critics of GGs post. An a retired benefits worker, that list of benefits is ridiculous. They couldn't all be paid to the same person. The problem is when people read DM and mistake it for a newspaper.