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Talking to mum
Written by Sean on Sunday, November 19, 2006
My mother is coming to visit next month. She’ll be here nearly three weeks. This will be the first time in 20 years that she’s coming to see me on my territory, where I usualy go see her in her territory. That has given me the freedom to pack and go if I needed to: you see, things haven’t generally been all that swell between mum and I. But she wants me to be more open and talk to her.
A mother, hugging her son
despite(?) his wheelchair.
Only, there are so many things I can’t share with my mother. She knows I am transabled. She knows I use a wheelchair nearly all the time. But it isn’t a topic we talk about very easily, and in fact, we almost never discuss it. But it goes further than being unable to talk with my mother about my BIID related issues. It permeates my everyday life.
Any experience I have while wheeling is pretty much out of bounds. That means I can’t tell her about the frustrations about not finding parking. I can’t tell her about the gal who literally fell in my lap at the coffee shop. I can’t tell her about my activism. I can’t tell her about so many little things that make the day-to-day stuff of my life, that I’m left with only a few things I can tell her.
Let’s face it, the wheelchair is a big part of my life. And if I can’t tell her about that part of my life, I’m left unable to tell her much about what’s going on with me. But then she tells me I don’t tell her about what’s going on in my life, and she wishes I was more open with her. The expression "stuck between a rock and a hard place" comes to mind.
But she’ll come here. She’ll be in my house. She’ll see my wheelchair. She’ll see me in my wheelchair. We’ll be out in public at the grocery store, the restaurant, the mall, and I’ll be in my wheelchair. Will it be too much for her to deal with? Will she see how much more comfortable I am with myself when I wheel? Will it open the doors to me being able to tell her more about these small events in my life?
I can’t tell the future, I really can’t. I’m anxious and worried that things won’t go well. At the best of times, without the "wheelchair factor" things tend to get real tense after 3 or 4 days. Now we’re looking at nearly three weeks, with the chair thrown in here and there for good measure!
Only time will tell, won’t it?
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3 Comments
2 On 20 November, 2006, Claire said:
Sean, your mom loves you and I’m sure that it will all work out. I’ll pray that it does. As a mother myself, I know that in the end all we really want is for our kids to be happy.
I’m going through something somewhat similar with my mother, but I haven’t told my parents that I’m transabled and I never will. But the last 6 weeks or so of dealing with being transabled have consumed a lot of the time I might have spent talking to my mom or emailing her. I have 30 years of being transabled to catch up with, after all. She wants to know where I’ve been, and I just can’t tell her. She wants to know what I’ve been doing, and I can’t tell her. She wants to know how I feel, and I can’t tell her. Our last conversation was rather strained because there was so much I just had to hold back from her.
I don’t think I can ever tell her, because she would probably feel responsible and guilty, and I don’t want that. (see my story at http://transabled.org/stories/but-its-not-the-disability-i-wanted.htm for why that might be) So she’ll never know, and if I do eventually go full time, then she’s going to get the same lie that I tell everyone else. :o(
3 On 21 November, 2006, Sophie said:
unfortunately my parents are too involved in my life, and I’m too young for them to buy my lie. Telling them was a necessary evil.
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1 On 19 November, 2006, Sophie said:
I struggle with that with my mum too. She thinks I’m a lazy little so and so who has no initiative whatsoever. I can’t tell her about all the new skills etc I’ve gained through this part of my life.