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Disability: a different reality
Feb. 13th, 2011 12:05 pmI got together with a friend to discuss a guest speaker at the business networking event she runs. The guest speaker was touting a new kind of energy work, and she chose as her "hook" the idea that one can't run a business unless one is operating at peak health. I saw people all over the room swallowing the hook and eagerly looking to her energy work to save them from business disaster.
I've been dancing around the disability label for myself for a while now. I have crossed eyes, very little depth perception, a large blind spot, and wear glasses that don't correct my distance vision all the way to 20/20. I've only recently realized how hard I work to compensate, and it's one of the reasons I ride a bike instead of driving a car. Does that count as a disability?
I have to carefully monitor what I eat and exclude a long list of common foods, or I get digestive upsets, brain fog, lack of energy, and crashing despair. Does that count as a disability?
If I breathe even small amounts of fragrances or chemicals, I have headaches and joint pain for days. Does that count as a disability? Those last two combined certainly curtail my social life, limit my participation in business networking events, and make it difficult to travel.
I received catastrophic levels of abuse in my childhood, and have been working with the ensuing PTSD for 20 years now. Does that count as a disability?
My friend told me that after she gets her eyes dilated at the ophtalmologist's, she goes home and goes to bed until her eyes return to normal, because she is so unused to having her physical faculties diminished in any way. I peered across the cafe table at her, trying to imagine that. "We live in very different realities," I told her.
Our conversation veered over many subjects, and I never did talk to her about the tiny steps that have built my business, doing what I can when I can. I never did ask her to wonder what people do all day if they can't count on peak health from one moment to the next, or maybe ever.
I still don't know if the disability label applies to me. I do understand at a deeper level that it's not us and them, disabled people over in a corner and the rest of us living our lives. We're all living our lives, in whatever situations and bodies we find ourselves.
I've been dancing around the disability label for myself for a while now. I have crossed eyes, very little depth perception, a large blind spot, and wear glasses that don't correct my distance vision all the way to 20/20. I've only recently realized how hard I work to compensate, and it's one of the reasons I ride a bike instead of driving a car. Does that count as a disability?
I have to carefully monitor what I eat and exclude a long list of common foods, or I get digestive upsets, brain fog, lack of energy, and crashing despair. Does that count as a disability?
If I breathe even small amounts of fragrances or chemicals, I have headaches and joint pain for days. Does that count as a disability? Those last two combined certainly curtail my social life, limit my participation in business networking events, and make it difficult to travel.
I received catastrophic levels of abuse in my childhood, and have been working with the ensuing PTSD for 20 years now. Does that count as a disability?
My friend told me that after she gets her eyes dilated at the ophtalmologist's, she goes home and goes to bed until her eyes return to normal, because she is so unused to having her physical faculties diminished in any way. I peered across the cafe table at her, trying to imagine that. "We live in very different realities," I told her.
Our conversation veered over many subjects, and I never did talk to her about the tiny steps that have built my business, doing what I can when I can. I never did ask her to wonder what people do all day if they can't count on peak health from one moment to the next, or maybe ever.
I still don't know if the disability label applies to me. I do understand at a deeper level that it's not us and them, disabled people over in a corner and the rest of us living our lives. We're all living our lives, in whatever situations and bodies we find ourselves.
