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Jun. 29th, 2004 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerAbout three years back, I came to a realization. I had a disability, one as real as having a bum leg, or maybe even as real as a missing one.
Recognizing that what I felt was real, that it wasn't going to just go away, and accepting the diagnosis of "something broken" was, in my mind, essential to finding ways to work around, and in some cases, fix, what was wrong. See, as long as I kept thinking of it as a temporary thing that I'd get a handle on, sooner or later, I was denying that there was something deep inside that needed to be addressed, and fixed, or worked around.
There's a funny thing... there are two ways to look at a workaround.
Let's pretend that you shouldn't walk; you have a leg injury. Now, if you walk anyway, ignoring the damage, you'll probably be able to walk, but it'll tire you more than it should, and possibly stress other things that shouldn't be stressed, you see? That's one kind of workaround... your body will work around the injured area, using what's not injured in a way that lets you function.
Another way to work around this is to minimize your walking, while doing what you need to do to heal from the injury. It means accepting that something is broken, which hurts to admit (damn strange that it hurts to admit it, though, isn't it?), but it means you can make more intelligent decisions about it. You can still go into denial mode and just walk, but you're aware that it's denial, and you can measure the importance of walking right now, with the risks of further injury.
I looked deep inside, and found that there were broken things that needed to be addressed, and I started trying to address them. But, I also acknowledged that I might not be able to... there might be limits to what I can do. I let my pains be what they were, as best as I could.
I managed to fuck up some of the things I tried to do when I tried to live this way. But, you know... it wouldn't surprise me if they were more honest, more real, more experience building, fuckups than I'd made in the past. It was like, now that I was admitting I had a bum leg, now that I was trying to walk in a pain free manner, I was flailing a bit more, hurting a bit more, cussing a bit more, but actually learning what hurt, where it hurt, a little bit more about *why* it hurt, and what might, or might not, actually *work* for walking on it.
Now, there are a lot of things that have changed over the past three years.Three years ago, the 9/11 attacks were still about 2 1/2 months in the future, and I was still living in Columbus. Hell, here's something for big, big changes: 2 1/2 years ago, I was living about five hours north of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grillghod and saoba, and now, having moved 2500 miles away, that's all changed, and I'm living about four hours north of them.
(Stops, rechecks figures) Yes, yes, it's a long story. But that's the point, isn't it? In three years, a lot of things change.
But, I think that if I pointed to when my healing started, it was when I accepted that there were injuries that needed to be addressed, and started working on healing, rather than working on functioning, regardless of how badly I hurt.
As a parting thought, apropos of nothing, while it's true that the world is a lousy, shitty place, it's also a wonderful, beautiful place... and part of the beauty comes from it being a lousy shitty place, and people still working hard to make due and get through, while still caring about themselves and those around them. Not all beauty makes us happy; sometimes beauty makes us weep.
Recognizing that what I felt was real, that it wasn't going to just go away, and accepting the diagnosis of "something broken" was, in my mind, essential to finding ways to work around, and in some cases, fix, what was wrong. See, as long as I kept thinking of it as a temporary thing that I'd get a handle on, sooner or later, I was denying that there was something deep inside that needed to be addressed, and fixed, or worked around.
There's a funny thing... there are two ways to look at a workaround.
Let's pretend that you shouldn't walk; you have a leg injury. Now, if you walk anyway, ignoring the damage, you'll probably be able to walk, but it'll tire you more than it should, and possibly stress other things that shouldn't be stressed, you see? That's one kind of workaround... your body will work around the injured area, using what's not injured in a way that lets you function.
Another way to work around this is to minimize your walking, while doing what you need to do to heal from the injury. It means accepting that something is broken, which hurts to admit (damn strange that it hurts to admit it, though, isn't it?), but it means you can make more intelligent decisions about it. You can still go into denial mode and just walk, but you're aware that it's denial, and you can measure the importance of walking right now, with the risks of further injury.
I looked deep inside, and found that there were broken things that needed to be addressed, and I started trying to address them. But, I also acknowledged that I might not be able to... there might be limits to what I can do. I let my pains be what they were, as best as I could.
I managed to fuck up some of the things I tried to do when I tried to live this way. But, you know... it wouldn't surprise me if they were more honest, more real, more experience building, fuckups than I'd made in the past. It was like, now that I was admitting I had a bum leg, now that I was trying to walk in a pain free manner, I was flailing a bit more, hurting a bit more, cussing a bit more, but actually learning what hurt, where it hurt, a little bit more about *why* it hurt, and what might, or might not, actually *work* for walking on it.
Now, there are a lot of things that have changed over the past three years.Three years ago, the 9/11 attacks were still about 2 1/2 months in the future, and I was still living in Columbus. Hell, here's something for big, big changes: 2 1/2 years ago, I was living about five hours north of
grillghod and saoba, and now, having moved 2500 miles away, that's all changed, and I'm living about four hours north of them.(Stops, rechecks figures) Yes, yes, it's a long story. But that's the point, isn't it? In three years, a lot of things change.
But, I think that if I pointed to when my healing started, it was when I accepted that there were injuries that needed to be addressed, and started working on healing, rather than working on functioning, regardless of how badly I hurt.
As a parting thought, apropos of nothing, while it's true that the world is a lousy, shitty place, it's also a wonderful, beautiful place... and part of the beauty comes from it being a lousy shitty place, and people still working hard to make due and get through, while still caring about themselves and those around them. Not all beauty makes us happy; sometimes beauty makes us weep.
