Perspective

At FabTherapists's recommendation, I have joined group therapy. After two sessions, the jury is still out as to whether or not it will be beneficial. One goal is for me to intentionally work on how I interact with non-disabled people in an environment where I can get feedback. In other words, if another group member offered me help I didn't need, I could actually question the person about the impact of my response and their initial motivation. Last week, someone discussed how their job was making them unhappy and stressed. As they were leaving work ruminating on this, they walked past a vet who was a double amputee and "it put my stuff into perspective." I hate when people do this and had a rather intense response. It did not go well and the therapist said, "That pushed your buttons. Next week how about you come back and explain why." I decided that a blog entry would be an excellent way to clarify my thinking. My first objection is that life stressors should not be compared. Each of us is a unique individual possessing certain personality traits, backgrounds, coping abilities, resources and so forth. How we each deal with life stressors should be viewed separately in the context of who and what we are. Invalidating your own life stressors based on your perception of others' circumstances being worse minimizes and invalidates what might be a truly distressing situation for you. It's not fair to do that to yourself. My second objection has to do with the way disability is being viewed. To make a comparison, an impression of what the disabled person's life must be like has to be formed. What is that impression based upon? All the societal beliefs about disability that we are taught come into play to create a picture of what that person's life must be like. Often, such knowledge is based on inaccurate information, distorted images portrayed by the media, stereotypes and misconceptions. It eventually boils down to seeing the life of the person with a disability as being les happy, more burdened, less rewarding and more stressful. The person with a disability is suddenly relegated to a place of less, lacking and unhopeful. When I have questioned those who view my life as "hard," I hear about how it must be awful not to be able to see x, y and z, how I can't enjoy a, b, or c, and how I won't ever be able to do j, k or l. I *never* hear about how my life must be hard because I live in a world that sees me as less, has distorted ideas about blindness, treats me as a child and refuses to perceive my value. Which do you think is actually what I would label the "hard" part of my life? And that's the reason why what my fellow group member said bothered me to such a degree. They just diminished the double amputee vet to a "hard" life based on physical limits. He wasn't a father, brother, or lover. He was someone whose life must be so stressful that it makes one grateful for the paltry stress they have. Personhood was stripped away. Value was ignored. It isn't that much of a leap to go from "They just reduced that man to nothing" to "Do they see me as nothing?" I struggle every day to find ways to be valued for who I am, to be connected by love and affection to other people and to live my life authentically. The last thing I want is for my life to be reduced to someone's means to feel better about their own existence. *I* just got lost in that equation and used in the process. To answer my group therapist's inevitable question, "How does that make you feel?" Devalued. Invisible. Used. Angry. Frustrated. Resigned. Tired. Hopeless. Sad. Worthless. Scared.

Grated Cheese

No, I'm not going to make some esoteric comparison between grated cheese and some aspect of disability. This is simply a story about grated cheese. To demonstrate that my stressed-out state heads more in the direction of depression than anxiety, I told my psychiatrist (not FabTherapist) about the following event: Getting ready to make an omelet, I went to the refrigerator to fetch the sautéed vegetables I had, the already grated cheddar and other useful ingredients. The Ziploc bag of cheese was not where I'd left it. It wasn't next to where I had left it. It wasn't anywhere that I looked. So, I sat down on the floor before the open fridge and sobbed. Inconsolably. My psychiatrist said, "Well, that's about your disability..." Um, until that very moment, I hadn't thought about it in those terms. I was just a person who couldn't find something and had a very intense, dramatic response. Blindness had nothing to do with it. The thought, "If I could see, I could find the stupid cheese," never crossed my mind. The psychiatrist, though, went there immediately. I find that fascinating.

Magic Words

About a year ago, I hit a wall known as My social Life Sucks. Nothing I tried – and I tried everything short of a personality transplant -- seemed to increase my social connections or generate more emotional intimacy in my life. Enter my fabulous therapist – a fifty-year-old man who somehow gets it. He's made it clear from day one that he knows nothing about disability, yet I felt more understood in my first session than I have with the majority of my friends. When I tell him I think I get ignored in groups because I'm disabled, he not only believes me but understands why it happens. That's valuable in a way words cannot express. We have hit an impasse related to my social interactions with non-disabled people. FabTherapist believes there are a string of words I can say that possess sufficient potency to get people to notice who I am. A carefully crafted handful of sentences have the power to shift perception from "Blind, incapable, weird looking person" to "Smart, funny, intelligent woman." His argument is that people meet someone like me and suddenly don't know their role. For a stranger, the situation is full of unknowns, fears and a general sense of uncertainty. Giving them some context and a function in the social dynamic will allow them to feel comfortable with me, freeing them to notice who I am. I believe words have power. They don't have that much power. Non-disabled people need time and exposure to move past their initial impression. The problem is that most don't take that time and in fact, their subconscious writes me off often without consulting the conscious mind. There are no magic words to subjugate this process. Okay, there is something that has the power to derail things – shock. It's why some women with disabilities dress provocatively -- to shock potential dates out of the "not sexual" mindset. What would I need to do in order to shock people? Would that be in line with my personality? "Yes, I'm blind. Be careful. You don't want that to cause you to underestimate me. That would be a bad idea." The last sentence would be delivered with a slow smile. Not even sure I'm capable of a slow smile on purpose let alone uttering those words. If I could conjure up the MagicWords, I still get stuck on the idea that I should have to say them. It's not my job nor should I take on the task of easing non-disabled people past their prejudice. Disability is not exclusively the responsibility of the disabled. As a society we have created this state of affairs and as a society we should deal with it. Besides, if I noticeably aid people in coping with their discomfort, I've set a precedent. "You made me comfortable, Jen. Now, when it comes to your disability, I expect you to do all the rest of the work too." Do I want to establish such a pattern? Yet, inaction will not change anything. Principles are great, but they don't make you feel loved and valued. Besides, women have needs. And hormones. and needs that go beyond hormones.

