Find Humor In It
I used to think about my disability as a hurdle to overcome and something people have to surmount before they can get to know me. Especially after I first became disabled, I was wrongfully caught up on how much “extra” was required to be friends with me. A lot of that was thanks to a lack of confidence in my newly paralyzed body, some was thanks to comments made surrounding my disability, and some was me just trying to figure out what my life would look like in a wheelchair.
I was trying to figure out my situation at the same time as people around me were (and constantly are) trying to figure out how to interact with me. My disability sets me apart – a fact I’m proud of and thankful for these days – and a lot of times that requires a little bit of effort from others.
There’s a whole pot of examples I can give to prove my point that I’m not seen as an equal to many people – particularly ones who don’t know me – because of my disability. Depending on how much I let that fact hurt my feelings or not (I don’t), they can get pretty entertaining:
With dating, people said things like they “feel so bad for” me because of my paralysis; that they’re “shocked” about me being “stuck” in a wheelchair; and that I’m pretty, “for someone in a wheelchair.”
With marriage, people unfairly told my husband to anticipate his having “to do a lot more work, because she’s going to need your help with a lot”; and warned him about “taking too much on” by being with me.
Now, with motherhood, I’ve faced “How can you take care of a baby with your disability?”; “I feel sorry for your husband because of how much he’ll have to do”; and how my husband will be “overburdened” by extra responsibilities.
Now, circling back to whether or not I allow those people and their comments get to me: I don’t. But, still, it’s exhausting. It took a few years after my accident of building my confidence to get to the point of trying to find either humor or compassion in those words, instead of hurt. The humor comes when someone says something so ridiculous and off base that the only response is to laugh at them and move along; and the compassion comes when someone says something so ignorant and/or inaccurate that I can pity them for their limited perspective.
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Both the humor and the compassion give me an upper hand, if only in my mind, on the situation: I’m not bummed about my situation because I’ve turned it around to put me back on top. See what I mean? When faced with ignorant or undue comments, I’m able to just smile and roll away. There’s simply no room for negativity or insecurity in my life – especially over something out of my control, like my disability.
A lot of things in life aren’t fair, and my disability is just one of them. More than I’m lamenting my physical condition, I’m bemoaning how much people use it to push me into the category of “Other.” We all have something that sets us apart from the “norm” so I’m not here to whine about mine, just to bring awareness to the fact that people with disabilities are also just people. We have more challenges, and it might take us a little longer to get ready in the morning, sure, but we put one shoe on at a time just like everyone else.
Because if we don’t, my lesson learned, our feet will fall off our footplate and our toes will bleed on the ground.