I am told I am “sick,” that I am “disabled,” that I am “abnormal” and that a cure is being searched for for my “condition” and others who suffer from it.
So I ponder and back I trace to when I could have contracted this illness; I consider how it has affected my life, how it will affect my life, what my future means.
And I ponder my illness….
I “lack” communication skills;
I “lack” social skills;
I “lack” empathy;
I have just a few interests that receive my devotion;
I can be clumsy sometimes, unaware of the strength I apply.
And then I ponder:
How and to whom do I “lack” communication skills?
In my eyes those “well” people around me are loud, obnoxious, over-demonstrative and flighty, applying massive emotional and mental importance to transient or small impact events.
How and to whom do I “lack” empathy?
I have always “felt” but only after I have “processed” with my mind, and in feeling, I’ve learned not to feel too much and not to show it; everyone knows what happens if you cry in school and aren’t a girl.
I can do the needed things that make others, who think only after first feeling, uncomfortable.
I have pretended to cry from grief when those around me are, because I have learned that my knowledge that the dead are missed but only for ourselves is not welcome in the beginnings of grief; I’ve yet to met someone whose cry of grief is truly just for the deceased’s loss of life rather than their own loss of the dead.
How and to who is it “wrong”/”unwell” that my interests are so few but my devotion to them is so total?
How like the hummingbird do most flit from interest to interest; how varied their desire for its fulfillment. This confuses me; isn’t it better to “work” at one thing till its complete perfection than to pick up and then drop something half done or less? Maybe one day I’ll find an answer.
How and to whom do I “lack” social skills?
Won’t someone please explain to me how it is you must be looking at someone to hear them; do the eyes control the ears? How it is you must answer every question, even when its answer is obvious from just a moment’s observation? How is it that All must attribute like importance to the same subjects and therefore discuss them at length? And why, oh, why must so much time be spent expansively communicating, when just the simplest answer or the answer of Silence is often enough? Is your ego so vast that it’s incomprehensible that my Silence on your subject is not from lack of capability but just lack of interest?
Why am I sick, to whom am I sick and what of this cure?
I’m “sick” because the cultural environment I am in is not something I have natural tolerance or compatibility for … maybe humans are all “sick” because they cannot tolerate nor are they compatible with the environment of a carbon monoxide atmosphere?
I’m “sick” because the dominant homo sapiens neurotype finds the society and social methods they evolved and built “compatible,” but I do not.
I’m “sick” because those who have been given the authority to determine this do so from the basis of their own cognitive ability and social-ethical consciousness or that of their predecessors.
And what of my cure?
Am I so terribly wrong? So vastly ill that perhaps I’ll suffer for the rest of my life with difficulties?
Do I know someone whose life is carefree and easy? No, but then others’ problems aren’t always like mine; mine can be Different, is that why I am sick?
What of who I am? Will “I” remain after being “cured”? Doesn’t this difference in my mind, compared to the “majority’s” way, form—as it does for all—the foundation of my Self? What will happen to me when this foundation is altered, when emotion becomes primary and logic secondary, will “I” truly still exist? Or will I be a little more “someone else,” some more “acceptable” to, “compatible” with the dominant homo sapiens society and culture?
I am scared.
But I am Not in fact sick,
I am the from birth wheelchair-bound person in a world that it is not yet “Right” for people and facilities to have equality, awareness and accessibility procedures.
I am the aboriginal meeting Englishmen for the first time in history.
I am the first ever immigrant to the UK.
Thank you; you’ve helped me know Who I am.
And now I must ask of those who say I am sick, that I and children should be “cured” even if that alters who we are by unnatural means, I must ask of you who Demand subversively and unaware of your demanding my conformity to your ideals, your social methods, lifestyle, culture and society . . .
. . . Who Are You?
— Kia Williams
I Am —— . . . Who Are You? First appeared at WrongPlanet and is reposted here by permission of the author.
Guest on 03/24/10 in featured, Society | No Comments | Read More
