Maybe I don’t mind these walls

22nd Aug 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve always considered myself as one of those people who, as the saying goes, wears their heart on their sleeve. But after hearing people give me their opinions on how I present myself – be they colleagues, friends, or potential romantic partners – it’d appear that I’m full of sh*t. This entire time I’ve been sitting here thinking I’m constantly giving away too much of myself, only to be told by one of my oldest and closest friends that I’ve always struggled to be vulnerable. So what am I understanding vulnerability to mean then? Because clearly there’s a disconnect going on somewhere.

The aspect of my life that people have always expected to be incredibly sensitive for me, is my physical disability. Only, I don’t think that I’ve ever struggled to tell whoever’s asked whatever it was they wanted to know; yes, there have been times when I’ve tired of having to say the same thing multiple times in a day, but the ‘I’ve got Spina Bifida, I was born with it, it’s a disability of the spine’ speech doesn’t really tap into my emotions. The aspects of it that are difficult to talk about are more to do with my desire to feel that it, and therefore I, am understood by someone other than my parents. And the anxiety that this might not ever happen.

On the other hand, when I’ve sat with myself and thought about the most vulnerable parts of me, what jumps out is the devotion I give to the people in my life who are most important to me. I might not be the one who sits in the cinema crying at the bit you should definitely cry at, but I am the one to feel physically sick if I think that I’ve accidentally upset someone I love. It’s silly really, but I go into a blind panic; my stomach goes into my throat, my hands will start to shake, and this will all happen regardless of whether I believe that what I did was actually wrong.

Then there’s the other side to the vulnerability of a person which isn’t necessarily related to negative feelings. With new social circles, I do hold back the part of myself that’s gentle and silly and playful because ever since I went to university, I’ve felt a little apprehensive about acting the way I always would around my school friends or my brothers because I don’t want my actions to be misinterpreted or judged.

Honestly, I think I hold back these parts of my personality when I’m first getting to know people because I’m just trying to read the room I’m in before I do anything to expose myself. When I was younger I’d go into social situations without any barriers up, but when you grow up you begin to learn that by doing that, sometimes it leaves room for hurt. Here, I’m not talking about something as drastic as bullying or abuse, I mean you might do something as simple as make the wrong joke around the wrong people because you assumed that they’d have the same sense of humour as everyone you grew up around, then find yourself branded as overly sarcastic or negative, when you were only trying to make everyone laugh. Or you might give your time, energy, and advice to someone who then gives you nothing in return, leaving you feeling deflated and cast aside.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s natural, or particularly helpful to show these possibly more vulnerable parts of your personality to others so soon after meeting, because you haven’t given yourself time to work anyone out yet. However, I do accept that by struggling to fully let go – especially around potential romantic partners – I sometimes show people what I think they want me to be in a given moment, rather than what I actually am. But then, who doesn’t? Especially at this age.

In all the conversations I have about my blog, my disability, and my life, the main thing I try to get across is that I know I don’t do everything perfectly – including accepting myself. However, as much as I’m a total perfectionist, I know that I’m never going to be without faults when it comes to self-love, so all I’m actively trying to do is my best. Therefore, unfortunately, I won’t always be comfortable in my own skin, accepting and loving of my disability, or as silly as I am with my brothers. But! These multiple layers of vulnerability are what makes people so interesting, and you’ve just got to be invested enough in a person to wait for the different parts to show.

Because, as a great philosopher once said: ‘Ogres are a lot like onions’.

For one night only

15th Aug 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m a single woman. We all know this. If you read enough of my blogs then you also know that I’d probably rather not be this: I’ve no issue with being on my own, nor do I feel lacking in any value because of not being in a relationship, but forever being the third wheel or the raconteur of a tedious story has gotten old for me now. So, with this in mind, allow me to take up the next few minutes of your day by being a raconteur of another I’m-a-single-woman-get-me-out-of-here story.

A few weeks ago, I was out with a friend and we did what we always do when we go out together: we got silly. During the getting ready part of the process, we’d decided that that night was going to be one of those where we dressed unnecessarily spicy, drank cocktails and basically did a tour of all the bars in the area. Inevitably, this ended with her gushing to every gal in the toilet about her lovely boyfriend, and me flirting with someone in the smoking area, both of us with arms covered in stamps from the various clubs we’d marched into.

