MovieChat Forums > Me Before You (2016) Discussion > As A Physically Disabled Adult

As A Physically Disabled Adult

posted 8 years ago by cadosager
93 replies | jump to latest

Hey there. I'm a 19 year old man who's been confined to a wheelchair since I was three years old because of a genetic disease. In my experience, I've had dark moments where I debated to myself whether my life was worth living. As I get older, I'll slowly lose more and more usage of my body. Living with that shadow looming over you is difficult. However, at the end of all my contemplations, it's been clear that life is worth living. I've made incredible friends, achieved and am maintaining a 3.9 GPA in college, travelled across the country and have even fallen in love. Life is worth living. We live in a world of opportunities. What message does this film send to impressionable disabled youth or, for that matter, anyone living with disabilities grappling with their existence? I think this film is fairly insensitive. I hope its message was simply rooted in ignorance.

[–] andreeaus 8 years ago

I'm a 19 year old man who's been confined to a wheelchair since I was three years old because of a genetic disease.

Key words here being "since I was three years old". I am not the one who can issue opinions about what a disabled individual feels or not, but I have a father who become blind quite late in life and I have a little bit of insight. In my opinion it is easier (if we can use this word) for someone to accept the idea of a disability if that person grows up with it than if that person was a very active, very full of life until his or her thirties and suddenly becomes a quadriplegic. With all it's horrendous consequences.

It is easier to write what we would do if we were that person and how we would enjoy that and that. This is not a film that is insensitive, it is realistic. It shows a face of things that we are not prepare to accept and talks about the right to have a choice, even though that choice is frowned upon and condemned. No one should have the right to decide for someone in that situation and the will to live with such a burden shouldn't be imposed on anyone.

[–] magicpenguins01 8 years ago

The thing is, no two people are alike. At the end of the day, the only person living your life is you. I don't think it's anybody's business on what a person can or can't do with their own life. I applaud you that you are able to find the silver lining in life despite your circumstances; keep fighting the good fight.

[–] Semi_Sweet 8 years ago

This is just one story, the characters are fictional and one shouldn't put too much of their real world decisions on that of those who never made them due to being creations of one persons mind in order to make money. I always dislike when somebody thinks a movie is perpetuating a view of either the director or writer or anyone else involved in the production. Just because a film has a racist character doesn't make the director a racist now, does it? It's just a story of one fictional characters decision, and there will be other films that do choose a different path. It's great that you feel life is worth living, I've never doubted my faith in keeping on living no matter what, but then I've haven't suffered the hardships some others have.

I've been moving mountains that I once had to climb.

[–] Samuraibro 8 years ago

Exactly. Death of the Author, yo.

[–] johannasisko 8 years ago

Amen! Life is worth living –even if it doesn't feel like it. I hope you continue living a life full of experiences and doing what you want.

[–] benman46 8 years ago

In the film the situation is different. A physically able man is suddenly rendered paralysed from the neck down. So he can remember all the things he could do beforehand, which were shown in a montage during the film. So as you knew about your condition from a young age and could plan for what was to come, this man was suddenly presented with the fact that his old life was over and would remain a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. Having said that, many disabled people were outraged by the film and its message.

[–] Samuraibro 8 years ago

A message that wasn't even in the movie in the first place because they can't look beyond the surface.

[–] benman46 8 years ago

The problem with this film is that there is only surface, no depth. The message appears to it's better to be dead than disabled, which many disabled people were horrified by. A message which has been used in other films but not in such a shallow way as in this film. The film is dishonest. As one disabled man put it "I'm not your inspiration porn and I'm not a thing to be pitied or killed off to make the audience cry".

[–] Samuraibro 8 years ago

I was able to get a different message. It's not that this movie "lacks depth", it's that people are looking for *beep* that isn't there.

[–] benman46 8 years ago

I think that is the main problem with the film. People, disabled people, were looking for things that should have been there, on what it's really like to be disabled, not some fairy tale world that doesn't exist. If you make a romance film involving a severely disabled character, you are playing with fire if you don't get it right.

[–] kurt7825 8 years ago

just because you have a good life doesn't mean everyone else does. show some empathy

[–] DangerManTX 8 years ago

You're an idiot. Show some empathy yourself.

[–] DangerManTX 8 years ago

I cannot agree more with you. I have been on both sides of the equation, first as an RGN working with the disabled, and later experiencing some level of disablement myself. Of course your life is worth living, and the world would be a poorer place without you. I was able to draw on a lot of the hope, and self-worth that I'd experienced in people I'd worked with, and some of them are still my best friends. Good luck to you.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] DangerManTX 8 years ago

You are a moron kurt. I have a life you appear to be an unthinking hippy...

[–] kurt7825 8 years ago

your disability isn't bad at all.

some people have it pretty bad and if they choose to die that's their business

show some empathy for disabled people before you make comments like that

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

He's a troll Kurt. Have you read his stupid comments on big eyes? They wiped the floor with him because he sadly doesn't have the intelligence to be a good troll. Sad really. 😂

[–] DangerManTX 8 years ago

Sure sign that you are trolling me. I'm reporting you for that. Big Eyes was a pathetic movie, go away!