While I entirely appreciate that a court case is the best way of determining culpability, if you ever think I whine too much about quality of care for disabled people, consider the following.

An excerpt From The Age, November 3, 2009:

Four Charged Over Betts Killing

(I'm not including the details, they are distressing and not relevant to my gripe. Suffice to say it's a murder trial and this woman has been charged with being an accessory to murder.)

Godfrey in contrast was red-eyed and cried as she applied for bail, which was rejected.

Dressed in black and with a ponytail, she said she was not a flight risk and was due to start a new job today as a disability carer. She said she was filled with fear over what had happened. ''I did not say anything as I was too scared,'' she said.

The point being, that if you ever need a job where the employers won't care where you've been and don't care where you're going, you can get work with disabled people. Going into the homes of people who often live alone, are isolated and dependent on *you*.

And if I may be cynical for a moment, it has the added advantage that working with disabled people tends to get you brownie points if you do need to provide proof of good character/good prospects of rehabilitation at any point.

I know there's much more to the story than this, there may well be extenuating circumstances, but the care industry really needs an overhaul. A good employer will surely look for more than a criminal records check, which only provides information on convictions, before employing someone for this sort of work. I find it hard to believe that a reasonably conducted job interview would not have uncovered some anomalies in this woman's presentation of herself. If not her impending court case, a work record and CV that would have reflected what appears to have been a very erratic lifestyle.

Yep, overhaul needed.

Interesting conversation tonight with Big Sister.

It transpires she does get quite a few people who ask after me and then go on about how wonderful 10B is to stick by me.

I'm happy to say she finds it offensive too.

~~~

We got onto this because I told her about a conversation I had with a friend(you know who you are!) recently about my observation that having a disabled wife seems to boost the status of 10B, and said friend said he really wouldn't like to comment, so I challenged him to deny it was true and he was even more adamant about not commenting. Heheheh.

It's somewhat akin to how people react to men with pushing babies in prams or cooing over cute puppies. I also notice it when we're been out and about together and I'm in the scooter or the chair - women fawn over him in a way they don't when I'm just walking with him normally.

It doesn't happen among our close friends. They know me as well as they know him. Therefore, I assume, they know me as *a human being with a personality* (or possibly as a bitch with a temper who won't stand for that crap). They also know 10B as a human being with a personality...which means they're presumably quite clear that we are both saints for putting up with each other. So there.

~~~

There is a very important distinction between supporting carers in their role and degrading and disparaging the person for whom they care. People miss that. Further, they reduce our relationship to one of nothing more than selfless martydom and powerless gratitude.

Selfless martydom is bollocks compared with love and respect and friendship.

~~~

There are a range of tactful and honest responses which involve pointing out that maybe I am worth the trouble, maybe he just happens to like me, maybe it's a two way street and I put up with him too...that sort of thing.

And yes, given most people who get married apparently bail out when their spouses become disabled because it turns out they didn't mean it when they said "in sickness and in health", I guess I am pretty fucking lucky. But I am tiring of the implied insult to me, to 10B and to our marriage.

~~~

Next time it comes up:

He's with me because I fuck like a whore.**


**thankyou, scarletdemon

Wheelchair Unbound

feyandstrange gets justifiably pedantic at Reuters. Yay!

It would make such a difference to my life if shops did not have that tiny little step at their front door. It's usually at least 5-10cm high. My scooter can only do 5cm(apparently) and that's a bone rattler.

It rules out the local supermarket, for starters. And being able to get round there would be a serious bonus.

Well. Not a bonus. Something I *should* be able to do. It happens often enough that I go without things I'd like because 10B is working and I can't do the walking, and it drives me nuts on days when I'm well enough that I know I could do it if I could just stay in the damn scooter.

A lot of other places are still ruled out because they aren't accessible inside or because they have doors that are not automatic.

But there are a few I could patronise more often if it weren't for that little step. The chemist is sort of accessible if I can face a twenty point turn to get round their aisles. The bakery - well I guess it's just a crap bloody Brumby's anyway - but I'm disinclined to go to all the trouble of parking, collecting the keys, getting out, going inside and then doing it all in reverse just for a small item or two. So much for impulse buying.