I’m not someone who gets with someone every single time I go out – and I’m defining ‘gets with’ here as meaning either kissing or sleeping with someone, or anything in between – because a lot of the time that’s not on my mind, or there’s nobody there that I’m attracted to. Nonetheless, I’ve still had my fair share of one-night stands. And to be honest, some of the mornings after have included shaming myself for sleeping with someone I met in a club because the patriarchy has a tendency to both, directly and indirectly, label me as a slut for doing so. I’m glad to say that I’ve since grown out of this, as it soon became clear that the dating scene really isn’t providing the goods and my libido still requires as much respect and attention as the men around me are allowed to give their own.

However, there’s really nothing worse than ending a fun night out in bed with a stranger and disappointing sex. Going home with someone you just met is obviously always a bit of a gamble anyway when it comes to having enjoyable sex, but my friends and I have been mentioning a recurring theme that requires some immediate attention.

The stereotype tends to be that men enjoy sex more than women, that women need an emotional connection with the person they’re sleeping with to enjoy it at all, and that generally, women are far more likely to become emotionally attached to a man after sleeping with him. All bullshit. Not specific to any gender, not true; all dangerous assumptions that contribute to it feeling acceptable for women to leave sexual experiences disappointed with the men sitting pretty because they got what they wanted.

I’m a huge believer in the possibility of sex being fun regardless of the emotional connection between the people having it. Obviously, if you’re in love then sleeping together is undoubtedly going to mean more, you’ll know each other’s bodies better, etc, etc. But that doesn’t then also mean that a one-night stand is always going to be terrible; it just depends on how you’re approaching it. For example, you meet in the smoking area of a bar, and you have a very mutual flirt where both of you are putting equal amounts of effort in. You get along – possibly superficially at this point because you think he’s hot, but it still counts – and you enjoy the chat so much you think yes, let’s continue this somewhere else. The whole time this has been a mutual interaction. So why then when my friends and I tell each other these stories, are we each so excited about times when lads have continued this mutual display of effort into the actual sex?

The level of energy you’ll see in a woman’s face when she says she actually enjoyed the one-night stand isn’t really one I can describe, but if you’ve seen it, then you’ll know that there’s pretty much always an air of surprise accompanying it.

The fact is, sex is only ever going to be fun if we’re both involved – or if everyone is involved, I’m not going to make assumptions about what you’re into here. Putting effort into it doesn’t equate to emotional attachment, it just means you’re showing the person you’ve gone home with the respect that they deserve. After all, they’re not there just to service your needs and if you’re not going to give them the correct energy, then they could’ve gone home and had a more fulfilling time with themself.

Where I’m at now, I’m not interested in one-night stands. Odds are it’d be a let-down, so I’d rather dance with the girls, maybe kiss a stranger if his moves are good enough, then wake up in the middle of my own bed. No shame if casual sex is your bag at the minute, just make sure the person(/people) you’re with is giving as much as they’re taking. It’ll be more fun that way.

Hot (and slightly insecure) girl summer

8th Aug 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 3 Comments

I do my best to love my body for what it is – ‘flaws’ and all – as everyone should. But unfortunately, in my humanity, I have plenty of times when I’d prefer certain parts of myself to look a little different. For example, ever since my videos have taken to gaining thousands of views in a matter of hours, I’ve all of a sudden become slightly self-conscious of my teeth. Which is new.

If I’ve mentioned this and my newfound decision to get them straightened as soon as I can to my friends, then everyone immediately says there’s nothing wrong with my teeth – some even panic a little at the idea that I might lose my fangs through any sort of correction. Clearly, to others, what I’m judging as imperfect, is a part of myself that they see as showing who I am and it irks them that I might want to get rid of it. (Although, realistically there’s no need to panic because nobody is ripping out the fangs: long live.)

Last week I came back from spending some time with my parents, who now live in Rio de Janeiro – I’m aware that that’s a bit of a silly sentence but allow it – and whilst they were both at work, I went to sit on the beach every day. Sitting on a public beach is a genuinely fascinating experience. It’s truly one of the only places and situations where everyone puts themselves in a vulnerable position by wearing so little clothing that if they’ve got any insecurities about their bodies, then there are very few ways to hide them from view. For a few hours a day, everybody just gives in; they might be stressing about how they look in their heads, but nobody else can hear that internal monologue of insecurity. It’s lovely.

