my Life-long Truth

What if I shouted out loud “People with disabilities have different issues.” Would people believe me? Would people believe that instead of worrying over the price of gas, and car repairs, and car insurance we worry about getting picked up so we are not late to our medical appointments? And then waiting for hours to be brought home? Nobody would want to do that. Can I negate the assumption that there’s always someone around willing to help?   Usually, someone thinks that someone else would help, who thought someone else would help, who thought that a person with a disability should have someone with them at all times. That’s not realistic. 

Above all, Can we lift the bar of expectations? 

If someone shows a peer with special needs kindness or is their friend, is that news? Is that heartwarming? As a society we need to examine the fact it is not expected to go out of our way for someone. Or even examine the definition of “going out of ones way.” I’m not a difficult person to help, to like, to work for. I ask for little and give much. I try to, anyway. I have no control, technically, over how I’m viewed. 

And, if we dare lose patience with an agency, with an individual, if we dare demonstrate actual human emotion, outside of patient, acceptance,a person with a disability is chastised for having an “attitude” or “Not being understanding” Oh. The. Explaining. The justification. The “missing the. entire. point.” The point being that people with disabilities are all aiming to make a couple friends, a couple bucks, a life. Trying to build an authentic life at the same time well meaning people alert me to facts like “I am so lucky to be able to do as much as I can”

Oh, am I? Well, I guess I’ll just scrap these feelings of inadequacy, we’ll put them over here, under the mountain of paperwork I fill out every six months to qualify for the benefits I need to lift my life to a higher level and at the same time put me in poverty.

   For a while, I could push back against the brick wall of beaureaucracy and choose positivity. For a while, I could stay focused and take the good out of my job. And then, I couldn’t. My will to do so flattened, as the brickwall crumbled and the remnants laid on top of me. As a person with a disability, I wasn’t part of the unemployment statistic. I wasn’t restricted to  a sheltered workshop; I earned a high hourly wage with time and a half on Sundays. What could go wrong? Couldn’t I muster up some courage and stick it out?

Years ago, with a more supportive store, I could have.

Years ago, with a younger body, I could have.

I could have if I ignored the job’s effect on my mental health.

When I finally decided to leave, people were jealous.

I didn’t get to choose my body.

Or create the able-ist thought processes that say I should continually struggle to be “normal”. 

Unless I talked about being promoted. Then of course, I wouldn’t be fast enough because I had a disability after all.

But I could choose myself.