If you meet someone who appears completely well adjusted they are either repressed or false... somewhere, in some way, we are all screwed up. I used to think I was pretty well adjusted but the older, and more self aware, I have become the more I realize that I was just glossing over my eccentricities, phobias, and sensitivities. I'm nearly a basket case if you really catalog my oddities! But so is everyone else!
I am frightened of flying things - can't handle them being too close to me - is this because of my brother's 47 budgerigars (parakeets) that used to fly free through our rumpus room?
I have some level of separation anxiety, ok quite a high level... is this because my dad left when I was nearly 6? I suffered horrific homesickness as a kid - Dad said it was because I was too close to my mother - but I had an overwhelming fear of something terrible happening when I wasn't there - maybe I was just an incurable sticky beak or maybe it was a control issue?
I'm thingy about my things. Mum used to call me "Black Jed" and said "Nothing comes between Black Jed and what's hissun." -- I have no idea where she got that saying, although knowing mum I would say it was a line from some old movie. I even googled it without result. Interestingly I have spent the last 13 years getting rid of stuff - my possessions have been broken, stolen, lost, abandoned, withheld, auctioned, destroyed, sold, given away, and sued for... I suspect short of blasting my possessions into orbit with a satellite or vapourizing them I have covered pretty much all potential aspects of dispersal. I flew home from the states with 6 suitcases, drove to my new tropical home with a sedan full of stuff, and aside from a few things that are still stored somewhere at my brother's place, that's it. Sometimes I just need to get used to things, like getting used to TLOML taking off in my car and calling it "our car". This, by the way, is fine with me, but I do know that I have an emotional response which I need to manage intellectually. I hope that people can be forgiving of that moment of non-generosity that happens before I get my emotions under control. It is just a touch of Gollumitis "mine mine my precious". In other ways I am incredibly generous, for example with my time, labour and expertise... I will help pretty much anyone to do pretty much anything with no expectation of repayment or return. But stuff... stuff is an issue... Actually I became quite philosophical about this after several years of repeated losses... for example just recently I bought my 6th cordless drill having had the other five taken from me in one way or another over the last ten years. I have taken a zen approach in deciding that this is clearly part of my life lesson... In the words of Deepak Chopra "Let it go".
I can't stop listing my problems without talking about crowds, queues, and social anxiety... I can get quite close to a panic attack in a crowd or when trapped in a queue. This has become worse since I have had FMS - I should say since FMS started to really impact on my existence because I think I have always had it probably - but now the panic to get out of the queue is exacerbated by the pain of standing and the desperate need to get off my feet. I'm a very socially successful person, I can talk to pretty much anyone about anything and yet I am quite freaked out by strangers and groups of people. One on one I am fine in a group I can't have my first few drinks fast enough to make these situations tolerable.
I'm not about to list other people's issues but I do know that no matter how smooth and unencumbered with complexes people appear they have got some areas of weirdness. I think we are all twisted, it is part of the human condition, part of the wonderful diversity that makes us all individual!
Showing posts with label perceptions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perceptions. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Perceptions of ability within disability...
Today I am going to see a new GP. Anyone who has read this blog from the beginning (I really don't think you exist) will remember my trepidation and then my joy at my first visit to Dr McLovely, whom I am missing quite a lot! I have been here nearly a month and I MUST get some prescription renewals. I'm dreading it. I have to take my copy of 'War and Peace' (my medical file from Dr McLovely).
I now live in a VERY small community, TLOML works at the local medical center part-time, The Nurse is there full-time, I socialize with some of the doctors and most of the nurses and admin staff... Of course The Nurse and TLOML see me enough to see both my good days and my bad. They know that when I go out to a social function I am sucking it up and soldiering on; they know that I often have to pay the next day for the efforts of the previous day; they know that the times of activity only happen because of the 18 - 20 hours I spend per day in bed. Others don't.
