This article written by Jenn Vesperman. Used with permission.
I'm sitting in the bath, which is the one place which causes the pain to fade for a time. I think about what parts of the body I'd trade to be well. Would I lose a leg? An arm? The sight of my right eye?
And I think again how I envy Stephen Hawking. His body is failing him, but he still has his mind.
Or disabled athletes.
I know pain. I know that the pain from a back injury affects everything, or the despair and confusion of a psychiatric illness affects everything...
But I have physical pain, physical limitations, damaged systemic functions in every system, and brainfuzz, and emotional 'lability', and ... it's everything.
My mother once told me that 'at least you don't have to worry that you might kill your own child'. Um. Mum? One of the reasons I refuse to have children is the emotional lability. I could. I'd get tireder, and tireder, and less and less able to control the mood swings. And one day I'd snap out of a mood swing and ... well. I get suicidal anyway. Imagine how you'd feel when Dancer called to say we were both dead.
I can't think straight. I want to think straight. I want to be able to do something. Anything. Give me a physical illness, but leave my mind clear. Give me a mental illness, but leave my body clear.
Let me be like Stephen Hawking. Let me be like a disabled athlete.
Give me something I can do.
Please.
