Dear Gothmoth~
Like Geoff I want to welcome you here and agree with him that your so called friends are not treating you well.
Being stuck in bed most of the time and only being able to get around in a wheelchair most other times is an enormous barrier to normal life. The expense of a taxi alone (yes I'm aware there is the Transport Scheme discount) makes a trivial outing an expensive expedition.
If you don't mind my asking can you propel yourself?
Now it sounds like your ex-best friend seems to be the root cause of this current set of hassles. Perhaps taken singly and out of the herd individual acquaintances might behave differently. The half baked excuses they have made for not inviting you are plain silly and if there are any halfway decent people in the group they may well be feeling guilty.
Living as you do it is hard to maintain perspective and judge what is reasonable. If there was an event with loose sand on a beach, or multiple steps then it might be prudent to not invite you, that being said true friends will try to organize things so there is no loose sand or steps.
In any event it is hard to see how any of this is your fault. Life has handed you a hard row to hoe and people with heart should be going out of their way to make life smoother.
I've mobility issues and do associate with persons in wheelchairs. I might mention a couple of things , firstly on-line activity is a great leveler, and one can appear and take part exactly the same as anyone else. (An over-bed table with keyboard can be a big help). This applies to both social and study activities. Being in an organization and an advocate for particular disabilities too often results in a surprising amount of travel and functions (paid for by and large:)
I do hope you manage to get some of this resolved and salvage some sort of social contact out of this horrible situation. Please know you can talk here as often as you would like and be met with understanding
Croix
