transabled.org

 

• About
• Login
• Contact
• Accessibility

Google Search:
Web transabled.org Go

 

Home / Thoughts / Therapy moments

Therapy moments

Written by Sean on Monday, September 25, 2006

I keep wanting to tell my partner just how much the BIID is "bothering" me. I keep not having the energy to do so. Never a right time, it’ll worry her. It’ll mean revisiting some of the things we talked about at the time I fell. Her saying that I should never seek to be a para. Me thinking, but not saying, that it’ll never go away. I’m feeling somewhat bummed out. Had therapy today, it was good. As usual, I did a lot of rambling on stuff that I already knew about, and had a couple "eureka" moments.

Dream or nightmare?
The chair is there

I was wondering how come it’s been such a prolonged time of being under transabled attack. Periods have cycled up and down for me over the years, but never this long, never three years and still going strong. And I started thinking, why would this be, what is different about it all? I thought… First, I was a kid, I didn’t know there were others feeling like me. There was no way I’d even consider having my own chair, I didn’t really know what it was all about, just that I felt a certain way about being paralysed. Then I was a teenager and understood myself a little better, but I still wouldn’t really consider, nor had I the ability, to have my own chair. Then I moved in on my own, got a chair, started using it part time, here and there, usualy when I was in a town far far away. Then I learned I wasn’t the only one feeling the way I feel. Then I was lucky enough to be able to wheel full time and be perceived as a para. Then, I moved here three years ago, and for reasons that made sense at the time, decided not to be known as a para, but to be known as someone who has some condition that lets them walk sometimes, but have to wheel most of the time.

I now realise that for some reason, people not knowing me as a para makes a difference to me. To have people relate to me, know me, as a para is important. To be frank, 99.9% of the time, they don’t even say a thing that relates to the chair. But my knowing they know I’m not a para makes a difference. And it’s not about attention. I’d wheel whether I was alone or not, whether they knew me as transabled or disabled. But being able to interact with people as I perceive myself is important. And it’s not been happening for three years, and I suspect there’s a good part of why I’ve been under such sustained, unending transabled attack.

My therapist asked me what would make "it" better. Being glib, I couldn’t help saying "being a para". But of course, that’s not part of the equation. The ultimate goal is for me to feel comfortable within myself, whether as a para or not. I do believe that the only way to achieve that is to become a para, somehow. Short of that though, I’m not sure. Wheeling more was something I started doing. I had gotten to wheel less and less until about January. Wheeling more helps some. I’ve regained some of my lost confidence I think.

But that’s not the solution, or not the only solution anyway, as wheeling does create a certain level of frustration. And I can’t shut that "voice" up, that thing that tells me almost continually that I am not what I should be. It’s not even like it jumps on me from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, as it follows me in sleep as well. It’s in my dreams, and in my nightmares, awake or asleep. And this sounds like a typical obsession, which I guess one could say it is. I’m not willing to go from there to calling it OCD though. It most certainly is not a choice.

And here I was, thinking that therapy couldn’t help with the transabled thing. And perhaps it’s not helping the way I want, but at least, I’m getting to learn more about myself and my relationship to BIID, which can’t be bad.

[tags]Transabled, Therapy, BIID, Obsession, Wheelchair[/tags]