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Home / Thoughts / Other's Thoughts / Coming out

Coming out

Written by Claire on Friday, December 8, 2006

These last few weeks have been a long string of "firsts" for me. First time I’ve admitted to someone I have BIID, first wheelchair, first time pretending…and now here’s another one to add to the list. The first time I’ve come out to a person with a disability that I’m transabled.

But this wasn’t just anyone with a disability. This person is my longtime friend Mathilda. Mathilda and I met when I was frequenting a disability chat group nearly 10 years ago. She has Cerebral Palsy, and I have hearing loss, and that was ostensibly why I was involved with this particular group. The real reason, of course, was because I was a wannabe, although when I joined the group, I had never even heard of such a thing. It was during one of the conversations in that group that I first found out that there were other people like myself. But that they were sick, twisted, evil. And that is probably a whole different blog post.

The important thing for this particular post is that at first Mathilda and I hit it off, and then became very good friends. I love her. She’s a wonderful, kind, intelligent and funny person. We talked for hours, we talked about everything, and over the years shared a lot of hearbreak and triumph. Saw each other through injury and depression, childbirth, death, new loves and lost loves. We hurt each other, reconciled, cried together, laughed together, prayed together, and met in person when I actually flew to where she lived just to see her. Sometimes we would go for a month or two without talking, but would always be be back, Mathilda having an uncanny ability to know when I needed to talk about something. As for me, I didn’t actually contact her very often, wracked by guilt over BIID and feeling that I should not "bother" people with disabilities. But she kept up her end, and I was always so happy to see her. And here we are, a decade later, still friends, very special friends.

And here I was, staring BIID full in the face for the first time in my life, and realizing that I needed to finally tell Mathilda. For a decade I kept it from her. At first, it was simply because I didn’t know that I actually had "something" that a name could be put to, and that other people had. And then, it was because of a conviction that my wannabeism was sick and twisted, and it must be repressed, and a very real fear of rejection should it ever become known that I was a wannabe (and worse, a devotee). Later, as I slowly came to accept and understand BIID, I kept it from her as much out of a fear of hurting her, as of a fear for myself, because by then we had been through a lot, and I had a tentative hope that maybe she’d accept me anyway. BIID was taking up so much space in my life, that I could no longer pretend that it wasn’t there, and it felt like lying to her to do so.

So one day, not long after I had joined the Yahoo group for people with BIID, and talked for the first time with other transabled people, Mathilda sent me an instant message. At the time I was nearly beside myself with anxiety over my own BIID and anguish for somone else who had sent me a heartrending email about what it’s like for her to live with BIID. I told Mathilda about this person, not mentioning myself, only that I had met a wannabe, and how painful it was for her, and how much pity I felt for her, and that she needed prayer. I was afraid to broach the subject, but I wanted to guage her reaction. Unsurprisingly, Mathilda’s reaction was one of compassion for someone in pain, with a promise to pray for her. This didn’t convince me that I could tell her, but I was slightly reassured, and simply waited, holding onto that knowledge, until the time should be right, if it ever was.

A month later, Mathilda, with her uncanny ability to know when things are going badly for me, sent me another instant message, on a day when I was feeling particularly depressed and hopeless. I told her about my depression and anxiety, and somehow our conversation came to a place where I needed to decide whether to tell her what was really wrong, or lie about it. Out of respect for her, and a deep need to be able to talk about this to someone who actually knows me in real life, I confessed that I had BIID, that I had had it my entire life. I typed that into the message window and I just needed to hit "enter" to send it, and I was terrified, staring at it for a long time before I finally took a deep breath and sent it.

Years of knowing Mathilda didn’t prepare me any better for her reaction. I expected shock, revulsion, anger, fear…any number of things, but her first reaction was doubt over the authenticity of our friendship. She wondered, had she been nothing more than a "chair" to me all this time? And I hesitate to put into my own words what she was feeling, because I don’t know, not really, what kinds of mixed up emotions there were, probably all of the above in some measure, but that was the first concern she expressed to me, and she returned to it a couple of times over the next few days as we discussed this. I hadn’t expected that reaction, it had never occurred to me, but now I see that it should have. Of course, she had always been more than a "chair" to me, even when we first met. Because having BIID doesn’t prevent me from seeing the people in the chair; it never did. And a friend, is a friend.

The next reaction she had was to compare BIID with issues that she’s had in her life, and to draw comparisons. I saw that she was attempting to understand. I had to tell her that I was pretending, again with some trepidation, but she took that OK, asking insightful questions into the whys and wherefores. There were some tears, some admissions of jealousy on both sides, some times when we had to go away and think and pray before we could talk more. But always she came back. My big concern was for her to understand what BIID really is, a mental disorder, nothing that I can control, and one that makes the wheelchair therapeutic, without taking anything from "real" wheelchair users in any way. She didn’t disappoint me. Slowly, somehow, perhaps simply by God’s grace, I began to realize that she was going to accept me as I was.

Oh, it the learning wasn’t one-sided by any means. She helped me to understand the concerns the disabled community has over pretenders and wannabes, helping me to avoid any pitfalls. And she helped me to see various errors in my thinking, and will no doubt continue to do so, but always patiently, always lovingly. And almost before I knew it, she was giving me wheelchair tips, and suggestions and ideas for how to make the move to full-time pretending.

One day, she offered to send me her transfer board, which she didn’t need anymore. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the offer. The transfer board will be appreciated, and used, and help me to avoid further injuring my shoulders. But even more than that, the offer was one of acceptance not only of my BIID, but also of the way I choose to deal with it. I was touched more than words could say, and grateful not only for the board, but most of all for the gesture of love and friendship.

I’m sure we’ll hit some more bumps in the road along the way. But it’s a friendship that has stood the test of time and wasn’t even seriously imperiled by the revelation of my big secret. And so you see the depth of a friendship that can build bridges even between a disabled person and a wannabe. I wish there were more of us like Mathilda and me. Perhaps then, our two communities would be able to co-exist more peacefully. But for now, we continue building those bridges, one at a time.

[tags]Transabled, BIID, Wannabe, Pretender, Coming Out, Friendship, Disabled[/tags]