I have a friend who is "disabled" who has taught me to think "differently abled"
Perhaps because of this I was struck by this comment of Jennifer Culkin in A Final Arch of Sky. The book is memoirs of a critical care nurse whose career was ended by MS. "We tend, as a culture and even as health-care providers, to think of disability in terms of either/or, black or white, can or can't. When it's largely invisible, when some days you can do things easily, and some days you can do them with a big effort and some days, in spite of bringing every personal resource to bear, you can't do anything at all, what then? It doesn't feel like disability. It just feels like failure."
I thought of my friend, whose disability is not always obvious, and how she has wrapped her mind around the idea that she can do whatever her body allows for that day and counts that as an accomplishment. She seems to feel no failure.
How does she do it? How do we keep from labeling our own unsuccessful efforts "failure" when they maybe took all our personal resources in that moment. Is that failure? What is failure really? What is success?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
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Having been disabled recently for about 5 months actually taught me a lot about successes and failures. Things I recently counted as successes were: Standing up for the 1st time in 4 weeks; after being off both feet for a few weeks using the crutches again for 5 minutes; and then my 1st full day on crutches; 1st time on a stationary bike after 5 weeks of no activity; walking and driving for the 1st time in 8 weeks; running for the 1st time on the treadmill for 5 min and then eventually my 1st mile outside. Those milestones were HUGE. I learned so much about being "differently abled" and that anything I DID, no matter what it was, was a success. I felt so much gratitude, and I actually cried and cried the whole night after I first walked. But, as I continued to heal, negative thoughts started creeping in-- In May I felt like a failure when I tried to run up a huge hill that 7 months earlier would have been possible, but I couldn't quite make this time. It only got worse when a few days later, after running 4.2 miles in 40 minutes (9:40 minute mile) I was mad because I was faster than that a year ago. About a month after this negativity began, I read an article by Kristin Armstrong in Runner's World Magazine that helped me realize that I, of all people, was the last person that had any excuse to see these any of these things as failures. And then, ironically, I really felt like a failure for failing to apply what I learned during recovery. I finally understood that while I was disabled, I allowed myself to celebrate the tiny steps I was taking. But since being released from therapy, I I felt like I was fully recovered and "should" have been able to do anything and everything like before, and failing to do so was unacceptable. I have been since reminded that I was not (and am still not) 100% and that I need to give myself a break. And even if were 100%, I still need to give myself a break. So, with this epiphane, do I still struggle with "should haves" and what constitutes a success or failure? Sure. But I'd like to think that after my recovery from being disabled (or "differently abled") and the subsequent ups and downs I've been through that I'm just a bit more mature about it. I believe that it is important to continually push ourselves to improve and do better, but it is equally important to remember that each step along the "improvement" road is itself a success.
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