As I grew up I would look at a disabled person, a handicapped person, crippled, as weird, ugly.
That was possibly the hardest thing I have ever written. It makes me cry to say that today but it is true. I don’t know why. I don’t think I was a bad kid.
I certainly was not the class bully. Just the opposite. I was a wimp.
I might have always been one of the tallest kids, but other kids saw me as a wimp. Worst of all, I knew they were right.
Perhaps when I would see someone disabled I saw a reflection of myself in them. I wasn’t whole and I was weird and I was ugly too.
I am not completely sure where that lack of self-confidence came from. How did I lose touch with my self-worth? I had two parents who loved me and cared for me. They gave me a great life and they afforded me the opportunity to achieve a pretty comfortable life for myself and my family as well.
A friend of mine, a psychologist, says “If you have had a parent or a teacher in your life, you are messed up.” It’s true. Parents teach us what they know, and what they know isn’t always perfect. It’s just life. I know that today. It has taken me a long time to realize that.
My parents were great. They loved me. The gave me a good life, but they had their problems too. And just like their good qualities gave me a wonderful life. It was their bad qualities that most like taught me not to love myself.
My brother and father had a great relationship. He was far more connected to him than he was to me. He didn’t love me less. We were just not as connected.
Is that it? Is that all he is guilty of? Did that really lead me to feel so unconfident my whole life?
If not him then who else? My mother? Mom? How could that possibly be the case? She loved me so much. She adored me. I knew that. I always knew that. There was never a doubt in the world. To be loved so completely and unconditionally is perhaps the most amazing thing a person can feel.
But I did cling to her? And she let me. She never pushed me to be strong, to be independent. Or did she? I honestly don’t know. How could anyone want a kid clinging on to you constantly? She must have.
So why the lack of confidence? What was so bad?
I know there is an answer to that question but sitting here today I really don’t know what it is. I hope to find it on this journey, as I write this book. I have learned a few things already but there is so much more to learn.
When I was young, and perhaps my entire life, one particular disability had the biggest impact on me. The blind. I think I was scared of blind.
I can not remember where this was or who the person was but I have a clear image of a man. Perhaps he was 60 years old. My age today. He was clearly blind. He eye sockets looked as if something traumatic had happened to them. I am not sure if his eyes were there but if they were you couldn’t see them. He didn’t wear sunglasses to hide his eyes.
I remember thinking, “What’s wrong with this guy? How can he not wear glasses? Dear God that is horrible.”
I was horrified. But today I know it really wasn’t his face. It was the thought of what that must be like. To go through life like that. For a kid with no self-confidence, no sense of his true worth as an individual, the thought was perhaps one of the worst things that I could imagine. It would have been a clear outward manifestation of just how weird I was. I could never survive that.
What is interesting, as I picture his face today, I don’t see it as being particularly sad. In fact, as I sit here and really focus, it is possible there was a slight smile on his face.
He likely had no idea I was looking at him and grimacing. Perhaps he knew that happened a lot, I am not completely naive, but likely he wasn’t aware it was happening at that moment.
There perhaps is a small blessing in losing your eyesight, in there somewhere. You cannot SEE the prejudice around you. I am sure you feel. You hear it. You know it’s there but you don’t see it. I wonder if that is true.
If I am lucky, I will find out. That’s how I try to approach things these days. It’s not easy. Every day, every hour somedays, a new challenge to living life presents itself to me.