On Saturday TLOML and I went on the ferry to the bigger city on the mainland. Foolishly I had overdone it quite badly on Thursday and Friday and I was (and still am) in the high range with both my constant pain and my breakthrough pain. In anticipation I took my cane. I think it is the first time I have used the cane on the island. Here the stupidmarkets are tiny, the parking for everything is close, TLOML is almost always there to help me balance, and basically I have been able to get by without it. Naturally we knew people on the ferry, (TLOML knows almost everyone everywhere)and though I caught a quick glance at the said walking stick in my left hand nothing was said. Once in the city I used it to walk off the ferry to the car, then didn't pull it out again until we were at the SUPER mall. I have to be really honest here, there just aren't all that many things I miss about the US; I miss drive through banking; I miss the low cost of things there; ummmm... I miss the Interstates... But there is one thing that I miss above all, one thing that stands out from the others like a hippy at a GOP convention... I miss with passion the courtesy motorized carts that were available even at my local stupidmarket.
Using one of the courtesy scooters was a VERY hard thing to do the first time. I remember gazing enviously at those carts for a long time before a day came when I was just SO SORE and Sam's Club was SO BIG that I simply could no longer resist. I was never a constant user, it always depended on my pain and fatigue levels, the potential length and complexity of the shopping experience, and if I was alone or if I had someone who could manage for me if I needed to get off my feet. Saturday I longed for one of those courtesy scooters. At first I was leaning on the trolley but then we bought the rather heavy punching bag (a birthday gift to TLOML's sweetheart younger son) and the trolley became too heavy, so I went back to the cane and handed the trolley over to TLOML. I couldn't take waiting in the queue at Target so I waited on the kangaroo on the kiddie coin-op carousel. I really wish Australia would catch up with the US as regards things like courtesy scooters, I would have been so relieved to have had one then and there!
So here I am going to yet another doctor, I'm worried that the invisibility of my condition might work against me, the usual worry. It's an old problem and one that all of us with invisible conditions experience. In Sydney when I went to the doctor I always used my cane. It was necessary to walk alone from the parking which was quite distant but it was also a concrete and tangible symbol of the disability that is otherwise invisible. I was also suffering a LOT of vertigo at that time and had the balance of a two-legged stool! Now the vertigo has eased off somewhat and the parking is right outside the door, but I do need this doctor to understand.
It seems a lot to ask of a stranger, that they can understand something that I really don't understand myself. I don't know why I can do almost anything for a short period of time, I don't know why I can carry a punching bag off the ferry and then have to go home and lie down to recover, I don't know why sometimes I can't make myself stand up straight when I get up out of bed, I don't know why sometimes I fall over for no real reason when I am trying so hard not to fall, I don't know why the urge to be horizontal is like an addiction or a craving, I just don't know... Most days I can suck it up for a couple of hours and go out to a social event and only the most observant of people would ever know I was in pain - some days that would be impossible.
So do I walk in to the doctors office with my walking stick in hand and say hello to the receptionist who I last saw when we shared a bottle of bubbles at a fabulous pool party?
I now live in a VERY small community, TLOML works at the local medical center part-time, The Nurse is there full-time, I socialize with some of the doctors and most of the nurses and admin staff... Of course The Nurse and TLOML see me enough to see both my good days and my bad. They know that when I go out to a social function I am sucking it up and soldiering on; they know that I often have to pay the next day for the efforts of the previous day; they know that the times of activity only happen because of the 18 - 20 hours I spend per day in bed. Others don't.
On Saturday TLOML and I went on the ferry to the bigger city on the mainland. Foolishly I had overdone it quite badly on Thursday and Friday and I was (and still am) in the high range with both my constant pain and my breakthrough pain. In anticipation I took my cane. I think it is the first time I have used the cane on the island. Here the stupidmarkets are tiny, the parking for everything is close, TLOML is almost always there to help me balance, and basically I have been able to get by without it. Naturally we knew people on the ferry, (TLOML knows almost everyone everywhere)and though I caught a quick glance at the said walking stick in my left hand nothing was said. Once in the city I used it to walk off the ferry to the car, then didn't pull it out again until we were at the SUPER mall. I have to be really honest here, there just aren't all that many things I miss about the US; I miss drive through banking; I miss the low cost of things there; ummmm... I miss the Interstates... But there is one thing that I miss above all, one thing that stands out from the others like a hippy at a GOP convention... I miss with passion the courtesy motorized carts that were available even at my local stupidmarket.
