ARE YOU HANDICAPPED?
When did you know? Every handicapped person remembers that moment. You were fine until then. After that, everything was different. Now people look at you differently. You look at yourself differently. What’s to become of you? That’s a really good question.
Maybe you need to wear a knee brace for a sports injury or support stockings for your circulation. Perhaps some back issues force you to use a cane, or a wheelchair. Maybe you’ve had several cancerous lesions removed from your face and you have to go back to work tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what your physical condition is, really. If you feel handicapped, if you’re worried about what people will think or say about you now, you’re handicapped.
Let me give you my bona fides for talking about this: fifty years ago in Vietnam, I lost my right leg. A booby trap, fabricated from a U.S. Army 81mm mortar round, blew me ten feet across our perimeter. I nearly bled to death but thanks to several medics I survived to recover in an Army Hospital in the States. As I lay in that hospital bed in a MASH tent in Chu Lai, it embarrassed me. Looking down at where my now-missing right leg used to be, covered with bandages and sheets, that was when I knew.
When I was a kid, right after WWII, my dad was a member of the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Every Memorial Day, their members would receive cartons of paper and wire poppies, and take them downtown to sell to passersby to earn money for their disabled compatriots. It was in remembrance of the poppies which grew over Flanders Fields in Belgium, where American soldiers had died in WWI. Those fields are covered with blood-red poppies.
I felt patriotic selling them but some of Dad’s friends, the disabled veterans, many of them amputees, made me uncomfortable. I remember crossing the street once, so I wouldn’t have to encounter one, who had a hook where his hand used to be.
Those people who’d made me uncomfortable when I was a kid? Now I was one. I was ashamed to admit to myself that I'd felt that way. Facing that reality that morning was when I knew I was handicapped and it changed my life. It will probably change your life, too.
So, what do you do now? You need to grieve first. You’ll know you’ve lost your perfectly healthy body, but it'll be easy to convince yourself that you’ve lost your future, too. Who will want to be with someone who is disabled ? What member of the opposite sex will want to have anything to do with you? Look at you. You’re handicapped.
If you’re bleeding severely, you can’t heal without getting a doctor to stitch you up, right? But first you need to admit that you’re bleeding. You also can’t resolve the mental part of your injury unless you give yourself time to look at it and deal with it, too. Feel it. Feel it all. Then let it all go. It’s difficult. It’ll take time. But everyone else will get their clue from you. If you’re OK with who you are, they will be, too. If you’re embarrassed and apologetic and morose about yourself, they will be too.
I was shopping for groceries one time, using crutches. A toddler, hiding in his mother’s skirts, was looking at me and my empty pant leg, wide eyed. I smiled at him and he hid, then looked at me again. His mother noticed, saw me and told him, “Don’t look at him.” She was right. A kid should learn not to stare at others. But when I was a kid, I didn’t want to look, either. So I waited, and when he looked at me again, I smiled and winked. He smiled at me, too. One small victory for us both.
You’ll be tempted to remember only the past, when everything was sunny and fine. Continuing to look into the past as you stumble into the future will only make you trip over your feet. You need to look reality in the face. You won’t be able to be true to yourself until you do.
Sure, you’ll fall on your face a lot. But you’ll learn more on your face than on your feet. You can see reality up close when you’re laying down there. But you’ll see your future when you stand back up.
Sex Who could want to be in bed naked with somebody who’s handicapped? I can only speak for myself here. I’ve learned a little about women. The vast majority of women do n’t care what you look like. They only care who you are. That choice is yours, not theirs. You will be alone for the rest of your life if you can’t be true to yourself. You’ll never be able to have a relationship with anyone else if you think you’re entitled to be shunned . Right?
You are a different you now. You’ve been pulled through the eye of a needle. The world is the same but you’re not. You’re stronger now and you’re able to deal with this much easier than you think. Everyone has a certain size of a problem they think they can deal with. But now you’re dealing with a gigantic thing, maybe not perfectly but you’re dealing with it. Eventually you’ll think, “Hell, if I can deal with this, I can deal with anything.”
Yeah, sometimes you’ll be tempted to hide all traces of your disability. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to apologize for being handicapped. Don’t. Don’t project any feelings of disgust on anyone else. They will follow your lead.
If you think you are fine, they will let you be fine. If you laugh, they will laugh with you, not at you. Take the lead. Never give it up. Smile. You’re doing great.
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