I get really tired of being treated as if I'm different or have some incurable disease that deserves pity. Really, really tired of it. Most days I ignore it, but today, I'm fed up.
Guess what? I have Spina Bifida (SB). So what?
I am not broken, I do not need to be fixed.
Everywhere I turn I'm faced with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) messages that I'm broken. I'm not good enough, I'm not normal, I'm damaged.
Says who?
I walk differently than most people.
So what?
Just because I have some nerve damage and get around DIFFRENTLY doesn't mean that the way I go through life is wrong! I am beyond sick of this culture of pity people have adapted. I'm tired of well meaning Christians walking up to me, sometimes totally random and out of the blue, and praying for me to be 'healed'.
Let me tell you something, I believe in a God who holds the power to give life and make no mistake, I believe He could make this body whole any moment He chooses to. His decision to 'heal' or 'not heal' me, first off, does not depend on someone being available to pray for me! Thanks for the well meaning heart, but you're wrong. It gets old and frustrating, and is nothing more than a reminder that someone else thinks there's something wrong with me.
There's NOTHING wrong with me.
There IS something wrong with the world I live in.
Every day we're told we're not enough, in so many different ways.
We're all familiar with the media's constant onslaught directed towards young woman, pressuring them to look a certain way, but it is SO much bigger than this!
Every time someone looks at me with pity, they're enforcing an idea that I'm not ok. Every time someone asks to pray for me for healing, they're enforcing an idea that I'm broken. Every time a mother loudly shushes her child and pulls them in the other direction while reprimanding them for staring, they enforce the idea that I'm an outcast.
If I could go back and be born again with the choice to have SB or not, I would choose to be born all over again WITH it.
Yeah, I'm serious.
SB is part of who I am. It's not a curse, it's not something wrong that needs to be fixed. It just IS, the same way frizzy hair just IS, or freckled skin, or crooked teeth, or large waists or skinny waists or long legs or short legs or light skin or dark skin or green eyes or blue. It's just a part of who I am. It's shaped who I've become, and I don't regret the lessons I've learned because of it.
Don't get me wrong, just as I wish I'd wake up one day and my hair would be perfect, there are days I wish I didn't have SB. That's a matter of the human race though. We ALL have things about us we wish were different from time to time, and none are more or less important than others, and none are more or less valid than others.
We're getting used to the idea that it's not ok to judge someone based on what hair they have or their skin tone. Why can't we get used to the idea that we shouldn't judge people based on the way they walk? Or if they walk at all? Or if they don't see, or speak or hear? How are THESE differences any different than hair or skin or eye color?
They're NOT!
Why is it a short girl who can't reach the top shelf can get help from a taller person, and they laugh about it and part their separate ways, but when someone in a chair can't reach something, either people hurry away trying to pretend they don't notice, or they they awkwardly retrieve the out of reach item and pity the person? What's the difference?
Why do parents teach their children to fear us when we don't fall into the cookie cutter of what's 'normal' to them?
Because that's exactly what you're teaching your children when you tell them not to stare. Yeah, I'm sure you mean well, and I understand, but you're wrong. We can HEAR you telling them that, and it makes us FAR more uncomfortable than them staring. We're not ashamed of who we are, why do you act like you are?
Why do you teach your children to avoid us?
Teach your children to ASK when they want to know! It's OK to be curious. I LOVE when little ones come up to me and ask, “Why do you walk like that?”. When I was a kid, some kids were scared of me (thank you parents for teaching them automatic avoidance to anyone deemed 'different' ) and it would take forever before they'd accept me and talk to me. Some never did.
That's the kind of culture we live in, and it's not ok.
Stop treating disabled people like they're different. Stop pitying them for going through life differently than you.
There's no such thing as normal, so stop fooling yourself into believing you are and someone else isn't. Normal is a false theory that doesn't exist. We were made to be diverse.
I find it sad that the only way I have to express my frustration is using terms that put people in groups... us vs. them. But that's the reality I live in. I am not accepted by society. Not really. I'm pitied and accommodated by society, but not accepted. Society sees me as something broken that needs to be fixed, and thanks to that mentality, I have a group of people in the same boat that I belong to now.
It shouldn't be this way.
We're all different. Why can't we embrace that and stop being afraid of something that isn't exactly like us?
No one wants to be treated with pity like they're broken and unfixable. Me included. I'm not broke, don't keep telling me I am.
