![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Being Disabled
Oct. 31st, 2017 12:11 pmEvery day, I think about working and not working. It is a lot to process. My life would certainly be simpler if I were working; I'd fit in with other people and be able to have conversations with strangers around that annoying question, "What do you do?" I'd have income even though it'd be small from being a part-time state employee. Insurance would simpler. I would be a little more normal and therefore pleasing, or at least not confounding, to the rest of society in this one way.
In my early 20s, I developed facial pain that no one could explain or treat. I got an MRI of my brain to check that it wasn't a tumor. I tried taking various anti-spasmodic drugs. I thought moving around might help, if only to distract me, so I left my desk job.
When I was in my late twenties I worked in a lab, at a job I didn't realize was a toxic environment. I went to a podiatrist to get orthotics, because my feet were hurting so bad that I would sit at home with ice packs on each foot. I developed a constant headache.
I eventually got a job I liked, working on a research study. I had to walk about a mile from my car to my desk. I started getting sicker. One day after I parked my car, I took a short nap right there in the driver's seat. Then I walked to the library, where I knew there was a sofa on the 3rd floor that I could nap on. I set a phone alarm and slept for half an hour. Then I walked the rest of the way to my desk.
At a later job, I closed the door and turned off the lights. I put my heavy winter coat on the floor and laid down on top of it, because I was feeling nauseous. I knew this wasn't normal. I didn't know what to do about it.
I was already getting treated for anxiety, something I'd failed to deal with in graduate school. All of my health problems made the anxiety worse. It was a problem, really a set of major problems, that few could help me deal with. The only people who seemed to offer wisdom were, and are, those in the disability community.
After that job ended, I started feeling a little better. I went to the dog park as usual and talked to my friend Mary, one of the best people I know. She told me that I looked significantly better, and that I should never work a day in my life again.
It was a relief to hear this. I don't want to work, and yet I do. I grew up a farm kid and labor was satisfying, even fun. I'm smart, and felt from a young age that I should use my intelligence to help make the world a better place: I would do scientific research. I would add my pebbles to the mountain of knowledge, to borrow a metaphor from the book Lab Girl.
Capitalism makes many demands of us. I had reached a point where the demands were too dear. I refused.
I'm poor now, but: "There is no shame in a simple life of poverty," Uncle Iroh assures Zuko in Avatar: the Last Airbender.
I don't know what the future will hold. It's hard to think about. But I'm sure that this is the best choice for me, even if I have to remind myself of that fact every day.
In my early 20s, I developed facial pain that no one could explain or treat. I got an MRI of my brain to check that it wasn't a tumor. I tried taking various anti-spasmodic drugs. I thought moving around might help, if only to distract me, so I left my desk job.
When I was in my late twenties I worked in a lab, at a job I didn't realize was a toxic environment. I went to a podiatrist to get orthotics, because my feet were hurting so bad that I would sit at home with ice packs on each foot. I developed a constant headache.
I eventually got a job I liked, working on a research study. I had to walk about a mile from my car to my desk. I started getting sicker. One day after I parked my car, I took a short nap right there in the driver's seat. Then I walked to the library, where I knew there was a sofa on the 3rd floor that I could nap on. I set a phone alarm and slept for half an hour. Then I walked the rest of the way to my desk.
At a later job, I closed the door and turned off the lights. I put my heavy winter coat on the floor and laid down on top of it, because I was feeling nauseous. I knew this wasn't normal. I didn't know what to do about it.
I was already getting treated for anxiety, something I'd failed to deal with in graduate school. All of my health problems made the anxiety worse. It was a problem, really a set of major problems, that few could help me deal with. The only people who seemed to offer wisdom were, and are, those in the disability community.
After that job ended, I started feeling a little better. I went to the dog park as usual and talked to my friend Mary, one of the best people I know. She told me that I looked significantly better, and that I should never work a day in my life again.
It was a relief to hear this. I don't want to work, and yet I do. I grew up a farm kid and labor was satisfying, even fun. I'm smart, and felt from a young age that I should use my intelligence to help make the world a better place: I would do scientific research. I would add my pebbles to the mountain of knowledge, to borrow a metaphor from the book Lab Girl.
Capitalism makes many demands of us. I had reached a point where the demands were too dear. I refused.
I'm poor now, but: "There is no shame in a simple life of poverty," Uncle Iroh assures Zuko in Avatar: the Last Airbender.
I don't know what the future will hold. It's hard to think about. But I'm sure that this is the best choice for me, even if I have to remind myself of that fact every day.