To keep things frank – as I try to do – I love wearing a bikini. Generally, I love the way I look even though there are many aspects of me that don’t match that ideal body type for a woman – given that that’s a totally fictional concept anyway. This being said however, I do try to hide taking my callipers on or off. And some days I had to psyche myself up to walk down to the sea, because I knew some people might spot my feet curve as I walked without the support of my shoes on uneven ground. Plus, I was on my own so didn’t have that comfort blanket of being next to someone who you know loves and accepts you. As a result, there was one day I actually sat for 30 minutes motivating myself to just stand up and walk 10 feet toward the sea.

What’s funny, is when I was encouraging myself to do this, I just kept thinking the words ‘nobody cares Betty, nobody is watching. But if they are, they’re as likely to be looking at your arse as they are your feet.’. I might not love what the lump just above my bum looks like, but I’m not ashamed or shy to say that the bum itself is great. So as I felt the insecurity start to flood into me, I (in a way) bullied confidence back into myself. It might not be the ‘healthy’ way to do it, but I made it into the sea.

I’m in a weird moment with my body right now. Some days I love her, other days I’m not so sure because I’m getting older and she’s changing, so there are new curves and lines to get used to. She gets her foot randomly infected at times, her legs don’t walk so straight, and she seems to have a tendency towards developing bruises or strains in areas that make very little sense, but to give her credit, she heals. And I’ve not fully worked out how to look after her properly yet. I like her though – I do mean that.

This metaphorical road to unconditional self-acceptance we’re all told we should tread, from what I’ve seen, is a pretty lifelong and tumultuous endeavour. No matter your confidence levels on one day or as shown on your social media, every single person on this planet will have minutes, hours, days, or weeks where they struggle to love what’s looking back at them in the mirror. Especially in clothing shop changing rooms because good god the lighting in there does NOTHING for anyone. Still, if I’ve learned anything from the motivational speeches given to me by the drunken middle-aged Yorkshire women in the smoking area of pubs and bars, criticizing every aspect of your physical image is a waste of time, and when you get older you’ll be wishing that the kids don’t do as much of it as you did at their age.

Patriarchal pressures and judgments of female (and male) bodies are very real and very piercing, but we can make the decision to shut ourselves up every now and then to ease the headache. And do NOT, EVER, comment on someone’s body whilst they’re on the beach because that should be a safe space where everyone’s physical, and therefore emotional, vulnerability is respected.

Well now I feel guilty

24th Jul 202325th Jul 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The other week I posted a video on TikTok which has since received over a million views, tens of thousands of likes, and hundreds of comments – not all of them kind. In the video, I described a very wholesome encounter I’d had with a train conductor where when I’d asked him for help with finding a seat (because a spontaneous reduction of carriages on the train had made all seat reservations disappear), he’d not only sorted me out, but he did it in a way which included asking if I was comfortable with every action he took. For example, before he announced to everyone that I was disabled so please could somebody give me their seat, he asked if I was okay with him doing that first. Every part of me screamed ‘no no no no no, I hate you telling these strangers that I’m disabled’, but I needed to sit down, so I bit the inside of my cheek and I said ‘sure, that’s fine, thank you’.

A couple of the comments on this video were questioning how it makes sense for me to say that I hate bringing my disability up to strangers when I talk about it so openly on my social media and within this blog. At first glance, it might look like they’re giving me a tasty bit of hate on a random Tuesday afternoon – and that may well have been the intention – however, I do think they pose a fair question.

My relationship with my disability is complicated: it has always been complicated, and it will probably continue to be that way. I’ve told you before about how I struggle with the notion of being proud of my disability, but also how I’ve no problem with answering a stranger’s questions as long as they’ve said it in a way that doesn’t include the phrase ‘what’s wrong with you?’. I know what I am and I know that that includes Spina Bifida, and yet, I will rarely (if ever) ask a person to stand up on a bus or a train to let me sit down. I’d rather sit on the floor, or just ignore the soreness spreading in my knees as I stand. And I’ll rarely ever use the disabled toilet because I don’t see myself as requiring it. Even though sometimes that queue in a nightclub has me standing for far longer than I should.

This being said, I am learning to change my behaviour by trying to accept that there’s nothing wrong with me asking for help if I need it. Even writing that sentence, I know that people will jump straight to outrage that I even consider it a big deal at all, but I can’t explain to you how much I’ve been conditioned by the world as a young disabled woman to shut up and get on with things: to not complain, to not ask for help on the off chance that that request will leave me being dependent on others.

