A Tale of Two Abilities

No one understands me, no one gets it, no one looks like me, no one will accept me, no one will love me, and the death of a thousand paper cuts hits with more ferocity with each minute of one’s life, with each new disabling experience.

I didn't get a cast, perhaps I wanted one though. A cast around one’s arm or leg symbolizes something; there is the meaning behind a cast. But, what can be said about recovery for someone who can show nothing for it?

The reason that living with a disability is tough is that it is living with the constant, most emblematic, symbolic case of life’s most notable truths, and that is we cannot succeed independently of the world we are living in. No one who has ever lived or ever will navigate to the upper echelons of achievement without relying on another.

My body only moved more slowly, and I carefully watched the decibel count in every classroom. All my teachers knew I had surgery the day before, but for the rest of the world, I “appeared” normal. I puffed up my chest and took an exuberant amount of ibuprofen to numb the pain. Who chooses to go to school the day after surgery? Unfortunately, me.

Some may call it needy, but I see it as using my resources. Some see it as being mouthy, a “leech” on the system, an outspoken critic that contributes nothing, but I see it that opening one’s mouth is the greatest strength of the human experience.

The anecdote I will provide for you is a host of symptoms, and you can write the proper prescription. It is a case for cases that I am trying to draw to make a broader point. Do not let its simplicity fool you. One of my earliest courses at the collegiate level was Native American Literature, we were learning about people who experienced systematic marginalization by the nation in which I am living.

` My first class of the day was by and far one of my favorites; however, this morning, I felt a knot in my stomach. Our teacher stood at the front of the room and announced, with a booming voice, we would be watching a video about the car industry in Germany. While I could hear the world like every note in a rapid glissando, my mind was blank like a textured white canvas. I could not process what my teacher was saying, nor recognize the inherent risk with a video about cars.

We were taking notes on the Marshall Trilogy and the Trail of Tears, and I was alone. At this point in my academic career, I did not have a caregiver with me. Now, I can write on my own, but that was the limit. I could not get out of my wheelchair, I had no capacity to reach into my backpack, and there was no one within an eyeshot or an earshot who knew me or my humanity.

The video began to play. I felt the volume first. Over the years, I learned to feel sound before the noise reached my ear as a preparation mechanism to be able to hear my surroundings or what people were going to say. The humming of a car engine slowly shook the room around me, then a blast - the race began.

It was in the climax of the course, where the professors lips were moving at a mile a minute, the graphite from my pencil was trimming to a sheer nothingness, the gears in my brain were spinning in the most rapid fashion, and out sprung the pencil from my hand it danced from the side of the desk to the floor.

My body ached without any work, merely the pressure of sound. In the video, the elegant cars circled the race track in a compact German city, while the worrying thoughts in my head circled the paranoia of pain in a small desk at the center of a room.

Class was not over. There were still notes to be taken, and I sat there motionlessly for a time that felt like an eternity. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I was yet again taken aback by a disabling experience.

My peers watched on, but they did not watch me. Their eyes were fixated on the video (perhaps with little amusement). My eyes, however, were painting a rainbow of emotion that passed too quickly for me to process. I admit now, after reflection, that my body told a different story than the narrative I attempted to create.

Society taught the room around me to not ask, nor pry, never assume someone needs help, that is presumptuous, that is being judgemental, that could be ignorant of someone’s disability and their comfort level. I had no choice but to ask, but before I could, the woman knew, and the pencil returned to my hand. Class was not over.

How could my peers know my pain? Or, was it pain? Was it the surgery recovery period that I felt or was it the experience of returning to space or school, surrounded by people who might not understand my disability? My once invisible disability took a visible toll on my body. Those around me most certainly knew something was up, or at least, the jig was up, where my spoken truth had to explain my “ailing” body.

This post was in collaboration with Vincent Pinti.

Vincent Pinti is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, where he is studying Political Science and Spanish Language. Vincent plans to attend law school in order to become a legal advocate for those living with disabilities.