I'd be really happy to slouch around in a cafe if I didn't have to park the scooter outside and then keep half an eye on passers-by. And now that they're all putting chairs and tables on the footpath, it's actually harder for me. I don't like sitting out in the street much, especially not at this time of year, so Bazza can't be parked where I can easily see him. If he's directly outside the cafe he's blocking the footpath, so he has to go off to one side of their tables on the outside of the footpath. That bugs me.

Such a little thing.

I think I just got fobbed off. Mind you, the librarian in question was probably about to leave for the day.

I'm after some books either as inter-library loans or purchase requests if the library decides they're worth purchasing. At the moment, a trip to the library is not on the menu. But I figured if I could get the ball rolling then once they arrived I'd have a window of a few days to either pick them up myself if I could, or failing that to see if 10B could get them for me.

My local library says that you have to come in in person to do inter-library loan requests. I rang up and explained that disability makes this a bit of a challenge and asked if I could do it over the phone.

Yes no problem.

But then after all that, when it had been determined that the items weren't in the collection (I'd already checked online but I do understand they need to double check), and some of these items were in fact put in as purchase requests, I was told that it was all okay, and now I'd just need to come in now and fill out the interlibrary loan forms, and it would be fine because it only takes a couple of minutes to do that...

I dithered and re-explained that this was difficult and that's why I was ringing. She then said something I couldn't really follow about how things sit in folders for a couple of weeks and then get thrown out. And then she thought for a moment and suddenly brightened up and suggested maybe I should send an email explaining my situation and listing the books I was after. But that that should be my idea and not hers (uh...what?).

~~~

It's possibly that I made the fatal mistake of saying that *sometimes* I can get into the library (but that it's difficult - and two trips, to fill in forms and later to pick up books, is a big effort). Better to simply say 'disabled', no ifs or buts, no compromise positions - no attempts to meet people halfway. No 'if I can order these, my husband can pick them up...or maybe I can if I've got a window of a few days.' The moment you acknowledge that you aren't completely helpless you risk losing any help at all.

The problem, I think, is that people don't get that when I say "I can come in sometimes, but it's difficult" I'm essentially trying to meet them halfway and trying very hard not to be a nuisance. What they hear is simply "I can come in sometimes..."

But you don't win brownie points for trying to do your share and request as little help as possible. It's frustrating, but that's how it is.

~~~

Every so often I have one of those "it could be you" moments. The sort that have most of us living in denial most of the time, because it's all a bit scary otherwise.

The sort that have us thinking that old people are not-us(and never going to be us) and that women and kids who get assaulted did something to make it happen.

For me, these days I also get hit with these moments on stuff to do with disability and how people get treated once they're in that category.

No nothing bad's happenned to me, I've just heard about the way someone else has been treated by service providers and fuck me, but I can see how quickly and easily it could happen to any of us.

I have no freaking idea.

I got up. I got myself together. Assessed how I felt and figured it wouldn't be a total disaster. I dithered briefly, wondered which bits were worrying me the most and worked out what I'd do about them. I made a phone call, called a taxi, went to the mobility centre and climbed into a scooter. I went to the Art Gallery, which is right nearby. I saw the Sydney Nolan retrospective. His later work impressed me far more than it ever has before. I found his Kelly series traumatic to look at, quite distressing in a way that they never were before. I pondered this for a bit, and then I moved on.


His antarctic paintings are breathtaking, and I'd never really looked at the stuff he did with - was it acetate? Where he rubs the paint off. And the Riverbend paintings were astonishing. I had never seen them before. His spray paintings were fucking brilliant, I'd never realised that before either. Maybe I was just still too caught up in painterly brushstrokes back then. Or something.

And what hit me at the end was that he was not afraid. He really was not afraid. Took his work as far as he could, pushed his skills and vision hard. He didn't stop and he didn't hold back. With an end result of work of amazing delicacy and beauty and power.

~~~~

I bought too many books, I returned the scooter, I decided I could walk to the tramstop and catch a tram home because it wasn't yet peak hour. I <3 the mobility centre.

The tram ride was okay becauase although I was exhausted, my sensory overload problem seemed to be fairly okay today. Normally, the problem is that the more exhausted you get, the worse the sensory overload gets, which is one of a few reasons why I don't do trams. Or for that matter, anything much at all.

I am now feeling a bit stunned.

And it is catching up now.

~~~~

But before I fuck up completely, here's what I bought.

Pearce, BarrySidney Nolan, from the Art Gallery of NSW. The catalogue, of course. Hardcover and extensive.