Using one of the courtesy scooters was a VERY hard thing to do the first time. I remember gazing enviously at those carts for a long time before a day came when I was just SO SORE and Sam's Club was SO BIG that I simply could no longer resist. I was never a constant user, it always depended on my pain and fatigue levels, the potential length and complexity of the shopping experience, and if I was alone or if I had someone who could manage for me if I needed to get off my feet. Saturday I longed for one of those courtesy scooters. At first I was leaning on the trolley but then we bought the rather heavy punching bag (a birthday gift to TLOML's sweetheart younger son) and the trolley became too heavy, so I went back to the cane and handed the trolley over to TLOML. I couldn't take waiting in the queue at Target so I waited on the kangaroo on the kiddie coin-op carousel. I really wish Australia would catch up with the US as regards things like courtesy scooters, I would have been so relieved to have had one then and there!
So here I am going to yet another doctor, I'm worried that the invisibility of my condition might work against me, the usual worry. It's an old problem and one that all of us with invisible conditions experience. In Sydney when I went to the doctor I always used my cane. It was necessary to walk alone from the parking which was quite distant but it was also a concrete and tangible symbol of the disability that is otherwise invisible. I was also suffering a LOT of vertigo at that time and had the balance of a two-legged stool! Now the vertigo has eased off somewhat and the parking is right outside the door, but I do need this doctor to understand.
It seems a lot to ask of a stranger, that they can understand something that I really don't understand myself. I don't know why I can do almost anything for a short period of time, I don't know why I can carry a punching bag off the ferry and then have to go home and lie down to recover, I don't know why sometimes I can't make myself stand up straight when I get up out of bed, I don't know why sometimes I fall over for no real reason when I am trying so hard not to fall, I don't know why the urge to be horizontal is like an addiction or a craving, I just don't know... Most days I can suck it up for a couple of hours and go out to a social event and only the most observant of people would ever know I was in pain - some days that would be impossible.
So do I walk in to the doctors office with my walking stick in hand and say hello to the receptionist who I last saw when we shared a bottle of bubbles at a fabulous pool party?
Friday, 11 November 2011
How are you? Fine, if you don't ask for details.
I've been practicing, in my head at least, a selection of different answers to the interminable question...
"How are you?" (and all it's relatives "How are you doing?" "How are you going?" etc)
My mother, who lived to the ripe age of 90 (nearly 91), always said "Fine, if you don't ask for details." This quote is attributed to Katherine Hepburn in a 60 Minutes interview in 1979 but to be honest I reckon Mum was saying it before then... still... It's a good, slightly humourous response, that acknowledges there are problems and rescues the inquirer from having to pursue this topic any further. There's only one problem - you can't say it day after day to the same person. It is kind of a like a condom, it's only good for one protection! (What would I know about condoms? The last time I fooled around with a bloke "Safe Sex" hadn't even been invented!) Ok, back on task...
I hate lying. It has a physiological effect on me. It significantly raises my anxiety level, which causes me to become tense, which causes muscle spasms, which increases PAIN, which is the whole reason why "Fine" is a LIE!!! Now, I don't feel this way with strangers, shop attendants, receptionists etc, I clearly know that these strangers are just saying what people say when they greet someone... they don't give a brown rat's arse how I am feeling and I don't give a Friar Tuck what they think of me. All's good on that front.
Friends are different.
Some of my friends are REALLY asking, they ACTUALLY want a truthful answer - I'll answer with some kind of assessment relative to how my day is for me. Like last night The Actress asked and I said, "It's been a pretty bad day but I'm feeling a little better now." That was a truthful response and I was comfortable enough, and felt cared about enough, to be honest. It didn't have to lead into a long discussion.
But what of my friends who are not really asking, the ones who say it as a matter of standard form? I have tried "Same old same old" but in some ways that is a lie because with a condition like Fibromyalgia there is no "same old" it is constantly fluctuating, constantly moving, constantly finding new and unusual ways to make me feel like a steaming mess of excretia!
I don't want to be someone who is perpetually mired in my chronic problems so I need a truthful, guilt free way to brush off these superficial inquiries. Sometimes the inquirer doesn't want an answer and sometimes I just don't feel like talking about it or thinking about it. Sometimes I just don't want to whine or whinge or to be perceived as a whinger (which is despised in Australia where we are raised to be perfect specimens with the silent suffering stoicism embodied by our diggers and bushman).
