I’m not boring, I swear

7th Nov 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve been humbled this month, because it’s now painfully clear to me that I’m a lot of talk when it comes to romantic relationships and not a lot of walk. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the girl who sits there and reels off the relationship advice to my friends when they’ve come to me with problems – not to mention the blogs I’ve written on the subject – without ever really knowing what I’m talking about. (But to be fair, I must be pretty decent at this agony aunt role, given that my friends keep asking me for help…)

Like most, I’ve had my fair share of mistreatment in romantic situations but I also haven’t reeeaally put myself fully out there since I was a teenager, so as much as I talk about this topic, I’m more of an observer in this world rather than an active participant. And I’ve cemented this as a part of my identity, by having a tendency to latch onto situations I know aren’t going to work, simply because the inevitability of it never really going anywhere means I don’t ever really have to put myself out there. So basically, I’m just really scared of falling in love, and the world of dating kind of freaks me out.

Honestly, I just find it strange that you’re meant to go to spend time with someone you barely know, present yourself to them, and then at the end of those few hours spent together, decide whether ‘there’s anything there’. And yes, I acknowledge that I do think about these things far too much and should just let it be, but you only have to watch one episode of First Dates to be reminded of just how stress-inducing this type of human interaction is. It’s as if the idea that this is the time when you should get to know a person sucks every ounce of relaxation out of the moment and just transforms it into one hundred and one ways to say something you’d probably never say if you were with your friends, but you’re saying it now because you’re across from someone who’s expecting to get to know you, but what do you actually mean when you ask me what my hobbies are? What even are my hobbies? Do I have hobbies? I swear I wasn’t this boring when I was texting my friend before I arrived here.

And breathe.

That paragraph probably made me seem more stressed about this kind of situation than I actually am, but the point I’m trying to make here is that it’s okay if you’ve been in these situations, where you’ve had this outer-body experience where it’s felt like you’re watching yourself act completely differently to how you know yourself to be. It’s likely because (as I mentioned in last week’s blog), you’re in a situation with a total stranger and it’s a lot to expect yourself to be completely open with them after knowing them for a matter of hours. Plus, dating is a skill which we only seem to gain with practice – I for one do not currently possess this skill. Can I flirt with someone in my general day to day if the feeling is right? Yes I can. Do I know how to apply that to a context which has been explicitly labelled as a date? No I do not. Does that makes any sense? No it does not. But we move! As the marines would say: improvise, adapt, overcome.

Short sidenote here as well: it’s a very British thing for us to not get excited about stuff we love, and to talk down our successes when we’re with other people. Don’t do that, you don’t need to do that. If you’re excited about something or you love it, then speak!! Passion about something is only ever going to be attractive and as a nation, we are poor at talking ourselves up because we don’t want to seem lame. So let’s try to not do that.

Dating is a truly foreign world to me, and falling in love high-key terrifies me. However, flirting is fun, dating is fun, and I’m sure falling in love is some of the most fun a person can possibly have. Therefore, to all my friends who’ve been trying to put themselves out there recently, I’d like to say that I completely understand the frustration of ‘how am I supposed to know if I like this person, when I’ve only spent a few hours with them?’.Nonetheless, my best friends have put me in check by instructing me to only focus on the moment, rather than always going for five steps ahead. Treat it like those flow chart quizzes we used to get in magazines when we were little: do you enjoy spending time with this person? If yes, follow that arrow to ‘see them again’ and if no, follow the arrow to ‘don’t see them again’, and take it from there.

We’ve all been hurt by someone at some point – possibly more than we’d first considered- but it’d be a shame to let that past hurt dictate how much fun you can have in the future. So, trust your instincts and if you make a mistake or if you come across something you don’t like, then hey, that’s helpful information too.

Now brb whilst I try to follow my own advice.

Maybe don’t answer EVERY question…

31st Oct 202231st Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I realised the other day that in the five years since I left school, I’ve spent a hefty amount of my time meeting and developing new relationships with people. I’ve travelled to lots of different places – both abroad and in Britain – and everywhere I’ve been I’ve come across people who I didn’t like, but more often than not, every new place brought me loads of new friends. In some cases, I even did a complete 180 in my opinion of someone as I acknowledged that your first impression of a person might not always be the best representation of what they’re actually like.

I’ve always been somebody who actively enjoys spending time with other people, however, even with this love for a ‘getting to know you’ conversation, I’ve noticed that in the past couple of years I’ve become far more cagey with a new group of people than I ever have been before. But to ensure that we’re all on the same page here, when I say ‘cagey’ I don’t mean that I’m rude or standoffish with people, it’s just that I’ve learned that it’s not always the best move to go into social situations as an entirely open book because by doing that, you don’t leave very much room to protect yourself.