Culture Warriors, National Indigenous Art Triennial '07 National Gallery of Australia. Which I never would have had a chance at seeing, but wish I had.

Morphy, Howard, Becoming Art: Exploring Cross Cultural Categories UNSW Press, 2008. Looked interesting, something I mull over in my own very vague and limited way, so why not have a book to do it with, I figure. It might help me resolve some of my own puzzles about the stuff I got taught as Art History and how it fits with all the other stuff I've read and learnt about and where it all goes next. My own personal attempt to find common ground with different fields I've studied and...okay I'll stop now. (Unlike Sir Sidney, I am afraid, which is why I'll never be great).

Dew, Christine, Uncommissioned Art. An A-Z of Australian Graffiti Meigunyah Press, 2008.
How could I not?


Plus random greeting cars and postcards, some for me, some for the greeting card stash.

They very kindly didn't charge me for the bag. :-)

In retrospect, if I'd joined the National Gallery society, the membership wouldn't have cost much at all because it would have included entry to the exhibition and given me a discount on the books, but would only pay for itself if I go back again once or twice over the next year. At this point, part of me is saying yes, yes, yes - fuck I'll be back on Monday - but I wasn't entirely sure I was being realistic, so I didn't.

~~~~~

Braiins...? Huh............

~~~~~

If today doesn't kill me, I will try for the Medeival Manuscripts exhibition next. I believe it's on for about another month...hopefully I'll have recovered by then.

The carer I got today was alright. I've met her before and I think we can work together okay.

As for the carer I had last week: my case manager is making a formal complaint. She's advised the agency that I don't wish to take the matter further but that she is concerned on my behalf and on behalf of any other clients who may be effected.

So that's that.

Just reading a comment elsewhere on LJ that reminds me of that ornery old problem about invisible disabilities. It was a passing comment about people disrespecting the disability parking zones. The problem being that having a permit is something between you, your doctor and your local authorities - whether or not you look well to a random stranger has no bearing on the matter.

Having an invisible disability, and knowing lots of other people who do, and knowing some of these other people have been abused by random strangers for having and using their permits(and waiting for the day when it happens to me because I've got my speil all ready and just hope when it happens I've got the wherewithall to use it), it's a matter quite close to my heart.

Essentially, you can't assume anything about a person's health and/or capacity based on how they look to you. And you don't have a right to demand that information.

I'm never sure whether to weigh in and speak up on that one, given it was tangential to the topic under discussion.

Well. At least anyone who reads this post knows how it is.

Or maybe

"spends money freely"
"desperate - will try anything"
"seeks rescuing"

Meh. I'm about to add a further sentence to my introductory spiel for carers. One that will make me look like a person with a bit of bug up their arse about something which is fine given I am a person with a bit of a bug up her arse about something.

At present the spiel goes something like this:
It's not that I can't do any one particular thing, as such, it's just that over the course of a day, where you can do this much
*indicates with hands*
I can do this much
*indicates far smaller amount with fingers*
therefore I have to choose what I spend my energy on very carefully. So you're here to do certain tasks so that I can do other tasks with what energy I've got.

The new sentence at the end of all this, the one that will firmly place me in the camp of the bitter and twisted, the city of people with bugs up their arses, is this:


And please bear in mind that no matter how well intentioned you are, it is not okay for you to tell me about products that you think might help my condition.