I’ve seen eyes roll when I’ve gently moved to the subject of changing a plan to help my feet; I’ve seen people close to me at the time try to find any excuse to do things the way they normally would had I not been there, and those moments have hurt. A trope associated with the life of a disabled person is that their medical issues cause those around them to change everything to cater to their needs; everyone close becomes a carer and the person with the disability, a burden. It’s an untrue, unfair, and immensely damaging idea that I have vehemently fought against as long as I can remember, but this has led me to feel tangible guilt for asking people to help me out on occasion.

So I can write blogs like this one and make silly videos where I talk about my Spina Bifida because your engagement with them is entirely up to you. But if I have to look someone in the eye – and they’re not my family or my closest friends – and ask them to walk slower, tell me the walking distances from this place to the next, or to please give me their seat, I feel the tears start to come and the embarrassment fills me. I know I need it to take care of myself, but I don’t want to ask you to do anything you wouldn’t normally do. It doesn’t feel fair. I don’t want it to seem like I can’t take care of myself, I don’t want you to think less of me, and I don’t want to make you feel guilted into doing something you don’t want to do. However, as another commenter said (beautifully, I’d like to add): ‘that’s not charity, that’s society’.

Away from my emotional reactions, I know that my guilt isn’t warranted, given that I don’t tend to be asking for much in these situations. So, I can’t promise you that I’ll never feel the guilt – I think part of me is just built that way – but I do try to not let it stop me from asking for help quite so often.

What’s the rush?

18th Jul 202318th Jul 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I don’t know what it was, but it seemed like everyone around me was just having a sh*t time of it. The sun had started to come out and we were all looking to plans of traveling, but in those lucid moments in between work days and going to sleep, so many of my friends were telling me that they felt completely lost.

For me, I was struggling with feeling really lonely romantically: I’d seen two of my closest friends starting to develop feelings for lads, causing me to look at where I was with that kind of thing, only to see a tumbleweed go across my phone screen. And as I’ve explained before, when I’m feeling lonely I do tend to feel it quite strongly; listening to sad songs whilst I drive from one job to the next. But then, I’ve also not grown up being allowed to wallow for too long – this does sometimes mean I’m not great at allowing myself to sit in my sadness, which isn’t always healthy, but then it also leads me to find solutions – so I decided that if I was going to feel lonely because I’m not texting anyone, then I should probably reply to somebody on Hinge…Since, you know, you’ve kind of got to talk to someone to have someone talk to you.

Then I dated a fit man for a month, so go figure. Obviously, given that I’m still single, it didn’t end in the preferred way but hey, everything’s a learning curve.

My friends and I weren’t just feeling like sh*t because the dating scene is a mess though. It seemed like all of us were re-evaluating every aspect of our lives – especially our careers – and each of us was just totally overwhelmed by the amount we felt we had to do and the fear that we weren’t where we were ‘supposed’ to be. Even though, this notion of ‘supposed’ never makes much sense if you deep it anyway, because who’s this big eye in the sky deciding what position my life should’ve reached by June 2023? And why’s it so bothered?

There is no correct way to do life, and not one of us will have the same life or career trajectory as the other, but we’re putting so much pressure on ourselves to reach a version of success that we couldn’t even describe if somebody asked us. This goes back to those booklets we had to fill out at school though, where we decided where we’d be at every age until we retired. Except, those booklets always failed to include the idea that that’s not how life works – for example, I don’t remember seeing ‘global pandemic’ in bold across 2019-2021 – or the fact that there’s actually no need for you to decide everything all at once. Therefore, I’m trying my best to remind myself of this every time I feel like I’m drowning in to-do lists and self-criticism.

I asked my housemate what she does when she’s in a rut and she said that she calls her parents. I do the same. So I’d like to take a moment to say that just because you’re an independent adult in most aspects of your life, if you feel like you need your Mum or Dad, then your age doesn’t matter. Sometimes their advice, or the act of having a conversation with them, is what you need. It doesn’t mean that you can’t function at all as an adult. That being said, if you still don’t know how to do your own laundry or how to cook a meal…then you should probably give that some immediate attention…just saying.

