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Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 05:47 pm
Me: My feet hurt.
Somebody Else: It might go away. Any day now it could vanish just the way it came.

That still makes me angry, but y'know what? I can also see the flip side to it, a little bit.

Yes, it would still be mindbogglingly stupid for me to plan my life around the hope that my feet will suddenly heal. Therein lies a recipe for putting myself "on hold" until my grave, waiting until I win the (medical) lottery instead of living now.

Yes, it's still mindbogglingly insensitive of Somebody Else to pretend that this is a temporary problem and thus hugely, quantitatively and qualitatively, easier to deal with than what I am actually facing.

Yes, I still feel like I'm not heard.

Yes, I still feel like I'm being called a liar, and yes, I still hate being called a liar.

But y'know what? Somebody Else might really kinda need their illusions. Denial can be a gift. I can choose to give the gift of not trying to burst their bubble.

The day will come when I'm sufficiently less angry that I can give that gift.
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 09:29 pm (UTC)
Yeah, I guess with pain I see myself as having a choice: pain OR don't use the feet. The guy in "Murderball" (and, I suspect, many if not most wheelchair users) don't have that choice because they simply CANNOT use the feet/legs/whatever.

It is possible, though so far the neurologist seems to think it unlikely, that lots of use of my feet could cause my condition to get worse. I don't really have deterioration to worry about as a consequence of doing what I want.

So yeah, it does seem different to me. I wonder if I'm unconsciously parroting a cultural attitude toward physical pain -- that it "doesn't count" somehow and should be something we can work through. I suppose all the Mighty Manly Action Heroes (some of them female these days) in movies and such certainly tell us that.

Me, when I hurt, I turn into a jerk. Serious asshole territory here. At the very least I'd need to revamp my emotional landscape to the point that I didn't react that way, 'cause no way do I want that to be my life.

And then I start to feel like a bit of a wimp 'cause there are people with chronic unrelenting pain who cannot simply "quit doing whatever" to make the pain decrease. I have it so easy in a lot of ways.