Disabilities-R-Us

So now, what is there?
What is next?
What have these last years of more tests
of my so-called complex existence
Revealed to the brains on the thrones?
They try, yes I know this.
They try, but I am complex.
I am thrown out with the obscure unknown
The minority of those who refuse to fit into a label
That doesn’t quite fit at all.
Am I supposed to give up the prize?
Or do I get to be paraded around some more?
And be told that my symptoms do not make sense to
Anything that their book read knowledge can find
so therefore my symptoms cannot be.
I am making this up, I am faking it, I am
Living on the pittance offered to me
From a government that does not even see me.
But the problem with that is.
I am still here.
I am still here
Surviving.
I am still here
Adapting
I am still here
Continuing but not accepting
That there is nothing else,
That this is it.
That this cannot be fixed
I may not make sense to them
But. I am still here waiting.


Do I have a choice?

harley

Harley,
I like your poem.  Right to the point.  I feel the same way.  What gets me is a medical pro holding in their grubby little paws my CT scans and/or MRIs and telling me that because I am a Type A Personality it is me who is causing all of this pain and suffering.  In fact, I have been called a hypochondriac.  I WISH!  What next?  Choose to ignore the stupidity of others.  I once wrote an article comparing stupidity to ignorance; being that stupidity is a choice one makes and wants to keep (for their own warped reasons) and ignorance is not knowing but wanting to learn.  And we all know how much stupidity, and ignorance, can cause fear in others, and fear leads to hate. 

I so identify with your poem, and as much as I loathe the idea that we all think alike, I suspect that a number of people dealing with a disability would/will identify, too.

Only after some reflection, I've decided that I don't think ignorance should be defined as being without knowledge, since ignoring something is a willful act. But that's just me. Isolation causes me to ponder and reflect way too long, sometimes.

Case in point: I used to think that the worst thing about my disability was my disability. Then, I discovered that, for me, the worst thing was learning that most of the people in my life have forgotten me. Only recently have I discovered that that isn't the worst thing, either; the worst thing is, that it's generally accepted as okay that people have forgotten me.

I'm not denying my blessings; there are so many people who have things worse than me. But I'm thankful to have this board where I remember that there are people who understand, even if only a little.