I thought of adding further explanation as to why I now feel obliged to say this, but I shouldn't have to, so I won't, and I don't want a debate about it. It's a simple instruction and if they ignore it I'll complain, pure and simple.

~~~

Yes (in case you were wondering) I had a carer trying to tell me about a miracle cure today. There I am naked, having my hair washed by a total stranger and she starts up about how there's this thing that she's telling me about - not because she has anything to gain but because it might help me of course - designed for people with chronic fatigue blah blah...

At several points I explained why I'm not interested, those points were countered, and I was sorely tempted to bait her on some of the inconsistencies in her spiel and misunderstanding on several points about 'chronic fatigue', but I didn't have the ooomph today and she was washing me, for fuck's sake.

Then when she said it wasn't sold commercially but through a home business arrangement, I wondered if she has such a business and would have asked, but if she'd confirmed that she did I would have wanted to put in a formal complaint, but again I just don't have the oomph to be cranky today. And if she had been a distributor, I'd have been too angry to have her in the house for any longer. She's washing me, sorting my laundry, doing all that stuff - it's not an easy situation and I want it to be calm and amiable. And I do suspect she thinks she's doing the right thing(she takes the stuff herself), I don't want to cost her her job.

Although the more I think about it, now that she's safely gone and I'm fairly certain I won't have to see her again if I *do* complain, the more I wonder if maybe it wouldn't hurt at all for her to be advised that well intentioned or not, a carer doing that is abusing their power.

I'm just worried that then it'll be one of those situations where someone wants to know my side of the story, expects me to engage in some sort of dialogue with the person I'm complaining about, and then maybe says I 'wasn't assertive enough' or something, so I have no reason to complain. I shouldn't have to be, of course. This is not a situation where you can expect clients to be assertive, the onus is on the service provider to ensure that boundaries are not transgressed.

Same with teaching, employers, doctors, nurses, any of those professions and same with adults in relation to kids and anyone in relation to someone passed out drunk, it's not the behaviour of the customer/patient/employee/pupil/child/comatose person that warrants scrutiny, it's the behaviour of the person in a position of power in relation to them that matters.

~~~

Damn. Five o'clock and it's nearly dark already.

P.S.: I did send an email to my case manager, although I was way more concilitory about the carer than I really feel like being. After some thought and a bit of a debrief with bookgirlwa, I'm sending a second email requesting that my case manager contact me for a bit of a chat about what happenned. If, after we've talked, she feels it would be reasonable to give feedback to the agency about this, I'll probably give her permission to do so. But I personally won't take it any further with anyone. I'm not going to discuss it with the agency myself because I don't want to have to run through the whole thing with people I don't know from a bar of soap.

It's my case manager's job to advocate for me and stick up for me because frankly, I don't have the oomph (today's favourite word) to marshall all my personal resources to deal with this and this is a classic case of a situation where I shouldn't have to in the first place. And I'm willing to trust her judgement on this one.

~~~

On my fairly deliberate avoidance of people who have colds someone recently said:

"In some places, everyone just accepts that you get sick round about now, with the change of seasons.

I don't see why you should be any different."

I tend to assume that when one person complains or comments about something, there's another ten (at least) who agree but choose to keep their mouths shut.

So. This is for those ten (at least) people.

1. Because I am different. My body works differently. I am immuno-suppressed. The medications for Crohn's Disease are *all* immunosuppressants. ME/CFS - the disease that actually cripples me - appears to be one of weird auto-immunity as well. Whenever their are public health warnings addressed to the aged, parents, and people with medical conditions - that last one is me.


2. I get the ordinary old cold that everyone else gets, magnified several times. You'll be better within a week to ten days, back to normal within a fortnight, three weeks if you're unlucky. I won't be. It's not just the change of seasons for me, it's the whole fucking season.

3. Plus the secondary infections.

4. This whole damn ME/CFS nightmare appears to have been triggered by a cold. Not influenza, not pneumonia, nothing exotic. A cold. So whenever I get one, I really have no idea what will be left of me when it's over. I say it just takes me longer to get back to my normal (if rather depressingly low) baseline, but this is me putting on a brave face (mostly for the comfort of others). I never know that I will actually get back to where I was. You can call this paranoia if you like, but given what life's been like this last (almost) ten years, I think it's quite justified.

5. There is a false egalitarianism going on with this attitude. As well as ignoring the fact of immuno-suppression, the idea that I'm no better or worse off than anyone else, just different ignores objective difference in capacity for action of any kind. Capacity for living normally. Capacity to excercise the same choices and fulfill the same obligations as my healthy peers. My capacity is somewhere down at sea level compared to most people.** This is objective fact. Therefore I have less room to move before I really do find myself drowning.

6. Missing out on one social occasion matters to me far more than it does to most people: I struggle to keep up at the best of times and in general I don't. In general, I'm isolated and as time passes, more so. Every little activity is important to me. I can't make up for it in a week, or two, or three. Time matters in the maintenance of a life, and it doesn't wait for us. Missing out on yet another several months of opportunities to communicate and interact with people - it matters. And it's a cumulative thing. As time goes on it matters more, not less.

7. Staring at the walls and feeling bloody sick for weeks on end doesn't become an okay way to live - just different - ever. The fact that the best I can hope for is to graduate from that to sitting around and feeling sick when I try and do anything remotely normal with my life doesn't make it okay. You might be willing to accept it as my lot in life, I'm not.

8. I'm sure there was more but I'm buggered.

In deference to LJs new emphasis on clean living, I didn't preface or conclude any of these points with "fuck you sideways with a pineapple". If you still need convincing, please insert this comment accordingly.


**Before anyone jumps in with irrelevant platitudes, I do not say this through lack of self esteem, I say this because it's objectively true. How well people use the capacity they've got is a different topic, not relevant here.

Compared to a lot of people with similar physical problems to me, I'm fairly well socially protected.

In practice this means other people do the negotiating for me (or for the group, in that ensuring everyones' basic needs are met is what needs to be done).

Which is good, because it makes my skin crawl to do it. There is always the fear of someone saying no. Of someone needing to be educated about how putting a disabled toilet in the middle of a gravel pit does not equal disabled access (I'm looking at you, CERES), since
1. ...it's in a gravel pit you dumb bastards... and
2. disabled people are not the same. There is no one formula for being inclusive. Whacking in a toilet with a handrail (in a gravel pit) might satisfy statutory requirements, but it shouldn't be helping you sleep at nights.

Gone completely off on a tangent, I have....

~~~

I should go back to bed. I seem to have bounced back really well yesterday and today (which is promising) so I got up this morning to water the garden and I think I've used up all my spoons.

~~~

I've become much more private these last couple of years. I guess I just became too aware of too many people having opinions about how I could do better. Aware of the things about my life that they think are most important. At some point that business of feeling unconfident about my own opinion and convinced I need the approval of others becomes untenable: other people really don't know, and I'll hurt myself very badly if I keep trying to respond in that way.

~~~

Boiled egg before I go back to sleep, I think.

~~~

To go camping again I will need:
-to assume I won't be walking more than around the tent, even if I'm all chipper and excited. Not for the first two or three days anyway, until I know my baseline
-shade tent right outside actual tent, so I really _don't_ have to move more than three metres in the course of a day.
-Probably a bit more organising of provisions, with the help of other people, so I'm not constantly looking round and wondering who I can ask for what, when.
-Earplugs that I can wear for long stretches - I'd need to speak to an audiologist about custom made ones (like Ricky B did);
-check that LJ post in the ME/CFS community about noise de-sensitivity stuff. It would be very cool to get on top of the noise problem;
-a little sign for my shade tent indicating whether I'm sprawled and needing solitude or sprawled but happy for company;
-a new banana lounge or similar. We've also talked about making a litter, which would be cool...
-wheelchair, knobbly tires.
-calm, mild weather.
-...better punctuation...

Later:
-canopy over the bed.
-an easy exit strategy. I've never actually used any of the exit strategies that have been offered to me, because usually when I've hit the wall I just need to curl up until it's over, oh and because I'm a stubborn cow too. It might behoove me to be more flexible about this, and willing to bail out for a night or two when I attempt a longer camping trip. Because come to think of it, there's not much I'd have to do to bail out: it's just a matter of putting on mundane clothes and grabbing the medical supplies.

Friday last:

Went to dental appointment with carer and wheelchair. I used the chair because the distance was just a bit much, I was already pushing shit uphill by the time I got dressed.

Got to the office, and when I was called in I decide to walk the last ~6 metres because

a) I sort of almost figured I could without further damage (I was probably wrong, but I hate using a chair, I feel too conspicuous and looking weak) and

b) The way in is narrow and a fuss must be made to get me in there. Given what I just said about being borderline in terms of how comfy I was on two legs and how much I hate feeling conspicuous and looking weak, the fuss could have been just as draining.

As I go past the desk the receptionist laughs and says "it's a miracle!". I smile politely and say something like "yes indeed, a miracle".

Ho hum, social niceties.

As I'm sitting down, she comes in still smiling and says something like "don't mind me, still laughing! The way you got up and came in just reminded me of...do you know Little Britain?"

( You think she stops there? It's like she has this shovel and she's just going to keep right on digging. )

Even though I'm happy with my response and don't believe she was ill intentioned, I wish I'd reacted differently. I wish when she'd asked me I'd said "no. Never heard of it. Do tell." And gotten her to sketch out the entire character and why he was funny and exactly why I reminded her of him. I would have been terribly polite and interested. After about five questions she would have started squirming and making desperate attempts to climb out. It would have been uncomfortable for her, and I can't deny a bit of malice on my part, but I think sometimes people need motivation to change.

A very lazy day today. Lots of resting.

I've been pushing the boundaries the last few days. It's been nice, but today it was high time to vegetate.

However, rather than lie in bed, which I find irksome (especially after being more or less stuck there for so many months), I've pulled a rug onto the study floor with a couple of cushions.

Compared to where I have been, I've still been reasonably functional today, and I'm about to do a few useful little things

I go out tomorrow to a doctor's appointment. We have friends for dinner, probably Wednesday and possibly someone else on another night. Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday I've got assorted people coming to the house to do the various things that get done here.

