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Hot Pink
Written by Chloe on Monday, September 7, 2009
Today I wore my above knee hot pink skirt to work. I’m getting bolder as I get more and more comfortable about being myself. People ask me how I’m doing more often than they did before… Before I became disabled.
Everything seems so normal. I greet people with a big friendly smile. We chat. I work at my desk. I am often offered help at the cafeteria. I don’t need any, so I politely decline and thank them for the offer.
It was a pretty quiet day. My job entailed doing a bunch of arithmetic calculations. I always check everything multiple times in different ways. OCD has its value. I never get a calculation wrong.
The fun things started to happen as I was wheeling out at the end of the day. A family was in the corridor heading the same direction just ahead of me, and the three or four year old girl could not take her eyes off my leg brace. She alternated between walking backwards, walking forwards with her head turned around, and walking in circles so she could make a close pass. I gave her a big smile. She smiled back. My smile got bigger. It was all extremely cute.
Then I went grocery shopping on the way home. Kids find my leg brace VERY interesting. Hey, I found such things interesting when I was a kid. It was intense to remember my feelings from when I was a child; looking at the people I wanted to be like, wondering how I could get to be like that. I have arrived; no, not at the final destination. I have arrived at the right path through the woods.
Alicia was upset when I arrived home. She’s been upset for several days about the childhood sexual abuse (CSA) story that’s been in the news. She made me a wonderful gourmet dinner of fish, broccoli, and beans. As I was eating at the dining table, she said "I feel like a victim". I understood the sub-text. It meant she felt she didn’t have the right to feel like a victim on account of somebody else’s CSA. I said gently "Well, you ARE a victim. Of course you will feel that". She went off to be by herself for a while. When she came back she said "Thank you for validating my feelings. It makes a big difference". I knew she needed to process her grief so I did my own stuff; planning the next hike.
Later on I got myself dessert of blueberries and cream, and sat next to her on the couch with her legs on my lap. She kept thanking me, and started crying. I started crying too; harder and harder. It’s amazing how she reads my mind. She sat up and gently put her hand on my leg brace. She said "I’m sorry you didn’t get the validation you needed when you were a child. You ARE disabled…"
Twenty years from now, there will be someone posting here: "I have this vivid memory from early childhood. There was a woman in a wheelchair at the grocery store. She had a leg brace as well. I wanted to be like her; she looked really happy. The only other thing I remember about her is her skirt. It was hot pink."
Tags: Disabled, Leg Brace, Wheelchair
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5 Comments
Hey Chloe,
Just wanted to highlight this: “Twenty years from now, there will be someone posting here: “I have this vivid memory from early childhood…”, as I sometimes wonder what my “pretending” might do to others, especially kids. Some kids tend to look heavily and seem fascinated, and, really, I found myself thinking, in such occasions, did I pass him/her the “virus”? And I feel guilty when this happens… huuuh
Hey Tom,
I do not know if the “virus” can be passed that way, because I have always been fascinated by disabilities. But you cannot keep children away from the world. Children can often deal better with other people’s disabilities than adults. There is one story from my childhood when my sister and I were quite young (5?). We visited some relatives and there was someone who had just had a face operation because of cancer. He was embarrassed about it and I’m sure some of the adults didn’t know how to treat him. When my parents came in with their children, he wanted to leave the room. But my mom (who is able to deal with such stuff relatively well) told him to stay. Before that she had told us kids that Uncle X might look a bit strange because of some operation and so on. The only thing that happened was that my sister and I looked at him, said hello to him like to all the others and that was it. My sister took a closer look and asked: “Do you always look like that?” Then the topic was over for us. We children were not scared. I do not remember feeling incomfortable.
The only thing people with disabilities/BIID can do to children is inspire them. Should they ever have BIID in the future, we will not be the cause, because I cannot believe BIID just pops into your mind. There are other, deeper reasons, not just seeing someone in a wheelchair or with an amputation or so. The only thing that can happen is that this child can take a closer look and learn. That’s it.
One aspect of BIID is the bit about “I’m supposed to be embarrassed by ‘having’ a disability, but that’s completely opposite of how I actually feel”.
As a teen I noticed a man at a craft fair who was wearing a prominent back brace, but he seemed happy or proud instead of embarrassed. That was unexpected enough, but the weirdest part was how I felt; how I wanted to stare more and learn what his experience was like, partly because of his obvious not-un-happiness.
Flash forward to a pretending outing in my 20s, using elbow crutches at the mall for the first time. A woman who worked there told me, “You look like you’re having fun.” So, then I felt the need to pretend embarrassment, or at least to not appear happy, and that was awful, because it meant hiding my true feelings, which were of liberation and exhilaration.
Another time (different presentation), a friendly woman my age asked straight out about my injury, and I was so unprepared that I just shut down the conversation. She felt bad about having her friendliness rejected, and I felt bad about being the cause of it. The worst part was, talking about my ‘condition’ in such a way was exactly what I *wanted* to do with this person. Arg.
Such are some of the tortures of BIID. I imagine they closely parallel some of the tortures of a traditional disability.
5 On 9 September, 2009, Phil said:
Hi Nobody,
you said: “So, then I felt the need to pretend embarrassment, or at least to not appear happy”.
How many of our feelings and expressions are learnt, not spontaneous and from our own heart? “I should feel like this or that”, isn’t that a thought one often has?
I think it is very difficult and one of the central tasks of life to find out what I truly feel in my own heart and what I truly think in my own mind (and what I truly want from my own person).
Hi Chloe, I find it is natural that after having done something with courage, courage grows and you do more and more. Courage is like a muscle: using it makes it stronger.
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1 On 7 September, 2009, H. said:
You’re very lucky to have Alicia by your side. Your relationship with her is so nice! I wish someday I’ll find a girl so supportive as she is.
Now, about the childhood memories I have to say that I have them too. They’re like photographs, very well kept on my mind.
It’s strange to think in certain situations as they leave a scar so deep in us and then it starts something that never goes away…