When I broke down far enough to admit that I was struggling, a number of people jumped to my aid. They couldn't offer aid in paying my tax bill or in paying off doctors but this isn't about what they can do. These people offered me their faith in me, their belief that my pain in all of its forms is real and their acceptance that disabled is a part of my identity. This isn't something that shall pass like a little nagging case of pneumonia. (Just throw in any serious and miserable acute illness that could kill under the wrong circumstances and you can see my point.) Unlike what my mother once believed, this isn't some illness that the right medicine or surgery will cure. I'm disabled and I will never get, as I like to say "Big B Better." There will be improvements and setbacks along the way but I will remain disabled.
There is a bias in this nation against anyone who can't slap a Band-Aid on whatever the problem is and get right back to work. Thanks to my friends, I've been forced to accept that I have a certain intrinsic value from just being a fellow human being. Those friends forced me to accept that I can be pleasant to be around and that a number of people choose to be around me. Some people recognize my work as a disability advocate and a fiction writer as doing something worthwhile. I don't have to make something of myself because I'm there already. Yes, I have further to go but I'm in the trenches right now trying to make it happen.
I wonder if you can imagine the pushback in my own mind against these positive thoughts. Obviously, the rest of the world can't be wrong so there must be some way to recover from this fully. My doctors must be wrong or I must have misunderstood them hundreds of times. Melissa must have misunderstood them the same way and the laws of reality must be off kilter because not getting better has to be the result of me being lazy as always. It helps to make fun of these irrational feelings but they don't go away. I was taught my strengths and weaknesses while I was young so being sick is a moral failure somehow.
Then again, people I consider to be exceptionally strong have told me that I have surpassed them somehow. Thank you, guys. I doubt that I have surpassed you but I'm proud to be considered in your neighborhood. Those of you I believe should be eligible for sainthood regardless of your specific religious beliefs think I'm a good person? You don't just say that so you can move on to my flaws in the same sentence?
Some of my victories are difficult to dispute even for me. "I'm still alive!" When the wolves seem to gather at the door every day as the vultures circle overhead, it reminds me that it didn't have to end up this way. I will try to continue to take pride in surviving until the day when I don't. Until then, I hope to continue having such good friends. Thanks to our histories, I can believe that the clicking of a thumbs up button actually means something.
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