"Nondisabled Americans don't understand disabled ones."
(Title of this post is the first sentence of the introduction to No Pity by Joseph P. Shapiro.)
Whee, it's March. Hopefully springtime is coming soon. I began the winter with an ever-joyful and tolerant attitude but the overall suckingness of 2011 so far has made me fed up with the difficulties I have to deal with, both in general and in winter specifically. I'm fed up with snow and ice all over the place, and with having to intricately plan every journey out of my apartment building for fear of falling. I'm fed up with the dumpster behind our building being plowed in and frozen so I can't even take out my trash on the occasion I'm feeling like being an adult. (Haha.) I'm fed up with it taking me half an hour to weakly and clumsily scrape ice and snow from my car before I'm able to go anywhere. I'm fed up with having to put on umpteen layers.
I'm at a point of greater acceptance than ever before of my body, and my disability. But it's beginning to hit me pretty hard just how affected my body is by my arthrogryposis--things take me twice as long to do, and no one understands why, or they think I'm just goofing around; sometimes people notice and offer to help or just jump in and help me anyway (like when I'm trying to get change out of my wallet when paying for something), and then I feel self-conscious any future time I'm slow in public; I'm not able to be as expressive and spontaneous as I'd like to be. I guess I'm just really feeling my limits. I don't know if this is an aging thing where my impairments are becoming more pronounced, or a coming to terms with reality thing, or what. Maybe I just need to exercise more. :P
Inaccessibility is also at the forefront of my thoughts. Or maybe rather, how inaccessibility is totally absent from many peoples' thoughts.
Haha, man, I didn't even originally intend to write this much of a rant on disability. Honestly, I'm optimistic about stuff. I'm just fed up with ignorance and at feeling infantilized and/or useless because I can't do all the things I want to do, or go all the places I want to go.
An update on Matt: yesterday he was moved back to the rehab hospital, so things are moving forward again. It will be momentous when he finally gets to come home!
Whee, it's March. Hopefully springtime is coming soon. I began the winter with an ever-joyful and tolerant attitude but the overall suckingness of 2011 so far has made me fed up with the difficulties I have to deal with, both in general and in winter specifically. I'm fed up with snow and ice all over the place, and with having to intricately plan every journey out of my apartment building for fear of falling. I'm fed up with the dumpster behind our building being plowed in and frozen so I can't even take out my trash on the occasion I'm feeling like being an adult. (Haha.) I'm fed up with it taking me half an hour to weakly and clumsily scrape ice and snow from my car before I'm able to go anywhere. I'm fed up with having to put on umpteen layers.
I'm at a point of greater acceptance than ever before of my body, and my disability. But it's beginning to hit me pretty hard just how affected my body is by my arthrogryposis--things take me twice as long to do, and no one understands why, or they think I'm just goofing around; sometimes people notice and offer to help or just jump in and help me anyway (like when I'm trying to get change out of my wallet when paying for something), and then I feel self-conscious any future time I'm slow in public; I'm not able to be as expressive and spontaneous as I'd like to be. I guess I'm just really feeling my limits. I don't know if this is an aging thing where my impairments are becoming more pronounced, or a coming to terms with reality thing, or what. Maybe I just need to exercise more. :P
Inaccessibility is also at the forefront of my thoughts. Or maybe rather, how inaccessibility is totally absent from many peoples' thoughts.
Haha, man, I didn't even originally intend to write this much of a rant on disability. Honestly, I'm optimistic about stuff. I'm just fed up with ignorance and at feeling infantilized and/or useless because I can't do all the things I want to do, or go all the places I want to go.
An update on Matt: yesterday he was moved back to the rehab hospital, so things are moving forward again. It will be momentous when he finally gets to come home!