We are disabled – BUT should we get over ourselves?

I have thought long and hard about writing this but it is no good it is really bugging me. I hope that whoever reads this does not find it offensive its not meant to be, but its my way of trying to find a perspective into something that is constantly being dragged up on forums and groups.

What is it? Hum well have you ever gone out say to the shops and noticed anyone looking at you in an odd way? Maybe you think why is that person looking at me like that?

Nearly every week I go on forums or groups and there will be someone on there literally “spitting feathers and full of indignity”

Angry and indignant (not thirsty).
Drawing by Hannah Scully .

Now you would think World War III had started. I would have an image in my head of some person with arms under their breast standing there and taking real offence………. I am drawn in to the conversation as it seems so intense something awful must have happened to induce such a vitriolic and angry post.

It would sometimes start with…….. “How dare they look at me like that? (Hum reading on thinking this might be juicy), who do they think they are for gods sake”! I could literally feel the fire of anger coming off the screen…what had this person done to illicit such a response……..so holding my breath I would carry on reading.

“The nerve of the them. I was just walking into the supermarket with my walking stick, and this moron standing in front of me, looks at me like I am diseased or something and steps out of my way and the look they gave me was disgusting like I was dirt under their shoe, just because I am disabled and use a stick how dare they look at me like that………….”

I know my brain is very slow and it would take a few seconds to comprehend what on earth this person was moaning about.

It would seem the person had some how purposefully or inadvertently given the impression that they found the look of their disability as distasteful or not real, perhaps the person with the stick was some how playing games and just doing it to get attention or money off the state, who knows, but the writer of the piece would be so mad one would think they had been physically assaulted.

I have had a think back about times when my disease first got so bad i needed a stick and an arm to lean on. I would go to the supermarket and by the time I got to the check out would be exhausted and out of balance.

I had often stumbled and needed to hold onto my carers arm to stop me falling. Yes I would admit that someone in the queue by the side of me would look at me with a look of sadness which would prompt me to say “oops I need to put more water in my gin in the mornings” and this would break the ice and the person would smile and giggle with me which broke the tension of the moment. I would always turn these awkward times into a scenario where one could laugh and smile alongside of me. My illness never made me sad, frustrated yes but never sad.

I was proud actually that even though I had a life changing disability that I could still go out and that I could still quip about it and interact with people to show them well there is nothing to be scared of not really, hell no I may have MS but I am not dead yet there is still life in the old dog yet lol. Below just a few photos of me over the years of having MS, I just got on with it, and never bothered about what others may have thought. I never stress over what I cant change.

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I kind of felt sorry really for the posters as my feeling is they were not angry at this person but more angry with themselves and what was going on around them, and it was their way of dealing with it, by focusing on a tiny thing that may have happened and turning it into a major incident. Maybe a need to be noticed perhaps, for people to feel sorry for them, or even feed their insecurities about their disease.

After thinking about it I realised that people with MS or any other chronic illness can be very insecure, and some of them needed to be supported but didn’t know how. So they use the media to feed it to feel loved and supported.

You could almost imagine them sat in their room lonely and sad, lapping up all the answers of support, lapping it up like a cat would lap up a bowl of tasty cream. The person who had unwittingly looked that way, would never know that they had caused such a drama which would be unfolding and getting more and more intense and down right nasty towards them.

Image by Ruca Souza

I am sure they would have been horrified. Its almost like someone being stoned like in the days gone by, but verbally a trial by media. It would almost become mob rule as other posters would get wired up and angry for the first poster.

In days gone by people would be stirred up by verbal communication and things could get pretty nasty. Now its all down to lonely people living in their own seclusion feeding off each other the object of their hatred was not known or seen, but it didn’t matter not really as they could feel for the poster as they too were in the same situation and perhaps similar had happened to them too, so a simple moan could turn into hours and hours of posts from all over the world.

With the Internet you can start a post at night in the USA and it would be picked up some time in the morning for example in the UK, then posters would pass on their thoughts, and come the afternoon in the UK it would be the morning in the USA etc, and so that one small post could be doing the rounds for many many hours all over the world and getting bigger and bigger. At least in times gone by you reacted and it was done and dusted there and then. I feel now its so much more unhealthy. We tend to hold onto our anger and never let it go which cant be good for us surely.

Then just when you thought it had calmed down someone else would find the post and kick it off again, and indignity would reign once more around the satellites…….

Stone throwing the old fashioned way.

An innocent glance taken totally out of context had been used to feed someone else insecurities. Perhaps the indignant person needed to GET over themselves and find a life………yes they were disabled they had been given a rotten calling card but they needed to learn to deal with it for themselves not stir up a emotional feeding frenzy by others in the same place. All these people responding for me feeding the insecurity were the same sadly.

Life with a disability doesn’t have to be the end of their life but the start of a new one with lots of challenges yes, but we have to choose our paths in life. It is so much easier to take the easy path of just not dealing with it, and passing it all onto someone else and live the rest of our lives indignant because someone LOOKED at us in a weird way and make a huge thing about it which would feed us for a week and prop up our fragile egos.

As Humans I believe we are an innately self-absorbed species. Partly down to the fact that we have an instinct for survival. Could this person who is sharing this awful experience on say Facebook be using it as a way to survive another day. Using this exaggerated incident to enable them to cope through their own day, isn’t this a bit selfish really?

This could be dangerous unintentionally. There are a lot of people now living with a Mental illness who also have alongside a chronic illness they have to deal with. By sharing this story it could unintentionally stir up someone else who may not be as equipped to deal with it. It could even stir up hatred to all things NORMAL.

We have no idea how fragile minds are and the Internet is now a breeding ground for many things some of them not so good. By Normal I mean a focus can then turn onto someone who unwittingly one day looked at someone and without realising it set off a chain of events, because they appeared to be a “normal” person with no visible disabilities…………….

This doesn’t mean they have no disabilities just that the poster couldn’t see any, but perhaps their innocent look was of sorrow, or they may not have been looking at the person but through them as they were reminding themselves of something that happened to them that day. DON’T assume they were looking at you in a bad way.

Perhaps if you are reading this just be aware that if there is an issue with someone LOOKING at you in an odd way, look at yourself, and how you deal with things in your life at that point in time, and keep it to yourself, as innocently you could be putting other peoples lives in jeopardy.

You see that look, the best thing is to Stop – Take a deep breathe – Think of something funny – move on.

We all need to learn to GET over ourselves, yes we are disabled, but we are not a unique species with special privileges in life, we have to learn to deal with what we have been given, and not expect others to prop us up, as these same people may be more disabled then we are, more fragile then we are, and more scared then we are.

Let us all try to be a bit more tolerant of each other. We are humans and we are all just trying to survive the best we can, we don’t need to be stirred up and stressed to support someone as it just makes their day worse too.

Your needs shouldn’t always come first. Just remember whatever you post on media can have a ripple effect that leads to a tsunami, be mindful that others may be way more fragile. Just try to look at the funny side of things. Make yourself laugh, and the incident will just fade away.

I have another saying too when someone says to me “well you look really well” and I quip back well why shouldn’t I? I am not ill I am just NEUROLOGICALLY CHALLENGED, and it makes them smile and they know I am ok.

If you really want to be happy, you need to take a step back. You need to engage with the people around you, and with the rest of the world. Because this individual focus really isn’t working for anyone. Certainly not for you as it just leaves you having a bad day and a constant reminder inadvertently that yes you are disabled………. Turn the computer off, get out of the house, sit in the sunshine, do something, don’t focus on the bad things in your life, look around you, there is beauty you just need to look for it.

Beauty is everywhere you just have to open your eyes.