When I feel naff, I try to make time for the things I know will make me happy, like going to see some live music with a friend, or sitting next to a river in the middle of nowhere for an hour to read a book, or sparking a silly conversation on the family group chat. Anything to give me the dopamine boost I need to regroup and work the bigger things out in a calmer mindset. So, without meaning to sound like a guru here, if you’re feeling like how I described my own mindset last month as you read this, then try to think of what might get you back on track.

Because sometimes it feels like we’re all rushing around, and there’s no need to be so frantic.

Too much what?

7th Jul 202311th Jul 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

I didn’t realise I was so awful to be around. Didn’t know that it was such a chore to speak to me. Well, if I’m so annoying and intense, then just tell me that, nobody forced him to spend time with me.

Unfortunately, these are all things I’ve said to my friends in the last few months because I felt stung by tedious ends to the few romantic situations I had been bothered to give my time to. And I’ve wondered recently whether I should be so frank on this blog about what’s going on in my life, for fear that it might turn future partners off, but then I recalibrate and I think, well I’ve tried numerous methods when it’s come to my approach with lads and it doesn’t seem to matter how cool I play it: if they’re going to do something annoying, then that’s inevitable.

Plus, most situations blur so much into one – whether they be relating to me or my friends – that it’d be difficult to tell who I’m talking about anyway. Dating at the minute feels so lame that I don’t need to be explicit with details to make it relatable.

I’ve been told by multiple lads, in different ways, that I’m too much. Some have literally said those words to me, whilst others have hinted but no matter the method, I heard them loud and clear. It hurt me for a while, I won’t lie, and I tried to hold myself back in situations by talking less or giving less of my personality to the moment for fear that my confidence, outspokenness, or lack of insecurity in showing my interest in a person might come off as ‘too much’. I’ve spent hours talking to my friends, stressing about whether I look crazy, simply because I want to see the guy I’m dating or I want to ask him what’s going on. After all, god forbid a woman be put under the ‘crazy’ umbrella.

When I wonder if I’m crazy, often all I’m doing is texting the person I’m interested in to ask to do something or to try to make them laugh. I’ve got no anxiety about saying what’s on my mind and I don’t care enough about the games (nor do I have the patience) to play them. If I’m interested, then I’m straight up about it; I’m not getting down on one knee or blowing up someone’s phone with a million texts or calls, but I’m clear. If I like a person then I want to do spontaneous fun sh*t; I want to hang out, go for a drive, cook food, find a cool exhibition, or go have some drinks at a place where we can play arcade games. I hold back my feelings for a while, and I don’t trust for a hot minute, but I don’t enjoy the dynamic where someone is chasing somebody else. It feels pointless to me.

So I have come to accept that maybe I am a lot to handle – as these young men have told me. I’ve got a big personality, I can be forward, and I’m very ready to give my all to a person if after we’ve spent time together I judge them to be worth it. But I’m tired of stressing about whether I’m ‘crazy’ just because I’m being myself, and it disappoints me to hear so many of my female peers saying the same thing about their dating experiences.

I’ve felt like recently, every time I date a lad, the second I start to ‘let my guard down’ and show myself as a person with complicated emotions, opinions, ambition, ideas, and imagination, that’s when I’m too much. Before then, when I’d shown my quieter side by listening to the person across from me and investing time in their lives, thoughts, and feelings, I was easier to handle. I was a face they liked to look at, a nice person to make them feel good about themselves, and someone they might want to sleep with. But when I began to want the person to get to know me, I’ve been told that I’m falling in love with them too much so they’re going to have to step away. Only, I don’t remember knowing them well enough to make that decision about my feelings.

I don’t like someone else thinking they know me or how I feel before they’ve taken the time to notice me as a person. One man, a few months ago, showed this so beautifully when after a month of properly dating each other he called me Beth. He’d spent hours and hours with me, slept in a bed with me, and spouted all the things about me he liked, only to get my name wrong as he told me he knew I could fall in love with him, but that he couldn’t with me. You know me so well you know my feelings, but you don’t know my name?

You have to laugh.

I’m a good person, I’d make a great partner, and I deserve to be shown the same respect I show these men. It’s not about having bad taste because my experiences aren’t unusual for the dating world at the minute – in fact, some have had much worse. And I’m sorry, but we can’t all have bad taste.

I don’t have a solution, I just keep moving and reminding myself that my friends and family think I’m great, so I can’t be that jarring to be around.

