When I recently injured my thumb, I did not think of it in the same way as I think of my permanent disabilities, or my chronic impairments, or even my fixable-with-enough-time-and-physio/medical-treatment issues. It was an injury, something that would heal (as long as RSD didn’t set in – which has not happened, so I think I’m pretty much in the clear on the count. Once you get RSD, you fear every injury, especially to an extremity, will lead to RSD. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.)

A temporary injury is something that happens to you – it’s not YOU. It’s like hair dye. Someone can compliment you on your gorgeous red hair, but if it comes from a bottle they’re only complimenting you on your excellent hair colouring skills (or those of your stylist.) It has nothing to do with your natural state. A temporary injury is going to heal. Your dye job is going to grow out. And you’ll be the same person you always were.

Something being permanent does NOT magically make it easier to cope with. If you can’t use your left index finger, you can’t use your left index finger. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been unusable, or how long it’s going to remain unusable. You can learn to cope and train yourself to be faster or more nimble with the other fingers, but that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t use your left index finger. It’s just as irritating. Just as frustrating.

But more so, because a permanent disability is permanent. That’s what makes it a disability and not an injury. When you know something is not going to heal, then you have to live with the knowledge that it’s never going to get any better. It is YOU. As in “YOU have a left index finger that does not work” is a statement that will apply to you forever and ever. I’d say that gives a significant advantage to the temporary-injured side of the equation.

She could not, for the life of her, understand why it was offensive to have people prying into my medical history and suggesting all kinds of useless ‘help’.

*sigh* She told me I had a bad attitude, because I should be glad that I wasn’t being ignored, which is what her coworker who uses a ‘chair complains about.

…because, you know, BOTH of those can’t be problematic.

~Kali
http://www.brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com

While I almost certainly would not ask a stranger what happened, if I did and got your response “I was being attacked by a vampire but I managed to deflect him so he bit my cheek instead of my neck” I would probably think you were awesome and want to be friends. So maybe not quite the “go away” effect you are going for

And that certainly sucks. Hell hath no fury like a cat scorned.

I hate that I’m so polite to people who are not returning the same kind of behavior. I hate that my socialization as a female makes my first reaction come out like some weird twist between deference and self-deprecating humor. I wish I could say a “fuck off” type response but I can’t seem to get the guts to do so when I’m in the moment. Even worse, when I talked to my friends about the pain and annoyance from being on public display and feeling like a tabloid story, they tell me to “be kind” because people are “just concerned” and “want to help”.

*stews in silent anger*

How do you all get the guts to tell people to leave you alone?

Disabled people – visibly disabled people – are not independent adults. They are children, they need our help. Also, they may not even know (because everyone in a wheel chair is MR or locked inside their brain by some other disorder) *whispers* that they’re disabled. So if you ask nosy questions, they’ll realize and get off the street and stop freaking out the normal people. (Man, having an “invisible” disability is awesome! I’m treated like an adult, people expect things of me… okay, I want them to be visible. If I could invent something, it would be a device that makes invisible disabilities visible somehow, so I can be treated like a child! No, so I can stop with the damaging self-doubt.)

Abby Jean – ouch! I hope you get some kick-ass scars, and go yeah, went one-on-one with a mountain lion. He lost. *cool pose* (I’m sorry, I still have that mentality from childhood that goes, “Wanna see what happened when I fell off my bike? Blerd everywhere!” “Ooh, cool!”)

Having an injury is a taste. Paired with the reality that this has been my experience for many years, and will be my experience for the rest of my life adds again a whole other layer.

And the thing is, at that time I was actually in the middle of a fairly massive mental breakdown. I was in fact sick, desperately sick, desperately in need of sympathy and advice and most of all help, and not getting any of that. It really forefronted for me the massive dissonance in the societally conditioned response to visible and invisible illness/injury.

I noticed that when I started using my cane that suddenly people wanted to know all about why. Why was I using it, how was I feeling, why didn’t I have it today? It is overwhelming, and it takes a little bit to get used to deflecting. I had a high school teacher once who hurt his thumb and when we would ask him he told us it was from a sword fight.