A Hostile Letter to the Non-disabled

Dear Temporarily Able Bodied person, I have recently gotten in touch with my anger toward you. It isn't enough that you feel sorry for me. And it isn't enough that you assume my incompetence. It's also not enough that you expect me to be gracious and grateful and polite no matter what you say or do. It's even not enough that you consider my fate worse than death. I could live with all that if necessary. Unfortunately, you seem to insist upon engaging in beliefs and perpetuating a society that literally keeps me from what I want. You, in the form of this society, even taught me that it is what I should want. This world you've created teaches little girls to want families and encourages grown ups to find their life partner. At the same time, you school everyone in the fact that I'm helpless, dependent and pitiable. I should want home and hearth. I should just be fine without ever actually getting it. When it comes to accommodations like accessible formats, audible crosswalks, and Braille on elevators, I can at least comprehend the obstacle created by having to take that extra step, to make the effort. You need to think that someone blind might want to read the menu, cross a street, or go to the eighth floor of a building and do something about it. The additional thought and exertion necessary is, well, work. What effort or energy does it take to stop feeling sorry for me? To cease expecting my politeness in the face of insult? To desist in assuming I'm not competent? There's no effort. It's not a Herculean task. It's a simple act of not.... Instead, these negative beliefs become the armor you use to protect yourself from the distress of my existence making it easier to feel pity rather than trying to understand, to offer supposed compliments in place of questioning the underlying insulting assumptions and to dismiss me as a substitute for perceiving my value. It's more comfortable when you don't actually perceive me as a person. My personhood comes entirely too close to you having to consider what your life would be like if you became me. Mustn't contemplate that possibility. So, to make your life all comfy, safe, and easy, you keep me from what I want. You make me an undesirable mate and nothing I say or do can in fact remove that stigma from myself. I have Hester Prin's scarlet letter tattooed on my forehead only nothing I did put it there and nothing I do can remove it. My anger at you knows no bounds. I'd scream, but I'd become hoarse long before I had even begun to express my fury. Becoming a hermit would work except for the fact that modern society makes us all interdependent – a fact you conveniently forget. I only wish I could morph my personality into one that would welcome your pity, low expectations, and devaluation with gratitude because at least then it wouldn't add to my misery. Instead, I get to be full of rage in a way beyond my ability to express and beyond my ability to change. Ironically, frustratingly and ridiculously, the fixing of it is left to you who could care less that your unthinking assumptions deny not only me but an entire class of people something you proclaim necessary for happiness. I didn't choose disability to be a part of my life, but I did do everything in my power to make my life work. What, exactly, have you done except get in my way? Respectfully, Jen NOTE: This blog is moving, but I'm giving you time to adjust before I fully transition to the new site. Point your browser or whatever to People Aren't Broken

What I Want Cured

In the book I'm reading, one character just asked another, "What's worse, bad friends or no friends?" Without considering it for even a second, I said, "No friends." This bothers me. A lot.
In my life, I have learned desperation born of loneliness causes me to make suboptimal choices. I stayed in a relationship too long, continued "friendships" with people who take but do not give, and others indicate people can take advantage of me because of it.
Over the past five months, I have been working on making better choices about the people in my life trying to focus my efforts on those who have the same friendship philosophy as I do. For those I love, I will do all I can to be supportive, be there without having to be asked, and have enough respect for them to speak my mind but allow them to make their own choices. IF a friend needs me, I'll abandon what I want for their need. In other words, the people in my life are a priority.
Fortunately I have a healthy sense of self-preservation that keeps me from abandoning my physical needs. I comprehend that I cannot be a good friend if I'm a mess physically. For a short time, I am able to put aside my own emotional issues to help another.
Somewhere I read/heard that you shouldn't make someone a priority if they consider you an option. I've been trying to follow that advice. With my uncensored answer to whether bad friends or no friends are inferior, I now realize self-delusion is mine. Apparently knowing I deserve better does not translate into not settling for less.
Do disabled people have to settle for less? Are we trained to do it in other areas so find it natural to do the same in relationships of all kinds? Is it fair or right that people evaluate our worthiness for friendship by considering the complications that come along with us? Am I more deluded than I realize?
I may lose a friend because he considers my life to be "too heavy." I keep holding back my instinctive response. "If you think my life is so heavy, shouldn't the fact that you care about me lead you to want to help alleviate that?" I have already said goodbye to him in my hearth. On a fundamental level, I don't expect him to see the worth in me instead only perceiving the harder parts of my life.
Being blind isn't a big deal. Feeling like crap isn't the end of the world. The way people deal with it causes pain I don't have the words to describe. That is what I want fixed. That is what I wish we could cure.

Clash of Chemistry and Reality

The other day someone asked me how I know I'm attracted to another person. I realized the answer might be of interest, so here you go.
First, whether sighted or not, physical attraction comes in many forms. While you might think it's dependent upon vision, in actuality that's not the case. If physical chemistry were reliant upon sight, everyone would have sex with the lights on. Internet dating in the mid 1990s illustrates my point. Back then, pictures were not posted online. You did it via the U.S. Postal Service. Long before people's images had wended their way back and forth, attractions began to grow. I'm not saying people didn't want that visual confirmation of chemistry, but they did feel a zing despite no visual input.
For me, attraction is a very indefinable thing composed of how a person treats me, their manner in general, and how I feel in their presence. I have been known to react to chemistry after thirty seconds. Or less. People give off some unnamable thing that I perceive and interpret without conscious thought.
It's not pheromones, which require a functional olfactory system that I do not possess. It's not dependent upon touch for it often happens prior to physical contact. It's not even a case of being so desperate that I'll go for anyone who treats me well. Something happens on dare I say animal level and my hormones start parting.
Now, here's the interesting part. That chemistry can fade in the face of actual physical exploration. People feel..... odd. It might be because I don't go around feeling people regularly. Perhaps I get an image in my mind and the reality doesn't match. Possibly I have emotional chemistry with someone but not physical. Whatever the case, it's rather disconcerting.
Imagine, for a moment, what happens. I am attracted to some person and it seems to be mutual. Eventually, things go from hand-holding to more. The first time I touch someone's face can be kind of a turn off. So, there I am, having my first physically intimate experience with someone and while they are touching what they have already known through sight, I'm getting my first "look." Should it not be what I thought, then I'm suddenly torn between how it felt five seconds ago before initial contact and how I feel at the present. Totally ruins the moment for me.
There has only been one time in my life where I didn't have chemistry with someone at first meeting rather growing over time. To be precise, about three years. Suddenly, my hormones woke up and started paying attention. Surprised me.
The great part of that experience was discovering feelings evolving in such a way somehow become independent from the physical. It's THIS person under my fingertips and that feeling can overpower the actual sensory input.
I've unfortunately come to the conclusion that if I don't want that moment of dissidence between the intangible chemistry and reaction to the physical reality, then I have to wait until I know I will be touching someone for whom I have strong feelings.