It did not take long to decide to put down how I felt about my pretending to be disabled. After I visited this wonderful site, I read a lot about my own feelings, although they were written by others and I realised that what had happened to me was bound to come out sooner or later and that I would not be alone feeling this way.
I have been very fortunate in being able to walk as a polio because I have been able to buy callipers, custom-made boots and raised shoes and a spinal jacket from makers in the UK and States and in Germany. I have bought these over the last two years and now wear them most days.
Why do I do it and why do I feel better doing it? Every day I ask myself this and I think I can now say I do it because it makes me feel better. I get a feeling of being unlike most others around, one of a few that are disabled and looked at as being unusual. I know people are looking at me especially when I wear my HKAFOs and I have to use my crutches swing through.
I always like being looked at like this and wear my callipers in public more often than at my friend’s house. She got polio at seven and wears bilateral KAFOs and I started to know her when I knew she wanted someone to do the housework for her. So I went and eventually confessed my feelings and she was shocked to start with. But as our friendship went on, she told me of people she had heard of who pretended and how she thought they must be mad for wanting to be disabled and walk badly.
It is a fetish for me I know. I had wanted it to be something that was going to pass but it’s getting stronger, probably since I now have the callipers to carry out my fantasy. But is very sexual and arousing and I can’t help it and to be honest I don’t want to help it. It’s helped such a lot by my friendship as my friend is relaxed enough now to let me enjoy watching her walk and getting her callipers on and letting me, all the time now, help her get her callipers on. For many pretenders this is a wonderful dream and thankfully it is real for me at least for now while I am able to be alongside a real polio and learn more about her real life.
For me, the love of callipers grew on me from the time I was at primary school and our English teacher wore what I now know to be KAFOs and really raised shoe on her left foot. When we had reading we sat on the floor in front of her I looked up her legs and saw all the cuffs and straps that now I can wear and fantasise about. As I didn’t do much PE, I did extra reading and couldn’t take my eyes off her callipers and asked her lots of questions, like children do, about how she got polio. She was really kind to me and I got lots of encouragement at school from her and to be honest she was more helping than my mum and dad and I looked up to her as a mum that was interested in me. When I left for secondary school I often came home on the school bus and saw her at the primary school gate getting into her car, a turquoise blue three wheeler car with one seat. I stayed in touch with her until she moved away and I think went to Hull to teach.
I pretended to be disabled and walked stiffly and used bandages and bamboo canes from my dad’s garden shed to make myself callipers and I walked up and down the orchard at home out of the way of other children being my English teacher and hoping I could be like her. To get her short leg I tied a block of wood under my shoe.
At the age of 16 I went to work in a children’s hospital and met a student auxiliary nurse I shared the flat with and she was friends with a girl who came to the flat a lot. This girl had had TB as a child and her hip had stopped growing and this meant her right leg was a lot shorter than her left, with her right knee half way down her left thigh. She wore a steel open ended support added to the sole of her shoe and it clanked a lot on the hall concrete and up the stone stairs when she came in and I hurried to see her and follow her to see how she walked.
It was watching disabled women, mostly women I must say and not men and don’t know why, probably that I wanted to be like them, that affected me most and I used to do all I could to see her at the flat and tried to wait for her to come and then follow her up the stairs to see her leg.
I never told my husband as I was just not able to say how I felt and what I liked. I was not sure how he would react so I kept it quiet and just hoped to see polio women around and there were a few but not many. But one woman who worked in town near me wore a KAFO and we get to know each other well and I spent time seeing her during the day, having a coffee at lunch break and watching her walk which she did in a dipping and rolling way
For a long time, I wanted to wear my own callipers and a friend in the next village listened to me when I told her about it all. We went onto the internet and I saw many pictures that we all know about now as real polios, most of them old pictures and among them the twist series which still makes me feel trembling when I see her legs. I got pictures of pretenders and one lady with blonde hair and sitting on a bed was really fantastic I remember. I wish I knew her name and where the pictures are now as she looked wonderful. Perhaps someone could help me, as there were just a few seen and they were sent by her and she explained how she felt and her pretending.
I suppose this encouraged me to come out into the open and I have done this in the last three years. My husband has gone so I can explain my feelings and live my life with my friend and all the real polios and pretenders I have met on the net.
When I go out shopping or to the sea or on holiday I wear my callipers and feel elated when I do it and thankfully, I have not been recognised but I do take precautions to make sure people would not recognise me. I am not ashamed but I do not want anyone to see me and pass it on to people close to me.
I hope I can find the courage to tell all my friends and want to do this when I can. I hope this is not too long winded as I have sat and written what I feel and one last thing comes into my mind of course. I genuinely hope I do not offend real disabled women. There is at least one real polio who is supporting me and she is my best friend and she has helped me to come through this and has made me very happy indeed.