They ain’t all bad

4th Jul 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve written before about how people stare at my shoes and how the image of them can sometimes complicate my relationships with others, and though everything I’ve said on this topic so far is still valid and based on true events, I do acknowledge that sometimes, in the moment, individuals are reacting to how I’ve presented my disability rather than acting on deep-seated social preconceptions. But that was a lot of words in one sentence, so I’ll try to explain myself more clearly. Using more words…in separate sentences this time though. 🙂

Growing up, I don’t remember ever feeling hugely different from my peers. Yes, I was in a wheelchair for stretches of time because of my operations, blisters, and occasional infections, so I knew that there was a physical difference between me and the other 6-year-olds, but I don’t think that I ever had a complex about it. There were moments when I was sad because all the other girls had the Polly Pockets in their shoes, or those glittery gel heels you could get from Claire’s, and I was stuck with these leather boots, but then I was also the only kid who could wear coloured shoes to school, so you know, swings and roundabouts.

Plus, I was never bullied for my disability, so I didn’t grow up knowing what it was like for my body to be publicly ridiculed by my peers – something which is unfortunately not a given for disabled kids. So this, along with my parents’ insistence that I always felt equal to my older brothers (and thus, them all being absolute feminist icons) meant that I grew up knowing I was different, but that that wasn’t a big deal. However, then you become a teenager and later an adult, and the world isn’t quite so consistently kind…

I’ve learnt a lot about my disability in the last couple of years alone, but possibly the most important lesson has been that if I step into a social situation like I did when I was 6, thinking that my Spina Bifida is (at best) only slightly relevant to the moment, then people are unlikely to make it a big deal. My 6-year-old self wasn’t bothered about the metal bars on her boots because that’s just what she had to wear, and why would anyone want to talk about shoes now anyway? Let’s go climb that tree! (Counterproductive for the shoes and Spina Bifida, but anyways…).

I went to Prague with one of my best friends last weekend and whilst I was there I tried to channel this 6-year-old point of view. I stopped myself from giving in to the feeling of embarrassment that comes with asking strangers to adjust to my disability, and I just asked how far the club was from the bar. It might sound trivial to you, but even something as simple as asking people to give me an exact walking distance is stressful to bring up when you don’t know what response you’re going to get. I didn’t stop there though. Oh no, she took it to another level, and she wore a short dress which put the callipers on show to the club – something I was never phased about doing before university made me insecure.

I’d be lying if I said that these were easy things to do because they weren’t and frankly, they were only really achievable because I had one of my girls next to me to tell me to stop being silly and wear the damn dress. But once I started approaching the social situations like yes this is just how it is, the people around me took it in their stride as much as when I suggested we do another shot of tequila. Just like when I was 6 in my Cinderella dress walking around Asda, what I had on my feet wasn’t a big deal. Or at least, not to me or to anyone who mattered in that moment.

It’s about balance, though. I can’t be like I was when I was 6 and not care about my Spina Bifida at all because I don’t have two parents and three brothers (and the rest of my familial army) ready to pick me up when I land myself in a wheelchair from climbing trees or hiking up hills. They’re still there, but not quite as close. Plus, society is pretty rubbish in its treatment and perception of disability, and my brain is so much more switched on to that than when I was a little girl. But there is something to be said for not assuming that everyone is going to be lame about it: I went on nights out with random people in Prague, we all got drunk together, we had a great time, and if I asked to sit down for a sec to rest my legs, nobody batted an eyelid. In fact, the lads with the egos were more than happy to prove that they could piggyback me down the street. No medical records explanation was necessary.

City living hurts my head

20th Jun 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Since I moved to London last August I’ve had to adjust to lots of things. At first, the most pressing life problem was being able to financially support myself in one of the most expensive cities in the world, whilst also leaving myself enough time in between jobs to pursue the career which brought me here in the first place. Not easy to do. Then I had the added pressure of moving all my hospitals down here and making sure that I could receive the treatment I need even though none of the doctors here knew me. Again, not ideal and I’m still waiting for the pair of shoes I ordered back in October. But I want to give the disability talk a rest today – imagine ! – and chat about what’s going on in my brain instead.

Something I’ve realised about myself as I’ve become total self-sufficient is that I have a tendency to want to run away from things when I get overwhelmed. I’ll pack a million things into my days, tell myself I can handle it, struggle with the concept of being bored, eventually crash, and then feel this desperate need for space and quiet. So in those moments I get in my car and I run to the seaside, or to a secluded lake or field, or to my parents’ living room; all places where I feel like I can be truly quiet and not allow my brain to run at a hundred miles an hour. Just for a minute.

