In my past two articles, I discussed certain aspects of living a life with disabilities. In my first article, I discussed my chronic fatigue and how it affects my relationship with my peers. The second article discussed peoples’ reactions to my disabilities, and how these reactions are potentially harmful. The process I went through in accepting these points of view, however, was long and grueling. For the majority of my life, I was determined to be the “norm,” if not better than. I was determined to succeed in my academics, do all the activities that “normal” kids did, and more. I always knew that my experience in life was different from my peers, but I was adamant in having others perceive my life as the same.
The summer before I entered high school, I had back surgery to fix my scoliosis. I was asymptomatic before the surgery — despite the three curves in my back with two being over 50 degrees, I had no pain or symptoms, and my back looked completely straight. After surgery, my life was completely flipped upside down. Despite already being chronically ill with my juvenile arthritis, the surgery added a whole new level to my disabilities; I could barely walk, or move. After my surgery, my blood count was so low that I couldn't walk down the street without being unable to breathe. I could not get enough of Valium or Percocet. I entered high school, in all honors classes. Needless to say, my grades quickly declined.
My sudden inability to do well in school crushed me. I felt as though I had nothing left. Going to school every day became increasingly difficult, so I ended up missing a lot of it. Then it became the catch-up game, trying to stay on track with my course load. Unfortunately, that game lasted for a while. My chronic back pain lasted and continued for years. It wasn’t until three years later during my junior year of high school that we realized why: the hardware in my back broke. Until then, I just had to deal with an inexplicable excruciating pain every day, waiting for the day that I would recover.
During sophomore year, my mother sat me down after I had come home after school to have a good cry for possibly the 13 days in a row.
“You know you have other options,” she said.
At first I didn’t understand this. Then she continued: “You could drop out.”
These words stung at first. To me, dropping out of high school meant that I failed. Failed my quest to be normal. Failed to prove my abilities. But then, thinking further, I realized…maybe I simply did not have the ability to do high school. Maybe it’s a system that was set up to allow people like me to fail. Maybe there was a better way.
The thought of dropping out made me question everything about myself. It made me question everything I had experienced up to that point. I started testing the waters with other people, adults and peers, casually bringing up dropping out of high school. Many of them reacted in complete disgust, which only furthered my anxieties about doing so.
Eventually, after a few weeks I had come to the decision to do it. I decided I would drop out. It was a matter of recognizing my own limitations, which is something that I had rarely done before. I immediately felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders. And quite honestly, everything fell into place with this decision. My grandfather, who worked for the school, told me of a dual enrollment program for at-risk kids. I did my senior year of high school at a community college, got all my Gen Eds done for school, and got my high school diploma!
That time in my life changed my life forever. Though, it’s not the decision that changed me. It was the decision process. It was recognizing what had to be done for my own good. I try to apply this decision-making the process to other aspects of my life, like when I decided to go to school part time one semester to focus on my health. Or when I had to accept the B instead of the A because putting in the energy for the A would have knocked the wind out of me for weeks.
I try to instill this idea of self-preservation into others as well, as I find that it is essential to one’s well-being. One of my good friends, Val, recently messaged me thanking me for helping her realize the need for recognizing her own limitations and the importance of self-preservation. It made me really emotional to hear that from somebody; I know how this particular revelation changed my life, and to facilitate that in somebody else is the most that I could ever hope for.
It is truly an ongoing battle. But it can be won.
