You’ve heard the stories: Man with Two Prosthetic Legs Climbs Mt. Everest, Schizophrenic Genius Teaches at Harvard, Autistic Woman Saves Beef Industry, Blind Man Sparks Scientific Revolution, WheelchairBound Man Wins World War, Woman With TBI and History of Slavery Creates Underground Railroad….the list goes on. I’m not making these up. People with disabilities have overcome their personal obstacles, achieved fantastic greatness, and made evolutionary contributions to society. People with disabilities have changed the fucking world.
And then there’s Superman. He was orphaned at a young age, never quite fit in to the human race, and had Kryptonitis – an episodic disabling condition! But he saved the fucking world, too. He worked full time, had the usual dysfunctional and stilted romantic relationship with a pretty girl, and flew, like through the air, on incredible missions to save the lives of common people. Truly, he was not DIS-abled, he was DIFFERENTLY-abled.
But then he fell off a horse and suffered a spinal injury becoming paraplegic. The world was crushed, but oh-so-ready to watch him fight the good fight, push himself to the limits of human capacity and then beyond, and overcome his disability and walk. Or, better yet, FLY. Everyone was cheering him on and everyone believed it could, would, HAD TO happen. America’s real life Superman – Christopher Reeve – just HAD TO make his way out of the wheelchair and prove that “disability” was a myth, that with the right amount of fortitude and hard work and heart and soul and blood/sweat/tears anyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps and fucking not only walk but fly through the air like a bird or an airplane. He tried. We all watched him and cheered him on. He never got out of his wheelchair and he used a breathing apparatus. Then he died, sans fluttering cape. Everyone was super disappointed. What a fucking failure.
What a fucking mean and crushing myth – that the only good disabled person is the one that pushes themselves beyond the normal capacity of humans to achieve a superhuman power be it x-ray vision or flying with a spinal cord injury. I’ve watched the movies – A Beautiful Mind, Temple Grandin, blah blah blah. I have to admit I cry at them. I read the books too. I WROTE a book about it. But it’s a myth. The myth part isn’t that people with disabilities can achieve great things, the myth is that people with disabilities SHOULD achieve great things. Everyone celebrates the poverty stricken Mexican who crawled across the desert and slept in the streets of America only to become the dashingly handsome TV star with oodles of money and a hidden disability mitigated by his faithful service dog. Everyone celebrates the woman with MS who fights her way to the summit of Mt. Everest. The message is clear: If you have a disability then you can overcome it and not only be more than a hum-drum mortal but a fucking inspiration to hum-drum mortals. Plus, it’s your duty to do so.
I have a secret I’m going to let you in on. People with disabilities generally don’t climb Mt. Everest. I bet most of us don’t even really want to. People with disabilities just want to do the best they can on any given day. I wonder if Christopher Reeve ever wished he could just sit in the fucking wheelchair and “be.” I wonder if ever he was proud that he made it through another day without killing himself. I wonder if he felt obligated to try to climb Mt. Everest. To be honest, I have no desire to climb Mt. Everest and I am not particularly smart and although I wish I could save the world I only have enough energy to get myself through the day, one day at a time. Sometimes I’m proud of myself for not killing myself. But then, the myth of the disabled superhero pops into my mind and I beat myself up because that’s such a stupid thing to be proud of. I beat myself up because I not only won’t ever climb Mt. Everest, I also won’t get my Ph.D, my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, or even a leadership position in my school. I’m a failure as a person with a disability because I won’t follow my dreams, won’t achieve my life-long goals, and actually have ended up losing ground in my career. I’m a failure as a person with a disability because I’ve settled for who I am. I’m a double failure because I’m lying about settling for who I am, I actually detest myself most of the time.
If you want to heap insult onto injury, you could say I’m not only not a disabled superhero, I’m the antithesis of a disabled superhero. Christopher Reeve, though he didn’t ever “succeed” in getting out of his wheelchair, is still reluctantly honored because he “lobbied on behalf of people with spinal cord injuries, and for human embryonic stem cell research afterward. He founded the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.” (Wikipedia) So a nice honorable mention goes to those persons with disabilities who at least become activists for their disabilities. Only I don’t. I’m afraid to. I hide my disability because I don’t want to cause waves at work. I want to keep my job, thank you, until I retire or such a time comes that I can no longer work. According to the myth of the disabled superhero, this is the worst possible offense. It’s a disservice to quietly exist among the hum-drums, sort of blending in but not really exceeding in any way, shape or form. It’s Clark Kent without the cape.
I’m sick of the myth of the disabled superhero. I am, from this time forward, going to not stand up for Dissociative Identity Disorder except for under a pseudonym, rather anonymously in blog form. If I have the energy and I feel like it, I’ll write another book and hope it magically sells because I sure as hell am not going to publicize it. I will continue to be a mediocre teacher in a small-ish town, not because I can’t be a great teacher but because I don’t want to personally invest in my career as I’d rather use my precious free time sleeping or hanging out with people I like. From this time forward I am not going to push myself so hard I fucking resent the rest of the world, rather I will do what I can with what I have in a reasonable effort at maintaining my sanity. Furthermore, should I start losing my sanity, I’ll take a nap. I will not sacrifice myself in a bold effort to not be a burden on my friends, family, and society. Oddly enough, that usually results in me being a burden on my friends, family and society. Rather, I’ll try to be as nice to myself as I am to others when I’m feeling well. When I’m not feeling well, well, I’ll take extra meds, nap, and lean on my friends, family and society. They genuinely seem to think I’m worth it, so what the hell.
Christopher Reeve died never getting out of his wheelchair. The myth of the disabled superhero would have us believe that’s a tragedy, only mildly mitigated by the service work he did for the future of all people with spinal cord injuries. Fuck the myth of the disabled superhero. Superman was a paraplegic. Period. He hoped and hurt and tried. I’m tempted to say he never gave up, but I bet there were plenty of days he gave up and SO FUCKING WHAT. I bet there were days he cried his eyes out in despair and frustration and just plain old sat in his wheelchair. And if that’s true, then that’s what made him human. And that’s exactly what he was, human. Anything else is a myth.
I’m going to nap.