I've been trying on answers like, "Shitty, but let's not go there", or the existential response, "It is what it is", and on those very rare good days, "Better than usual." Sometimes I just avoid answering and bluster on to talk of them. But too often I find myself lapsing into just saying, "Fine" or "Not too bad." and to be quite frank they are lies. Even on my best of days I'm not fine. I find the insincerity of these inquiries and, more to the point, the insincerity of my responses quite disturbing, they start the anxiety cycle.
Maybe I should go over the top in the other direction... Perhaps something like "Great, it's only a car running over me not a bus!" or "Better than a dead roo on the side of the road!" or "Terrific, I just did 13 rounds with Mike Tyson and I still have two ears!" or "The third level of hell is much damper than the second." After all it's all in the delivery. Maybe I could write a song to the tune of "I've Been Everywhere"...
I hurt everywhere, man
I hurt everywhere,
I know it isn't fair, man
My knees hurt as a pair, man
Of pain I have my share, man
But I hurt everywhere. (Need I go on? You get the drift.)
On second thoughts I don't think that would go over very well to the huge crowds of one that I play to.
I struggle with this, it probably doesn't sound like much of a moral dilemma but it is to me. I'm an overly sincere, very serious, frequently humourless person!
Dear Abby,
I don't want to lie to my friends when they ask how I am but I don't want to tell them the truth either... Please help.
[Signed] Aching in Sydney
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Family
Warning - down beat - woe is me - gonna eat worms blog to follow.
Stop reading now unless you take great interest in train wrecks and freeway accidents.
I'm warning you for the last time...
Somehow I have managed to become one of those people almost nobody cares about.
My son is an exception to this sad sack statement. I have a few good friends and I am not in any way belittling their love and kindness, I do feel it and I do appreciate it, but friends are not partners, and friends are not family. My friends have spouses and kids and busy busy lives and I am not integral to their existence.
It's Saturday night and I am sitting alone with my computer on my lap watching/listening to a terrible little TV, with a "rabbits ears" aerial. There is an Agatha Christie mystery showing (I think that is what it is) but there is so much snow that I can't really see the features of any of the actors. I don't care 'cause I don't want to watch it anyway although I the soundtrack in the background fills the void in my room somewhat. My knees are burning (they've been hurting all day) and my left foot is cramping and in spasm, my left hip is throbbing as usual (there is other crap hurting but I'll only bore you with the more extreme issues). I'm worried about Christmas.
My family isn't close. I have two brothers both wrapped up in their own lives/families - my parents are dead. My relationship with my step-mother and step-sister has always been problematic. My sister-in-law, for a reason I have never known, has not spoken a single word to me since 1992 (I think it was because I was pregnant too). My other brother's male partner is a great guy and he and I get along pretty well. Not one of them is in any way interested in what matters to me. how I feel, what I think, what I blog about or anything else. They don't seem to place any value on my intelligence, wit, or insight. You know how you get labeled as a child in a family - "the naughty one", "the clever one", "the sensible one" -- somehow I was tagged as "the serious one" or perhaps "the boring one". On the rare occasions when a member of my family actually "hears" when I say something funny or witty they look at me like I have suddenly explained the physics of a black hole or sung an aria in Italian, because I am NOT "the funny one". (Strangely my friends and former coworkers have never had this same perception.) But I digress...
Recently I returned to Australia after living for 12 years in the US. Aside from my mother's death and my father's funeral I have pretty much managed to avoid all family gatherings. Mum and my gay brother used to visit the US and see me pretty often but mum has been dead now three years.
My step-mother is hosting Christmas. The email invitation came out inviting us all. Everyone's name was mentioned, in-laws and kids too, except mine but I know that was just an oversight - Freudian maybe, but not deliberate. My son was named though! So this motley crew is assembling at her house on Christmas eve, cause everyone except me has lots of other places to be on the actual day. It will be the first time I have been in the same building as my sister-in-law for over 19 years, the first time I have seen my niece and two nephews in at least 10 years, the first time I have seen my straight brother since my dad died 21/2 years ago, and I think it will be the first time we have ever ALL been in the same place.
None of these people have any idea how much FMS is bothering me, even my son doesn't really know, cause I always push so much harder when he is around, I always want him to see the best of me. I don't think either of my brothers even knows I have fibro, though I know I have told them somehow I don't think they really heard me. To be honest I don't think anyone in my family ever hears me. Except to chastise me for my failures, to dictate to me with advice that is not open to discussion, or to patronize me with superficial interaction I don't think they are interested in me at all. I am superfluous.
