Daily Prompt: Sympathize

 

To the girl struggling with her new disabled identity –

I see your frustration and fear

I see your anger

This new adjective was added to descriptors of myself when I entered college despite the diagnosis at 14

Figuring out that having to think more about fully picking up my feet wasn’t something everyone else had to do didn’t come until college

And damn is ice difficult when you get around on malfunctioning feet all the time

Some days I want to whisper that I understand your struggle yet I still carry shame in this uncomfortable adjective tacked to me

Denial eats away at you saying “I’m normal, I just have to get around a little differently”

Ending with you realizing you now have to navigate the world while reminding yourself what your body is incapable of trudging through

Finding pride in your body and the way it functions unlike the next person’s is a lonely journey when you’re one in 250,000

One day there will be too many falls and black bruises kissed by pavement equally as dark

My side will be kissed by a cane to aid my feet unable to leave the ground behind without dragging

But right now you can only see my hands tremble, unable to wrap around fine motor skills, some days worse than the others

Medication covers the pseudo-seizure episodes plaguing my body too many times a day for me to avoid becoming a target

I will not die of this but some days I am afraid my muscles will betray me enough to do so

I still see you though, and I hope you hear me whispering that you are not alone in this

via Daily Prompt: Sympathize

(Dis)Ability

As a child the first thing on my Christmas list was never a working body

Hell it was never on any wishlist – I never knew any different

But the episodes became more frequent and their curious stares dug holes in my chest

All I could decipher was the disgust and I began noticing this didn’t happen to anyone else

They discarded me for someone who’s body worked better than mine

I did not have the vocabulary to know what was happening to me

Doctors took years to figure out why there was a disconnect between my brain and the muscles attached to my bones

And all I could ask myself was why I was so faulty

The diagnosis came at 14 and disabled wasn’t a self descriptor for another 5 years

Even then I don’t feel comfortable in that identity for I am one of the lucky ones who can walk

But this disease follows me into the grave, medication will subdue symptoms until then

Even then my hands tremble enough to not be able to perform everyday tasks on the bad days

I still don’t always pick a foot up when walking

I am one in 150,000

And sometimes I wish I wasn’t so alone in that number