Deep thoughts and concerns before university

The question "am I selfish..." you can dismiss from your list. Whatever others learn from being around you will be a gift, including the obvious truth that if something happens to a person they can get on with their life.

Whether or not to go into a regular dorm? Depends on the set up. Some dorms will have elevators and large stalls in the bathroom such that you need only request safety bars and a flip down seat in one shower. That is inexpensive for a school. Look carefully at the facilities. If a building is older and lacks adequate floor space for you to get into your own and your friends rooms to socialize, then that would be a constant source of irritation and lost time. If you can cope with the spaces (watch for carpet!) then go for it. You clearly want to be "mainstreamed", so do it. At the same time it may be a blessing that there is a special space for disabled students where you can meet a few people and discuss shared problems.

Trust your own thinking and follow your nose, girl. Welcome to the forum.

Hi Marti. Even though I’m an older female, living in my own home, I read your insights with great interest. I had been in the middle of doing a Masters degree when a car hit me and paralyzed me almost four years ago. I still haven’t completely given up on going back and finishing those remaining credits for my Masters. So, what you’ve written gives me insight into what I may be returning to. Though, of course, by now none of the students who knew me back then will be there any more. In a way, it’s to my advantage that I’m an “older female”, since no young person will necessarily think of themselves as the next candidate for paralysis just because I’m paralyzed. Also, I had no social life with the young people anyway. Nevertheless, I do see how seeing me there in class with my spascity and sometimes strained voice would put a damper on their jubilance. When they talk about a summer trip to Mexico to climb the pyramids, guess who can’t go? And when they talk about meeting at Starbucks to do a group project, guess who has no way to get there?

I can totally see how lumping all the disabled together in their own “accommodations” or “collective” could just be an easy way to shut out the unpleasant side of life from the view of the general population. Having lived a year and a half in a nursing home myself, I know the longing that I had to have a conversation with outsiders who would talk to me simply because I’m an interesting person to talk to. Seeing the “disability block” housing as you’ve described it suggests that the AB people in charge of accommodations might be thinking, “Hey, you’re disabled, so you come and deal with this fellow who can’t talk, and this girl who keeps having seizures, and this lady who needs a note taker.”