If I wandered off and none of them ever heard from me again would anyone give a shit? Would anyone look for me if I were kidnapped or wandering lost with amnesia? Would anyone visit me if I was sick in hospital? Aside from my son, the answer is no. I have not fostered or built these relationships, I carry the lions share of the blame, I have created my own irrelevancy. My mother was the glue that bound my brothers and I together, she was so happy when she was dying to see the three of us together getting along, but after she died we just went back to our corners of the world.
I feel unloved and unlovable and I don't know how I will endure this gathering and yet I could never bring myself to not go. I could not deprive myself of even this twisted a gathering of magnified dysfunction. Is it like playing with a sore tooth? Am I drawn to poke at this bruise that exists where family should be? Or is it like most things a mixture of good and bad, happy and sad, healthy and sick, understood and misunderstood, happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and hate...
I guess I will know more on Christmas Day when it is all over and I am sitting alone the same way I am now...
Stop reading now unless you take great interest in train wrecks and freeway accidents.
I'm warning you for the last time...
Somehow I have managed to become one of those people almost nobody cares about.
My son is an exception to this sad sack statement. I have a few good friends and I am not in any way belittling their love and kindness, I do feel it and I do appreciate it, but friends are not partners, and friends are not family. My friends have spouses and kids and busy busy lives and I am not integral to their existence.
It's Saturday night and I am sitting alone with my computer on my lap watching/listening to a terrible little TV, with a "rabbits ears" aerial. There is an Agatha Christie mystery showing (I think that is what it is) but there is so much snow that I can't really see the features of any of the actors. I don't care 'cause I don't want to watch it anyway although I the soundtrack in the background fills the void in my room somewhat. My knees are burning (they've been hurting all day) and my left foot is cramping and in spasm, my left hip is throbbing as usual (there is other crap hurting but I'll only bore you with the more extreme issues). I'm worried about Christmas.
My family isn't close. I have two brothers both wrapped up in their own lives/families - my parents are dead. My relationship with my step-mother and step-sister has always been problematic. My sister-in-law, for a reason I have never known, has not spoken a single word to me since 1992 (I think it was because I was pregnant too). My other brother's male partner is a great guy and he and I get along pretty well. Not one of them is in any way interested in what matters to me. how I feel, what I think, what I blog about or anything else. They don't seem to place any value on my intelligence, wit, or insight. You know how you get labeled as a child in a family - "the naughty one", "the clever one", "the sensible one" -- somehow I was tagged as "the serious one" or perhaps "the boring one". On the rare occasions when a member of my family actually "hears" when I say something funny or witty they look at me like I have suddenly explained the physics of a black hole or sung an aria in Italian, because I am NOT "the funny one". (Strangely my friends and former coworkers have never had this same perception.) But I digress...
Recently I returned to Australia after living for 12 years in the US. Aside from my mother's death and my father's funeral I have pretty much managed to avoid all family gatherings. Mum and my gay brother used to visit the US and see me pretty often but mum has been dead now three years.
My step-mother is hosting Christmas. The email invitation came out inviting us all. Everyone's name was mentioned, in-laws and kids too, except mine but I know that was just an oversight - Freudian maybe, but not deliberate. My son was named though! So this motley crew is assembling at her house on Christmas eve, cause everyone except me has lots of other places to be on the actual day. It will be the first time I have been in the same building as my sister-in-law for over 19 years, the first time I have seen my niece and two nephews in at least 10 years, the first time I have seen my straight brother since my dad died 21/2 years ago, and I think it will be the first time we have ever ALL been in the same place.
None of these people have any idea how much FMS is bothering me, even my son doesn't really know, cause I always push so much harder when he is around, I always want him to see the best of me. I don't think either of my brothers even knows I have fibro, though I know I have told them somehow I don't think they really heard me. To be honest I don't think anyone in my family ever hears me. Except to chastise me for my failures, to dictate to me with advice that is not open to discussion, or to patronize me with superficial interaction I don't think they are interested in me at all. I am superfluous.
