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From: Adrienne.Barhydt@f778.n115.z1.fidonet.org (Adrienne Barhydt)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Accepting Disabilities
Message-ID: <13375@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 9 Aug 90 19:58:46 GMT
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 AB>> I have the kind
 AB>> that just gets steadily worse.  So everytime it seems like I am 
 AB>> getting some where with accepting my disabilities, or at least 
 AB>> adjusting to them, I find my disabilities have gotten worse.
 
GS> it like the normal process of ageing, but several times
GS> the normal rate?   
 
    I am sure there are similarities.  My next door neighbor was 
approaching 90 and told me how she can't take care of the house 
anymore, etc. etc.  I was going through the same sort of thing 
but we couldn't discuss it - she didn't like to wear her hearing 
aid and tended to talk at me rather than with me.  It seems to 
me though, that going through that at age 90 must be very 
different than going through it at age 40! 
 
 AB>> My
 AB>> focus tends to be on what I am not doing and what I can not 
 AB>> do.
 
GS> It is probably the first step in self-definition: defining    
GS> what is NOT-ME.   I found it much easier to strongly,         
GS> emotionally (without words, but by actions alone), to         
GS> protest against the significant things in my life.   I        
GS> knew that I was perhaps a quarter of the person I used to     
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
GS> be.  So discarding the first half of who I used to be was     
GS> fairly easy.  It really was a re-run of my teenage years,     
GS> where I separated myself from my parents by "rebelling"       
GS> from what I thought "their restrictions" were supposed to     
GS  be.                                                           
 
Perhaps it is your wording that I disagree with rather 
than the concept.  I used to be able to dead-lift 160 
pounds.  Now it sometimes take a similar effort to get my 
body out of bed.  My physical capacity is a small, small 
fraction of what it used to be but I would not say *I am*
that small fraction of what I used to be.  Because of my 
physical limitations my goals must be severely cut back.  
Although fortunately I am able to do the same type of work 
that I used to do, half-time instead of full-time, my 
career in the sense of the goals I had for myself is over, 
but I am not less of a person because of that.  The 
challenges are different and if I look at them in contrast 
to what they used to be they seem puny indeed.  But there 
is no reason to look at them that way.  What exists is 
now.  
 

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