Loving My Disability

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From: Duane M. French
Email: frenchie@gci.net
Date: 05 Sep 1999
Time: 03:33:02
Remote Name: anc-du-1840.gci.net
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Story

For years I viewed my disability and others with disabilities from a very Uncle Tomish perspective. When I came across Irv Zola's book "Missing Pieces" it changed my life. In the 13 years leading up to 1981, I believed a disability was something I would "adapt" to but never "accept."

In "Missing Pieces" Zola chronicled his journey from adapting to his disability to finally accepting it as a part of himself. I read the book and pondered, then reread it and pondered further. Zola stirred my heart, body, soul and spirit. Five friends with various types of disabilities read the book and it had a powerful impact upon us all. In the few discussions we had about "Missing Pieces" it became clear it had raised important questions in the minds and hearts of each of us.

Deciphering the lessons learned from "Missing Pieces" was more difficult than any of us had imagined. So, we decided to pool together enough money to hire a counselor for 5 sessions to work through the questions surfaced in us after reading "Missing Pieces." We hired a counselor with a disability to facilitate the 5 sessions to avoid any one of the very bright group members from squashing the transforming influence the book had on another group member.

What I learned from Zola and the 5 group sessions shaped my life in dramatic fashion. It started me down a new path of acceptance and loving myself. My next revelation would come in an even stranger way. In my quest to become a "new age" male, I decided I needed to expand my capacity as a friend. I heard about a "Men and Friendship" workshop being held over the weekend. The workshop posed plenty of risk because developing friendships with men beyond talking about sports, going to bars and ogling at women seemed, if not impossible, pretty damned strange.

The "Men and Friendship" workshop was held at the YWCA. I loved the irony of going to a workshop on men, for men and by men at the YWCA. When I approached the room where I thought the workshop was being held, I saw a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting around. I was sure this group of very Nebraska looking guys was not planning on spending a weekend talking about being a better friend, especially with other men. When I told them what I was looking for and they said, "this is it" I began planning my strategy for leaving at lunch.

As the workshop progressed I bagged the notion of leaving at lunch and was amazed that these guys my dads age shared my struggle in communicating feelings and speaking from the heart. One of the exercises involved asking another group member to help you work through a difficult relationship. There was one man in the group who looked just like my dad; tall, handsome, easy going and with that trademark sculpted face common in the men of the French family. I asked him to play the role of my dad and he agreed.

I asked every member of the group to take off their belts and strap him to the chair. I made sure they strapped his feet, hands, legs, waist and chest so there was no way he could move. I calmly asked him to get up. He couldn't. I smiled and said "come on, try real hard?" He couldn't. I then began the litany of "you could if you tried hard enough. Believed enough. Cared enough." As he struggled and tipped the chair over from trying so hard, I would not let the others help him up. I was screaming at him in a way no one had ever talked to me before, except from the farthest recesses of their heart. From the moment he sat in the chair, I stopped seeing his face and saw only the face of my father.

The deeper I delved into my soul during this exercise, the farther I ventured from reality. All of a sudden the face before me changed, and it was no longer my father. The face before me was my own. Finally, I had confronted the enemy and it was myself. Probably because he loved me so much and was so strong, my dad became the easiest face to put on my own anger, bitterness and disappointment. Before my spinal cord injury I was smart, cunning, articulate and charming. Everyone expected me to go far, if only I could stay out of trouble, jail or prison. I loved to work, craved attention from others and possessed an abundance of energy.

In my mind, and the hearts of everyone around me, my disability spelled the end of a life full of promise. I hated my disability for limiting a life otherwise full of boundless opportunities. Acceptance, as Zola described it, seemed impossible for me. The experience that day helped me by bringing the full force of my hatred to the surface. What I know now is I needed to learn to hate my disability before I could ever begin to love it.

The process Zola went through reconnecting his body with his self fascinated me because I had spent so much effort disassociating the two. My self was suave, debonair, smooth, and self-assured. My body, well it had a disability. Never the twain shall meet. Zola, the "Missing Pieces group, my soul-mate Deborah, my family, and the incredible forces of love all around me helped to guide me to the full realization of self-acceptance and love.

You see, accepting and loving myself is inextricably tied to loving and accepting my disability because it is part of me. I span the continuum of loving and hating my disability regularly just as I do every other part of me. For example, my personality, ask the people in my life what they struggle with most in understanding me, and it won't be my disability. The women who have shared the most intimate moments in my life will tell you my personality is far more complicated and vexing than my disability.

When I gather together with other brothers and sisters with disabilities, I feel a sense of comfort and love that I seldom feel immediately with people without disabilities. I feel as though I have come home when I enter those places we call the "disability community" because we share a common bond filled with many different nuances, mysteries, a history each has it's own, but it is a bond forged from hope, love and laced with promise. As the song says: "Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all!"

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From: jvwspyxxywe
Email: zckpdo@dutwri.com
Date: 13 May 2008
Time: 03:32:04
Remote Name: 89.149.244.45
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