Loving Your Disability?

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From: Cheryl
Email: cjdevoll@pacbell.net
Date: 29 Apr 2001
Time: 17:45:10
Remote Name: adsl-63-192-101-216.dsl.chic01.pacbell.net
Remote User:

Story

Here I am writing about one year after everyone else! Anyway, I read the story and the other comments and have given the whole subject a lot of thought.

I am very uncomfortable with the word love in relationship to my disabilities. I do know that, if I had been born manifesting all my crippling diseases and had never been intimately exposed to life without them, then I would definitely not separate loving myself from *loving* my disabilities. My disabilities would have been a natural part of me.

The process of self acceptance for me was based on my abilities, including my physical strength. Having the freedom to move from here to there, to get away by myself, was instinsic to my psychological and physical survival since I had been abused as a child.

I was a *poster* person most of my life. I overcame great odds, becoming a therapist and advocate for abused children, then changing my careers over and over in order to adapt to changing health status. Developing a home based consulting and education business, I even maintained my *usefulness*. I struggled valiantly in and out of physical therapy to head off further physical deterioration of my lower limbs. But, it was all just one more challenge to me and that is because I knew I would gain some kind of remission of my symptoms and I could pretend to be *well* for an indefinite period of time.

Now I spend part of my time in a wheelchair and part of it leg braces and forearm crutches and most of it being exhausted from gait training and physical therapy. At least I have relief from four months of serious lung problems. Making this adjustment, trying to accept myself as I am depends largely on my body's ability to recover enough stamina to begin building yet another kind of life. That may or may not happen. I definitely cannot love these disabilities. Not having the energy to struggle as one must precludes finding traditional answers. Can I *accept* my life as it is? I have no idea, and maybe that is a place to start.

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From: land
Email:
Date: 16 May 2008
Time: 12:09:36
Remote Name: 201.54.148.7
Remote User: