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Mary’s early memories
Written by Mary on Thursday, June 12, 2008
Looking back I have a lot of memories dealing with disabilities, since I was a child. Some memories have been in my mind now and then ever since, but some of them have started to come back to me more recently. I guess that is because I now understand more of my true identity, I have more courage to face this part of me.
One thing I remember very well, is when I went to the library when I was very young, maybe 6-7 years old. I found some books for children about disabled persons. I had two favourite books that I kept borrowing again and again, or I sat in the library just staring in them.
One book was about a girl of my age with a severe disability. She could almost not move at all and she couldn’t talk. But it was a very beautiful book about her life and her thoughts, just as if she was like everybody else. It made me feel I wanted to be her. I couldn’t understand it, but I felt so connected to her.
Another book was a photobook, also for children, with photos of people with different disabilities. Most of them, or the ones I remember, were congenital amputees. There were pictures of children with no limbs at all, or stumps. I was a little bit terrified looking at that book, but at the same time, fascinated, and I wanted to know how it was to be in those people’s situation. Despite my young age, I kept on looking for books and photos of disabled people, and when I found some, I kept on returning to those books over and over again.
I also remember that I, probably at the same age, started to pretend that I was disabled. And when I was drawing pictures at home, I often drew people with disabilites. I think a started to feel ashamed of this, so I remember that I hid those pictures. But I still wanted to save them, because they made me feel something good.
Seeing people with disabilities also made me feel something I couldn’t explain. Mostly I remember a girl a few years older than me. She lived in the same town so I got to see her fairly often. She had no arms and just one leg. I felt jealous of her, because she seemed to be so happy, and everybody admired her. She was very good at a lot of things and got a lot of attention.
I have been ashamed of those memories, and also trying to understand them, and to make them go away. But instead new ones has come, and my feelings about all this have only grew stronger.
Finding information about others with similar thoughts and feelings, now made me realize that all those early memories in my life were probably the unavoidable start for my disability. A disabiltiy that I think I was born with, and I found a name for here - Body Integrity Identity Disorder.
Tags: Amputee, BIID, Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Child, Disability, Memories, Paralysed
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6 Comments
Welcome to the club! It sounds like you grew up in a time when attitudes towards the disabled had at least started to change. Sounds like it was somewhat easier for you.
3 On 12 June, 2008, Claire said:
Mary that sounds soooooooooooooo familiar. It’s eerie.
I echo Sean’s comment, that it sounds so similar to what I went through.
One part that I’ve forgotten until your blog entry is the emphasis on books when you were a child. Now that you mention it, I’ve had a fascination with books involving disabled characters as well.
I recall a picture book called “Lisa’s World” that talks about a deaf girl, and I used to read it over and over again. And then there’s a novel called “The Body” by Carol Ellis that involved a paralyzed and mute girl that I’ve kept to this day. And I remember having a fascination with an episode of “The Wonder Years,” where the main character’s girl crush broke her leg and was on crutches. (I don’t remember the characters’ names yet I remember it visually, like it was yesterday; that tells you a lot about what I was *really* interested in!)
I wasn’t around people with physical disabilities that often, but every time something fictional or real came up, my BIID monster would poke its head out for a second. Like you said, the first feeling was shame. I’m not sure if there’s a worse feeling than that, for something that you can’t really control.
Thanks for sharing that with us, Mary. It takes a lot of guts to write an entry like that; I have yet to gather up the courage and write one myself.
5 On 12 June, 2008, Sophie said:
I think the most profound story I read as a kid was “What Katy Did” by Susan Coolidge. A friend’s mother started reading it to me when I was at her house and she lent me the book. I read it over and over and over, Mum eventually made me return the book and bought a replacement (which was hard because it’s an old story, it’s no longer published). When the friend’s mother first started reading it to me I got bored in the first page or so and then I read in the description that Katy got paralyzed by falling off a swing. Even today I’ll go back and read that story again, there’s just so many unexplainable memories with books.
My favorite story in the girls’ periodical I read when I was a kid was called “Blind Belinda”. I imagined being her of course. Many years later I had a chemical injury to an eye, which necessitated both eyes being bandaged for about ten days. So I experienced being blind for a little while and was reminded of the stories I had read as a kid. I absolutely loved the experience, despite the intense pain from the injury and the fact that I don’t actually wish to be blind.
Thank you Mary; it is quite startling how much all of our histories resonate with one another.
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1 On 12 June, 2008, Sean said:
What strikes me with this is that in so many ways, your story echoes vividly with my childhood experiences. Although I can’t say I had the same experiences, it resonates with me.