A couple of months ago, I was getting to that point again after my most recent stint of hard graft, and I met up with a friend who I hadn’t seen in years. We sat and summarised our lives since the last time we’d spoken – not a simple feat when you’ve had whole university degrees and countless life changes since your last chat, but we gave it a go. Once we got onto asking each other how we’d both found moving to the capital, my friend managed to capture exactly how I was feeling in a way that I just hadn’t been able to for months. I’d told her that sometimes I feel so claustrophobic in this massive city, that even having to go at 20 miles per hour everywhere can make me feel like I can’t breathe and I don’t know why; it’s not like there aren’t a million places or go or people to see all the time. At which point she came back with, ‘it’s because there’s no horizon anywhere’. And for me, that simple sentence managed to summarise everything I’d been feeling so beautifully.

She’s going to love that blog feature as well, so happy Tuesday to you mate.

This idea that every day I go to work or out to meet friends or just to wander around, but there’s no end to the city skyline everywhere I look leaves me feeling like I’m boxed in. It’s wonderful and vibrant, and there’s always so much going on, but there’s no space, so the northern country girl in me ends up feeling periodically trapped in a corner by the constant light and sound. Thus I wake up some days and all I want to do is look at something expansive like a field or the sea, or drive at 60 miles per hour on a road to feel like I’m actually going somewhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I love everything that the city has to offer as far as opportunity and creativity are concerned, but most people here work themselves to the bone, so that, mixed with the constant sensory stimulation, tires (!) me (!) out every now and then. In my core, I’ll always be the Yorkshire gal, and with that comes the love for a field. Somewhere quiet where all you can hear are the sheep and the river. In those spaces I breathe better and I don’t feel quite so tense. But the radio stations aren’t in the fields and I’ve got things to do, so if keeping a life in the city means that I’ve got to run away for a bit every month or so then so be it. There are worse coping mechanisms to have.

Who are you dating? Me or my feet?

14th Jun 202314th Jun 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

Recently, a stranger left a comment on my TikTok asking me when and how I tell people I’ve dated about my disability. At first, I saw the message and thought well that’s a great question, let me give it some proper time and attention, rather than fire my camera up right now as my housemate and I eat another snack one of us found in the reduced section. But then this is such a nuanced question for me that even after filming a 2-minute video, I don’t feel like I properly answered it. So here I am, not slumped on the sofa with a biscuit in my hand, giving it some focused thought.

I find introducing my disability to new people very complicated – for lots of reasons. Although I had to give plenty of explanations of it to friends as a teenager, I also went to the same school with the same people pretty much all the way through. Therefore, whilst they might not have known or particularly cared to know the details of how my condition can affect me, they did see me in a wheelchair at points when blisters or footwear had caused me some issues. They had also spent years growing up alongside me, so they knew me way more than just as a physically disabled person. In fact, half of the time I had to remind them of my Spina Bifida because even my closest friends would often forget that it was a thing at all.

Then I went traveling and onto university, where I experienced intense but very short friendships with people; an exercise in distilling myself and my disability into words to try to gain understanding in a very short period of time. Some individuals were amazing and I felt more listened to than I had even within my childhood friendships, and others were very dismissive. But the thing with my disability is that I put so much into maintaining the condition of my feet to ensure that I don’t have that many problems, that this can lead to it seeming like I don’t actually have many problems. Therefore, I’ve often felt that in order for people to believe that I’m not exaggerating, they need to see it get worse. But, as the one who’d have the bandage on their foot, I’d rather not go there – I’d still like to feel understood though.

So in the context of dating, it’s really tricky. I’ve definitely never opened with it because unfortunately, people have preconceptions and make very silly assumptions about disabilities in general, let alone about dating somebody with a disability. For example, one of the big assumptions is that if we’re together, the lad’s going to become my full-time carer and ultimately end up sobbing next to me when I’m in a hospital bed. Like babes, maybe ask me some questions about it first before we jump straight to a Hollywood catastrophe. But I also can’t not mention it because you have to know about it to know about me.