If I wandered off and none of them ever heard from me again would anyone give a shit? Would anyone look for me if I were kidnapped or wandering lost with amnesia? Would anyone visit me if I was sick in hospital? Aside from my son, the answer is no. I have not fostered or built these relationships, I carry the lions share of the blame, I have created my own irrelevancy. My mother was the glue that bound my brothers and I together, she was so happy when she was dying to see the three of us together getting along, but after she died we just went back to our corners of the world.
I feel unloved and unlovable and I don't know how I will endure this gathering and yet I could never bring myself to not go. I could not deprive myself of even this twisted a gathering of magnified dysfunction. Is it like playing with a sore tooth? Am I drawn to poke at this bruise that exists where family should be? Or is it like most things a mixture of good and bad, happy and sad, healthy and sick, understood and misunderstood, happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and hate...
I guess I will know more on Christmas Day when it is all over and I am sitting alone the same way I am now...
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Being "other" - Other than what?
I think my self image is symbolized by a series of interwoven and overlapping bell curves and spectrums which contrasts with the equally interesting series of interwoven and overlapping bell curves and spectrums that depict the way others view me. Like two fabrics with the same pattern in different colours.
Maybe this is not making sense... but imagine that nearly everything could be measured on a bell curve... How tall are you? 8 foot is on the extreme right - 3 foot is on the extreme left and my 5 foot 6 inches is in that amalgamous clump in the middle. So it is with sexuality and also with disability (in its many layers). Curves, spectrums and methods of measuring people and ranking them against one another.
Don't go screaming out that people are people and we are all individuals - I know we are... in fact that is the very topic of this discussion!
The girlwiththecane made an interesting comment on my last blog that got me thinking... She was referring to my parallel of butch being "visible lesbian" like certain physical disabilities are "visible disability" and mentioned the universality of being "other". But is it "universal" and what is "other"? Does a brunette cheer leader feel some sense of "differentness" (aka "otherness") because she is not blonde? Does being overweight elicit the same feelings of "otherness" even though there are so many people who share that situation? I know that one can feel an "otherness" when overseas or when culturally displaced... In fact my very name "Displaced" derives from this feeling of not belonging. Is there anyone who doesn't feel a sense of "otherness"?
Even in our own families, where surely we have more commonalities than with strangers, most of us feel some sense of "otherness" of being "the black sheep" or of having been born into the wrong family.
Really is it only the narcissist (clearly the extreme edge of the bell curve or spectrum of self assuredness and ergo "other") who, in his or her delusions of perfection, sees themselves as belonging?
I must speak only for myself... I don't fit, I never did and I never really knew why. I wasn't like other kids and I wasn't like my family. When I finally understood that I was a lesbian in my very early 20's I attributed this sense of "otherness" to my previously misunderstood sexual preference... I guess I figured that others had felt or sensed something in me that I had not accepted or recognized yet. Then I learned that I am also not like other lesbians and I don't really fit in with that crowd either. Now I have this annoying issue with my invisible semi-disability and I feel like I don't quite fit with either the fully healthy, the sick or the disabled.
The people who I connect with are few and far between - they shine like gemstones catching a flicker of light on the sands of an endless beach, when I catch that glimmer I set my course in that direction and hope to see the flash again because I know how truly rare those gemstones are. I seem to find one, or if I am lucky two, per decade. Even then it is not that we are so similar, or that we have any sense of "sameness", it is more that we value and appreciate our particular versions of individual "otherness".
My life in a nutshell;
I am NONE OF THE ABOVE (and to be quite frank - nor are you.)
Maybe this is not making sense... but imagine that nearly everything could be measured on a bell curve... How tall are you? 8 foot is on the extreme right - 3 foot is on the extreme left and my 5 foot 6 inches is in that amalgamous clump in the middle. So it is with sexuality and also with disability (in its many layers). Curves, spectrums and methods of measuring people and ranking them against one another.
Don't go screaming out that people are people and we are all individuals - I know we are... in fact that is the very topic of this discussion!
The girlwiththecane made an interesting comment on my last blog that got me thinking... She was referring to my parallel of butch being "visible lesbian" like certain physical disabilities are "visible disability" and mentioned the universality of being "other". But is it "universal" and what is "other"? Does a brunette cheer leader feel some sense of "differentness" (aka "otherness") because she is not blonde? Does being overweight elicit the same feelings of "otherness" even though there are so many people who share that situation? I know that one can feel an "otherness" when overseas or when culturally displaced... In fact my very name "Displaced" derives from this feeling of not belonging. Is there anyone who doesn't feel a sense of "otherness"?
