Yesterday a chance meeting with someone suddenly enabled me to put together the mess of a jigsaw I have been living for many months.
A polite, kind and welcoming woman who was absolutley besotted by Fizz, asked me a question I have never been asked before, there was no malice in her words or ulterior motive for asking what she did, in the way she did; she asked me one very simple question.
How do you feel about having a disability?
I can imagine as I type these words that several of you will be taking an inhale of breathe through your gritted teeth!! Maybe even muttering “you can’t ask that!”
Honestly though ….. YOU CAN.
Why can’t you?
I grew up with the saying “there is no such thing as a silly question.” A phrase that I stand by even now as a parent, a friend and most of all as ME.
The answer to this question was out of my mouth and I could hear my own words as if I were listening to someone else say them.
My answer was simple;
I feel guilty.
I feel as a parent I am holding my children back,
I feel like I am a burden to my friends.
Rationally I know the answer to my own guilt is me, I have just never put it into words. And WOW didn’t those words hit me like a 500 tonne truck!
Not because my own words shocked me, not because they upset me, not I was cross with myself for saying it; rather because hearing the words made me realise my irrational and unfounded fears and how they held me hostage in my own thoughts.
I have no need to feel guilt; I did not cause my eye condition and hearing loss. My disability isn’t the result of anyone’s actions. It just is.
So, if I know rationally I have no need to feel guilt, doesn’t just stop me feeling it. Nor does it stop me thinking these thoughts. It just gives me the realisation that to move forward I need to understand it. Work through it, and most of all admit it.
After all, isn’t there a plagiarised quote on Facebook, Pinterest and Intagram that says:
LIFE IS 10% OF WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU AND 90% OF HOW YOU REACT TO IT
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