Reason's Vanquisher

In excruciating detail, I can create a voluminous list of all the ways it is communicated to me that I am of less value because I am disabled. I can then offer explanations and arguments to counteract each item. My skills are sufficient to convince you that I have worth. Now if it would only work on myself. Reason is a wonderful tool that is not adequate to the challenge of conquering the emotions of irrelevance and devaluation that currently rule my insides. My reason lacks the tensile strength to overcome the indomitable force these negative thoughts and emotions wield. The depression I'm experiencing because of current life stress and mental health issues definitely saps reason's strength. It does not, however, generate the need for reason to be so powerful. the might reason would need to surmount the negativity is defined by the power of that negativity. What is responsible for negativity's capacity to overpower reason? Society in general and the individuals that act out its beliefs in particular. The thoughts and feelings an individual has about disability informs their actions and those actions transmit those beliefs to people with disabilities. Complimenting a mundane task demonstrates the lower expectations used to judge the person with a disability. Refusal to accept a "No thanks" to an offer of help illustrates devaluation of the disabled person's judgment. Even running up from behind to hold a door for a person with a disability conveys the assumption that the person was unable to do it themselves. Whether it is meant or not, whether it is intentional or not and whether the intricacies are understood or not, behavior communicates beliefs and those beliefs have power. A lot of power. Counteracting them takes a significant and constant force of will. It is a battle people with disabilities engage in each and every day. It is a war without an end in sight where victory is never possible because the "enemy" has an endless supply of assets. There are a lot of battles I'm currently fighting and they are consuming vast resources. I have nothing left to wage war against the societal devaluation that comes at me without end. Words and deeds matter. Take care that you are not unintentionally contributing to the strength of the negativity people with disabilities must beat back each and every day. And, if you need self-interest as motivation, remember that non-disabled people become disabled each and every day. The negativity you put out there might turn on you down the road. Do you want to battle it?

Lackadaisical Me?

If you are doing therapy "right," the work of it doesn't solely happen in the fifty minutes you sit in an armchair and spill your guts. To encourage forward momentum, some practitioners assign homework. Mine has not taken this step, yet I seem to be an entity that once in motion continues. The reason I sought out a professional was my utter unhappiness with my life, specifically the lack of emotional intimacy, the absence of a collection of people who support me through the rough patches and resilience within myself to make it through hard times. I felt alone, drained and completely unable to figure out how to fix it. I lay the blame for the first to on the doorstep of a society that perpetuates untrue beliefs about disability that form the burier between me and other people. I sought a professional to help me decide if I had to accept that or if I could change it. Somehow. I wasn't optimistic. Slightly over two weeks ago, I had a painful conversation with a friend that resulted in a mutual decision to be less in each other's lives. It left me with one local friend who I can count upon no matter what. I thought I'd be crushed by this fact, but I've been oddly curious. I want to know what happens next. It also appears to be contributing to my growing feeling that I must clear out my life in order to move forward. Anything that isn't working is vulnerable to being eighty-sixed from my universe. And when I follow that urge, I feel good about the consequences. At least the immediate consequences. I have serious concerns that I will resolve what I need to in therapy and look up to find my life is gone making me more alone and isolated. But if therapy works, won't I have replaced the things that aren't serving me well with things that are? This clearing of the decks is a way to make the space and free up the energy to build something better, stronger and fulfilling, right? Right? The weirdest thing has happened. I no longer can even write a sentence about all this that contemplates failure. "When trying to build something better fails" literally feels like a lie. I don't think it's a healthy, optimistic perspective so much as faith in a non-disabled, never-treated-a-disabled-person therapist I've found. That's just unfathomable. And possibly a very bad idea. Oh well. And that's even stranger. I actually don't care if I'm making a mistake because it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like I'm a combination of an adventurer and mad scientist. "Let's see the consequences of these actions and what adventures they bring." What is going on with me? Anyone? Note: The blog is moving! People Aren't Broken