Even in our own families, where surely we have more commonalities than with strangers, most of us feel some sense of "otherness" of being "the black sheep" or of having been born into the wrong family.
Really is it only the narcissist (clearly the extreme edge of the bell curve or spectrum of self assuredness and ergo "other") who, in his or her delusions of perfection, sees themselves as belonging?
I must speak only for myself... I don't fit, I never did and I never really knew why. I wasn't like other kids and I wasn't like my family. When I finally understood that I was a lesbian in my very early 20's I attributed this sense of "otherness" to my previously misunderstood sexual preference... I guess I figured that others had felt or sensed something in me that I had not accepted or recognized yet. Then I learned that I am also not like other lesbians and I don't really fit in with that crowd either. Now I have this annoying issue with my invisible semi-disability and I feel like I don't quite fit with either the fully healthy, the sick or the disabled.
The people who I connect with are few and far between - they shine like gemstones catching a flicker of light on the sands of an endless beach, when I catch that glimmer I set my course in that direction and hope to see the flash again because I know how truly rare those gemstones are. I seem to find one, or if I am lucky two, per decade. Even then it is not that we are so similar, or that we have any sense of "sameness", it is more that we value and appreciate our particular versions of individual "otherness".
My life in a nutshell;
I am NONE OF THE ABOVE (and to be quite frank - nor are you.)
Sunday, 9 October 2011
To be seen or not to be seen? - That is the question
Is it better to have a visible disability and suffer the stigma of everyone who glances your way gawking and pre-judging you? Or is it better to have an invisible disability that allows you to "pass" as "normal" (whatever the hell that is) but have to deal with the lack of acceptance of your condition by the people you meet?
One of my best friends has no arms - well, let me correct myself and honour her partial arms, she has a couple of inches below the armpit - hard to find a more visible disability without the flashing neon of a wheelchair. I on the other hand have an invisible problem, until recently it was diagnosed as Fibromyalgia but now my new doctor tells me it is "an undampened stress response resulting in widespread chronic pain"... (Please use those letters AUSRRIWCP to come up with a catchy acronym for me! I am SCRABBLE challenged.) Anyhoo... back to the matter at hand. We, my armless friend and I, have discussed this issue and we can both see the other side of the coin. I can only imagine what it is like to be stared at everywhere you go (mind you she is beautiful and would be stared at anyway) and she can only imagine dealing with people who discount your situation because they can't see it.
Interestingly I think there are parallels in the lesbian community... Butch women are often quite obviously lesbians and would need to abandon their authentic selves to "pass" as straight and femme women go through life only ever having to tell the people they want to tell. Yet I have heard many femme women express annoyance at having to make that revelation and even greater irritation at having to deal with the denials of people who insist that they could be straight if they felt like it because they look just like a straight woman.
If, and I know this is unlikely, anyone is out there reading this post - I would love to hear your thoughts.
One of my best friends has no arms - well, let me correct myself and honour her partial arms, she has a couple of inches below the armpit - hard to find a more visible disability without the flashing neon of a wheelchair. I on the other hand have an invisible problem, until recently it was diagnosed as Fibromyalgia but now my new doctor tells me it is "an undampened stress response resulting in widespread chronic pain"... (Please use those letters AUSRRIWCP to come up with a catchy acronym for me! I am SCRABBLE challenged.) Anyhoo... back to the matter at hand. We, my armless friend and I, have discussed this issue and we can both see the other side of the coin. I can only imagine what it is like to be stared at everywhere you go (mind you she is beautiful and would be stared at anyway) and she can only imagine dealing with people who discount your situation because they can't see it.
Interestingly I think there are parallels in the lesbian community... Butch women are often quite obviously lesbians and would need to abandon their authentic selves to "pass" as straight and femme women go through life only ever having to tell the people they want to tell. Yet I have heard many femme women express annoyance at having to make that revelation and even greater irritation at having to deal with the denials of people who insist that they could be straight if they felt like it because they look just like a straight woman.
If, and I know this is unlikely, anyone is out there reading this post - I would love to hear your thoughts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)