When I was at school, I was the type of person who would tell anyone whatever they wanted to know about me: they could ask about my disability, my family, my fears, my aspirations, who I fancied, or literally anything else they could think of and I’d probably tell them the tale. In fact, I’d love telling the tale. This tendency towards openness and honesty isn’t something that I want to completely get rid of because without it we’d have no blog, and I also wouldn’t be myself, but there have been moments over the past few years when I realised just how exhausting it is to meet new people and answer all of these questions, only for many of those relationships to fizzle at some point. After all, once we’re out of school or university, most of us don’t have the time to maintain loads of friendships in between working and general living. So sometimes, it’s better to conserve your energy and not offload everything about yourself to whatever stranger you get along with for twenty minutes at a party, because repeatedly doing that in environments such as school, university, or a new job, really does take it out of you.

However, this newfound cageyness I’m talking about doesn’t just stem from the fact that it’s tired me out to be so honest, it’s also because I’ve sometimes been a little naive about who I can trust with the more vulnerable aspects of my personality. The fact is, that in order for any relationship to be fulfilling – be it platonic or romantic – there’s got to be an equal amount of effort put in by both sides, but if you’re like me then you might have had a few situations where you’ve realised that you’ve gotten upset because somebody hasn’t given you the same energy you were giving them, and even though that can be painful, were you maybe giving a little too much too quickly?..Then on the other side of this, have you potentially been the person in romantic relationships or friendships who has had somebody open up to you, and you haven’t respected their choice to do that in the way you should’ve?

I’ve probably done both, to be honest: I’ve definitely overshared and then been burnt by someone not caring as much as I thought they would, and I’m human, so I’ve undoubtedly been thought of as not being there for a person in the way they wanted me to be. Therefore, I’m not writing this blog because I think that there’s a perfect level of openness when forming relationships with new people – obvs, it’d be ideal for each of us to look into a crystal ball and know how much we can trust or rely on a person before we invest time into them, but that’d also take all the fun out of meeting and getting to know new people. So, I guess it’s about realising what works well for you in these situations.

For me, I was doing and giving way too much too quickly because I like knowing people really well (because I’m a freak and I find people very interesting), and I kind of figured that if I open up to someone then they’ll open up to me too, without respecting myself enough to acknowledge how exhausting it is to be that way. So, we’re not going to be a totally closed book, because human connection is one of the joys of everyone’s lives, we’re just going to be a liiiittle more selective about it to conserve energy and emotions. It’s all about give and take, and you’ve got to keep an eye on how much you’re letting people take versus how much they’re giving you.

One operation, two operations, three operations, four…

18th Oct 202218th Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If you’re an avid reader of my blogs, then it’s likely that you’ve seen me mention that I’ve had six operations because of my disability. But what’s funny, is that a lot of the time when I say these things about my lived experience with Spina Bifida, what I’m actually doing is repeating the speech I’ve always known as how to explain my disability to others – I’m not really thinking about the words I’m saying. For instance, it might surprise you to know that even though I talk about being disabled quite regularly, there are plenty of days when I almost have to remind myself that I have Spina Bifida. This is because the details of my condition and the way they physically ‘affect’ me aren’t constantly on my mind. But the times when this dissociation from my own disability gets the weirdest, is if I sit and properly think about my operations.

I had my first two operations when I was a baby and if I’m honest with you, I’m still not entirely clear on what they were for, what they were called, or how the procedures actually went. My basic understanding is that the goal was to drain some of the fluid in the lump on my back using tubes; I know they didn’t really work, and I know that I’ve still got a small plastic tube in my stomach because the doctors didn’t want to cause me any more trauma by making me have another operation to take it out. So, I’ve got a completely harmless plastic tube inside of me. Which (when I think about it) is weird, right?! But I don’t remember those operations, I just remember always knowing that that tube is inside of me because I can see the scar.

My next operation was on my right foot. My parents have told me that as a baby my feet were actually fine, and it was only when I started to walk (I think), that my right foot started to curve inwards so that I wasn’t placing the pressure where it should go and we started having some issues. Hence I had an operation to correct the positioning called a tendon transfer where they move a small piece of tendon from one side of your foot to the other to basically stretch it in a different way, so the bottom of your foot lies flat on the ground as you walk. (It’s difficult to explain in words…you might just have to google that one to get a visual aid). And again, I don’t remember being involved in the operation, but I know that I was because I can see the scars.