***I’d like to specify here that a lot of the time, individuals don’t even acknowledge that they have these preconceptions about disability; these aren’t things anyone ever says out loud, it’s just a narrative that’s knocking about society which we rarely address. I mean, some people say it out loud, but that’s just because they’re —–

Honestly, I think that I still don’t really know how to tell someone about my disability because I don’t think it can be effectively explained using words. Yes, I can give you the rundown and list off my operations, but those tales sound like catastrophe after catastrophe and don’t always feel like an accurate reflection of my life. Plus, were you actively listening when I told you? Like with anyone, you have to invest time in me to get to know me and you’re only going to understand how my Spina Bifida impacts my life if I let you see it.

Without a shadow of a doubt, in any relationship I’m in, it’ll probably come as a bit of a shock to the lad if the condition of my feet goes south because it’ll highlight just how much I do on a day-to-day basis to avoid that. However, you’d hope that if we have to go there, we’d be into each other enough for him to be more than happy to drive me to the hospital, pick up my antibiotics, and help me hop around the house until my foot heals. Just like you would if your girlfriend randomly broke her leg.

If society didn’t think of physical disabilities as life-destroying and a huge burden on people’s lives, then I wouldn’t hesitate to tell a lad about it on a date because I’m not ashamed of my body, or how I have to take care of it. But that’s not the world we live in. So I cover my shoes until I work out whether it’s relevant to the conversation because it’s not always helpful to share everything about yourself all at once. And like everyone, I’ll be able to work out after the first few dates whether you could potentially be right for me, and that’ll include whether I think you’d have an issue with being with someone disabled. I might not always be right, but I do think it’s sensible to give it at least a few hours to feel everything else out before we workshop the medical history.

Trust me, I know how tedious I can be

6th Jun 2023 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The other week I was talking to my housemates in our kitchen about some silly romantic situation I’d gotten myself into, asking them for advice, and then in a lull in the conversation, I said ‘if you’re ever listening to me tell my tales, and you start thinking that I’m tedious, just know that I’m fully aware that I am’.

We laughed.

For all my confidence in myself and security in many aspects of my personality, I know that I can really over-egg a point. I can talk for England once you’ve got me going and even though I try my very utmost to ensure that everything I say is of interest to the listener, I acknowledge that sometimes my energy levels can be too much even for some of the people closest to me. I try to monitor it and often I think that I give myself a much harder time about it than necessary, because I know that a lot of those close to me would describe me as a good listener as well as a good talker. But one thing I’ll always appreciate about my closest friends is that they know that sometimes I just need to go off on a monologue because if I don’t say my thoughts out loud, then they’ll spiral in my head and it’ll end in tears. Ugly tears.

But I don’t ever want to feel like a burden to other people – physically or emotionally – so in those moments when I do just feel like emotionally puking, I need to know that the person I speak to won’t judge me for it.

The type of ‘tedious’ monologues I’m talking about here is when you need to workshop your stresses about work, your PMS-induced intrusive thoughts, your anxiety about thinking you’re starting to like someone and not knowing how to play it, or when you just want to sit and reminisce about that time when you were 16 and your science lesson was hilarious. Basically, the times when you’re bored of sitting in your own mind, hearing your thoughts whizz around, and you need a human connection without conditions. However, trusting someone with this very personal and vulnerable part of yourself takes a lot because you can never really tell if they’re going to think less of you for showing them it.

For example, most of the people in my life who I’m closest to now are, and have always been, very different from me; bar maybe three, they’re all introverts who’d much prefer sitting on their own reading a book than having to engage in conversation with anyone. So I know that my (occasionally) highly strung expression of emotion can be exhausting for them and there have been times when I’ve felt guilty for that part of myself. But I do believe that supposedly ‘negative’ aspects of someone’s personality can have positive implications and my tendency to sometimes get myself overly worked up about things only happens because I care so deeply. Therefore, my most trusted friends and family members have never made me feel like I can’t open up to them when I need to – even though they miiiight have sometimes preferred the conversation to last 20 minutes less.

Then again, perhaps that last bit of the sentence was unnecessary self-deprecation. Knowing my lot, if they read this then I’m about to get some messages in capslock telling me to never think like that, because if I’ve gotta talk then they’re there to listen. I’d do the same for them, only everyone’s preferred type of support isn’t the same, so whilst my therapy is nattering, I know that some of my closest friends might just need me to sit next to them and be silly whilst we watch a movie. Regardless of the actions though, it’s about showing up for people in the way that they need and making it very clear that this is a no ! judgement ! zone ! because nobody should feel ashamed of venting when they need to vent.

An Indelible Friend

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