I wrote an original song for the show I'm working on with Indel-ABILITY, and the lyrics are probably the strongest, most honest lyrics I've ever written. This snippet from the second chorus in particular:
You don't get to speak for me
Cut the crap, it's not inspiring
To hate who you are and who you want to be
I don't want to be like this
Lately, I've found myself in an awkward position of having lost a number of close friends over the past couple of years because they just didn't get it.
That's not to say that they didn't try. Of course they did. They'd do their best, but they'd ask how I was and if I answered honestly or truthfully, they'd either not know what to say or I'd watch their eyes glaze over as if they'd heard it all before. They'd heard it way too often. And they get sick of it. Because if I answered honestly all the time, you'd hear a lot of complaints and a lot of anger.
Now, I can count the number of really close friends I can legitimately confide in on one hand. There's three of them. Maybe four, including my mother. And I'm not discounting the other friends I have - being a drama student and all, we tend to accumulate friends in our 'drama family' - but that's the truth.
I feel guilty about it, at first, thinking that my sheer existence is driving people away. It's the same guilt and shame I feel when I first meet someone and they're cordial and polite in their introduction before saying 'oh, what have you done to your leg? Twisted your ankle or something?'... And then their entire disposition changes when I respond with 'no, I have a muscle condition/disability'. They immediately step back. They immediately speak down to me. They immediately treat me like a sub-par human who is somehow less worthy of respect than an able-bodied human.
It's a miracle that I have any friends at all, really, until I remember how most of those friendships started. My current friends follow a similar pattern - they all got to know me well enough before they were confronted with the 'reality' that is 'the-D-word'.
I need people who don't question my anger, but they let me process it. They let me cope in whichever way I need to. They let me do it. As Bethany wrote,
"We all need to know that there are people out there who genuinely care how we feel as we are going through our struggle, our pain. We need our family and friends to ask us how we are really feeling and be present in that moment to care about how respond. Because when we are asked how we really are, we are no longer fighting along. We have fought these battles along long enough."
People look down on me when they see me walking by. My mum will ask why I don't use a mobility scooter to go shopping. Yes, it makes moving easier. But it also makes living harder. It's so much harder to live with myself from down there. I'm no longer at eye-level. People literally look down at me, they avert their eyes when I see them looking my way, and they do everything they can to avoid speaking to me. I don't want to live like that. Do you know what that feels like? Why would I want to encourage that while I still have the (painful) option of walking? It hurts. It hurts so much more than my muscles ever will.
And then, oh boy, do you know what it feels like to have a disability and to trip or fall in a public place? The internal anguish rips away at me long before I feel the pain of skinned knees or twisted ankles, because I know that people saw it happen, and the good Samaritans who rush over to help me up soon change their tune when they hear me say, 'sorry, I can't get up like that'. They hear that I have a disability and my muscles don't allow me to pull on their outstretched hands and they step back. What was just a random act of kindness has turned into a burden for them.
It happens all the time.
What I want, more than anything, is to live in an environment where I don't constantly feel fear. The fear of moving and injuring myself is so real, and the added fear of people (inevitably) being put off by my existence makes it worse. So much worse.
Every time I count the number of friends I've lost in the past couple of years, it hurts.
Every time I count the number of years it's been since I've been in a relationship, it hurts.
Because I can literally feel the people around me moving further away - and the people I haven't met yet, well, I can feel them keeping their distance, too.
So when things happen, or when I'm feeling the true extent of life that day, I want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone. And I don't want to only offload that drama on one person. I want to be able to rely upon my circle of friends. I want to be able to talk to them just as freely about my physical and emotional hurt as I did when this guy broke my heart really badly and started talking trash about me before doing it to someone else and starting on the next girl. I want to feel as though someone gets it - or they at least care enough to try. I want to be able to rely on more people, to shar the load so that my friends don't feel overwhelmed and they don't burn out as quickly. I want to feel like if I fall over again, people aren't waiting for me to stop being annoying or ridiculous or being a burden, but that they're just there for me when I get it together and I'm alright again.
I know I need to be stronger, and I need to look after myself better. I need to learn how to rely on myself more, instead of constantly reaching out in an attempt to feel better.
But...
I'm not strong enough to be my own warrior right now.
So I want a warrior.
I need a warrior.
Be someone's warrior.
This post is inspired by Bethany's post, 'Be someone's warrior'. You can read it here: https://bethanykays.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/be-someones-warrior/