My final three operations were on my left foot – affectionately named by one of my best friends as the ‘attention-seeking foot’ because this little bugger has rarely stopped giving me grief since it decided to copy my right foot and curve inwards. The operations I had on this banter wagon were exactly the same as the one on my right foot, the only difference was that it took three tries (classic) because the first one got infected so you could see the bone from the outside, then the second attempt flopped, and by the third go, I had no more tendon left to transfer so it was less that the operations had ‘worked’, and more that my lovely surgeon had done the best he could. – He did kind of nail it tbf. I was in a wheelchair for 18 months during this part of my childhood.

What’s odd though, is that the time when I had these operations isn’t really something I recognise as my life because it all just sounds so medical. Obviously, I know that it happened because I’ve got scars and medical records to show for it, but I don’t ever remember thinking of myself as this regularly hospitalised child. Although, that isn’t to say that I don’t have memories of being in hospital gowns, and spending months with nurses coming to my house to dress my foot every day before I got in my wheelchair to go to school, or how the fever felt when my foot was so infected that the bone was visible. I remember all of that viscerally. But when I see the home videos of the little girl stumbling around, walking faster than her Spina Bifida feet could carry her, it’s difficult for me to watch because that level of blatantly obvious physical disability isn’t me in my head.

It goes without saying that I have my parents and my big brothers to thank for this, because if they’d ever brought attention to just how pronounced my disability was in my early childhood and restricted me according to that, then I wouldn’t be what I am. But then the funny flipside of being brought up this way, is that seeing images of little me limping around after my big brothers is bizarre and in some ways a little upsetting because oh my god, that’s me. I’ve heard all these stories about it but look! Look how much I couldn’t walk.

Still, in these same photographs, videos, and hazy memories of when my body was showing the purest form of my Spina Bifida, I couldn’t have cared less about it. This was also aided by the fact that no matter how bad my feet are, I never experience any direct pain because I don’t have any feeling in either of my feet. Therefore, infection or not, limp or not, I ran and explored as much as any other four-year-old did and the idea that I was ‘disabled’ was totally irrelevant to my experience of life. But my brain will always be wired this way, so it can get strange sometimes when I realise just how disabled I actually am.

Quick! Someone get the stress ball!

4th Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As a member of the most stressed and depressed generation ever studied by science, I thought that I would take this week’s blog as an opportunity to explain how I deal with stress in my everyday life. The short answer: not very well.

Lol

Actually, to be fair, that’s not entirely true…but I don’t want to kick this off by giving you the impression that I’m always on top of my own stress levels, and that I know exactly how to regulate my feelings in order to avoid having breakdowns because I’m not and I don’t. Generally speaking, I’m what some might call a ‘stress-head’, or ‘overthinker’. I don’t deal well when I can’t be in control of situations – be they relating to work or romantic relationships, or anything in between – and I’ve been known to take on too much all at the same time, overloading myself until eventually I get burnt out, have a (minor) meltdown, then wake up the next day to do it all over again.

Knowing this about myself though, I still don’t believe that stress is an entirely negative emotion – as long as you’re self-aware enough to recognise when it’s overwhelming you. For example, ever since moving to London last month, I’ve been so stressed that I’ve lost weight and my period was ten days late. (I realise that these don’t sound like very dramatic consequences of stress, nonetheless, they are clear examples of a tangibly physical reaction to something going on in my head.) But even though pretty much every day since I’ve lived here has been punctuated by to-do lists and an endless amount of unknowns, I actually feel pretty good; I don’t feel stressed in the negative sense of the word.

Don’t get me wrong, the first week or so of living in this city was purely bad stress, but as I mentioned in a blog a few weeks ago, my parents helped me get out of that panic by urging me to take everything one thing at a time. This advice sounds so obvious, but if you’re an overthinker like me, then you’ll know that it’s far easier to think about the million and one things you need to do, or what could go wrong, all at once than it is to focus on just one thing for today. Honestly, I’m still not fully there yet, but this month has definitely been an exercise in recognising when I’m about to wind myself up, taking a breath, and then just not letting myself stress about the thing I was going to stress about.

I’m in a good position, however, given that a lot of my stress at the minute is based on things that I love. For example, finding ways to squeeze in writing blogs or going to radio stations might take a toll on my energy at a given moment, but I love doing it, so I don’t end the day feeling bitter about how tired I am. Still, even if you adore what’s making you stressed, that doesn’t mean that the mental exhaustion won’t eventually catch up with you, so it’s important that even if you feel fine, you do little things to keep an eye on yourself. I’m going to sound like one of those American yoga teachers right now, but think about the little things that you could do which could help you to focus on what you really want to do in the day. For instance, if there’s a time when my stress is going to show itself in me getting angry, then it’s going to be if I see that my room or my kitchen is unclean or untidy. So I keep my room and my kitchen neat; tidy home, tidy mind n that.

