Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Wounded Invisibility

Invisible disability feels like able bodied people looking at you as if your productivity and consistency should compare

Invisible disability is others recognizing your difference and choosing more able people so it doesn’t effect them

Invisible disability is feeling unsafe participating in your own public perception; being unsure whether you are creating your reality or observing it

Invisible disability is being disheartened by your attempts to be accountable for having the life you want to live because when you try to speak or leave your house or make a friend your throat fills with anxieties instead

Invisible disability is trying to connect with your profiles on the internet in a tender call for solidarity but being too gripped by some mysterious force to make time for those who actually show interest

It’s squandering opportunities for friendship because
you can’t commit,
you can’t follow through,
you can’t ask,
you can’t pay attention,
you can't move,

Invisible disability is leaving your body when someone else is touching you
because you don't know how to express what you need or what you want

Invisible disability is not being able to justify that you are not well

You know that others can see the ways in which you do not succeed
because you feel the absence of their respect
You know people judge you, because they treat you different
You see people excel in their careers and feel comfortable in their body and execute their abilities
And, you wonder;
Why not me?
Why is so much of my time spent in recovery?

Why haven’t I recorded a song?
Why haven’t I mowed the lawn?
Why haven’t I found a good job?
And all of those meetings
Why haven’t I gone?
Why haven’t I returned the form that would allow me to see somebody
and maybe be more self sufficient
maybe be more independent

Is there a pill that will make it easier to speak?
Is there a pill that will show me what’s real and what’s anxiety?
And then, help me pretend the truth doesn’t effect me?
Is there a pill that won’t erase the good parts of me?
Is there a life where I look like something good
when others compare themselves to me?

Or does healing look more like repairing
my wounded invisibility
Accepting, I am more capable
when I'm solitary
Letting myself be alone, be invisible
and not feeling lonely


Not trying to qualify
Not feeling bad that I can’t qualify


my disability

1 comment:

  1. I have felt many of the things you list here, but all I can offer is that you keep on trying. It's the only thing that will help. I can offer that there is an open stage tomorrow night at the Ginkgo Coffeehouse in St. Paul, Minnehaha & Snelling, a couple of blosck south of the Hamline campus. Signup starts at 6:30.

    ReplyDelete