~~~

Many moons ago, when a carer changed the bed linen I would sit on the bedroom floor because I was too stuffed to be doing anything else and too stir crazy to forego the opportunity to talk to someone. One one occasion, as she hauled the doona around, a carer remarked that changing our bed linen was really difficult. Naturally I thought she was alluding to the difficulty of working in the midst of the huge piles of assorted stuff that we have lying about the place, so I apologised. She said 'no that's fine', and went on to explain that it was just the size of the doona and mattress - I'm the only client she had with a double bed.

I find this profoundly disturbing.

~~~

I'm keen to change my care arrangements, and I'm on the verge of ditching care (except homecare) altogether. If I'm not able to go out, they only have about half an hour's work now, and they have an annoying habit of turning up early regardless of how many times I've explained that turning up early renders their visit moderately useless.

This has been the case all the way through, even when I was still needing a higher level of care and was rarely able to go out regardless of the time of day. Even back then, if I was to make good use of their time, I needed to be alert and together enough to tell them what to do and where things were, which I often was not. Tasks were written down for them, but I often had other one-off jobs I wanted done which invariably were a bit too complicated for written instructions...and you'd be amazed at how impossible it is for written instructions to cover everything. Then there are the jobs that can only be done with your input, like putting away clothes. So it was a problem and it is still a problem and it's now at the point where I'm not so desperate for the basics to be covered that I see the point.

And *shrugs shoulders* I'm still not really well enough to bank on the possibility of being well enough to go out once a week anyway. Oh, and they'd probably send me the one who drives me batshit insane. She's a bit high maintenance, and there's nothing worse than a high maintenance carer.

Corn on the cob for tea!

This, my friends, is why I garden.

But it's one of probably only half a dozen, because I've only got a few plants in this year on account of the drought.

Normally (or rather, in prior years when effort wasn't such an issue) I'd do a patch about 1.5x1.5, and feed it like mad, so we'd get a lot more (and it would grow dramatically taller too, although I suspect lack of water may have contributed to that as well as lack of manure).

I'm now putting some thought into autumn and winter plantings, but feeling more and more pessimistic about the water situation and thinking maybe we just need yet more boring filler plants. Bah again. Xeriscapes are boring.

~~~

I've bought a nice pile of books. I was up for a wheel to the shops today (much to my surprise, given the last few days have been total crap), so I rather predictably splashed some cash: Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (*nods to vimsig, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, an accounting textbook (but still not one with answers included, meh), an old and ratty hardcover entitled Presumed Dead by one Quentin Reynolds, which looks like a bit of a boy's own war story (the selling point was seeing "Shanghai" and "1941" in the same sentence on the first page) and one by Nick Earls.

For $25 that's a good haul even though it turns out we already own the Nick Earls one.

I'm also expecting seven Thunderbirds DVDs in the mail within a couple of days too.

~~~

Here's a thing that I don't understand and don't feel exactly proud of: my carer and I were crossing the street and I noticed two people ahead of us in motorised scooters.

I normally feel a bit self-conscious (and it's settling down), but suddenly I felt absolutely bloody ridiculous, worse than ever. Oh and then of course, we pass a frail elderly guy getting out of a car with the help of a walking frame. This is all in the space of about ten metres and 15 seconds.

I'm still trying to work out just what all my reactions were about.

I think what's coming out is my own internalised prejudice. Funny how you think you're above such a horrible thing - until it's *you* in the chair.

People with a tendency to be self-conscious and worried about what others think(which arises from insecurity) are perhaps particularly prone to prejudice, I guess.

*shuffles feet*

I have some serious growing up to do.

Clever how I left this bit 'til last, dontcha think?