It might seem silly to talk about these things, but judging from social media, we’re way better at listing all the problems with ourselves than we are at helping each other to find some solutions. So, I’d like to reiterate that this has not been me saying ‘ooo look at me, I’m so self-aware that I never have a breakdown because of stress’, because I wouldn’t have a blog if I wasn’t an over-thinker and stress-head. But I’m trying my best to be better at not letting my mind just run, and trying is all we can do really innit.

If you are feeling a little strung-out at the minute though, top tips are: deep breath, lots of water, plenty of sleep, read a book before bed, listen to music, keep your room tidy, have a cry if you need to, and speak to someone who makes you laugh.

You’ve gotta stick to your lane

27th Sep 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m the type of person who, in the appropriate situation, would like to look, be, or say something sexy. I’ll go on a night out, spot a wall which looks kind of cool and ask a friend to take a photograph of me in front of it, thinking ‘omg yes this’ll be a good shot’. But then the second the camera starts flashing, I can hold my face for a few seconds before I’ve got absolutely no idea what to do with myself and I end up pulling a stupid face. Orrrrrr, I’ll think I’ve nailed it until my friend hands me back the phone and my figure just hasn’t given what I’d envisioned…so all of the shots head straight to the recycling bin. But it’s not that I’m being consciously self-critical in these moments, it’s just that I don’t think that I give off ‘sexy’ vibes…

By this, I think what I mean is that I don’t see myself as demonstrating a very specific version of femininity associated with models and actresses. I’m visualising the lasses who can take the fire pictures, with the perfect bodies, in the expensive underwear, with the sultry eye contact from across the bar, and the bad bitch vibe where the men come running the second they walk into the room. And even though this expression of femininity is gorgeous, often it’s been constructed in order to make women sexually desirable to men. However, connotations of patriarchy and misogyny aside (very difficult to sweep them aside, but stick with me here), I do still want to be sexy and desirable every now and then – probably even if it comes with a hint of objectification – because in that context it’s on my own terms, but no matter my intentions I just don’t think that I give off that sultry kind of energy.

Hence I wonder, is my slight discomfort with the word a disability thing? Possibly. I mean, for centuries the (physically) disabled body has never been portrayed as sexually desirable, in fact, people have often been encouraged to think of the idea of disabled people having sex as repulsive (if it’s ever thought to happen at all). So yes, that’s probably playing a part in my inner monologue. But I don’t think that that’s the main thing going on here; I think what’s happening is that part of me is assuming that you can only really be ‘sexy’ if others describe you in that way.

We (particularly women) seem to like to categorise ourselves and our friends: at some point, we’ve all decided – actively or passively – who is the ‘cute’ one, the ‘pretty’ one, the ‘funny’ one, the ‘clever’ one, the ‘sexy’ one, and so on and so forth, as if there’s a correct way to be each one of those characteristics. These categories then cement to each of us what we are (and what we’re not), so when we’re described as a word that’s outside of our lane, we assume that a mistake’s been made i.e., I’ve never been the ‘sexy’ one in any friendship group, so that’s probably why I don’t see myself in that light.

So even though I’ve never ended a blog with a homework task, get ready! Because this week I’d like to ask that you consider whether there’s a word (or words) you’ve told yourself you could never be. Then, if you’ve thought of one, the next time you go to the place or do the thing that allows you the time to be with yourself and have a good old think, I’d like you to consider why you can’t be that thing. Finally, once you’ve (hopefully) come to the conclusion that you’re being silly and should stop putting yourself in a box, stop thinking and go do something fun; that’s enough of the internal monologue for one day. Wouldn’t want to overthink it, now would we? Or did I do that already?…

Well that was a bit silly of me

5th Sep 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Okay but, why is it that whenever I get bored, lonely, or horny (or heaven forbid a combination of all three), I think it wise to make some stupid decisions? Something happens in my head where I think that for some reason, a lad who I’m definitely not that interested in not only requires my attention, but he also deserves my stress and occasionally even my tears. I swear to you, if I had a pound for every time I’ve gotten irritated over some romantic situation, where, if I actually took a step back and thought about it, I’d decide I was really not that invested anyway, then I would be a very rich woman right now.

And I know that everyone says this but I promise you, pinky swear and lock it in, I don’t enjoy the unsaid games which happen before you’re in a relationship with someone. I can’t be bothered to wait for ages to text someone back, I don’t care about how long they take to text me back – unless it becomes clear that they’re playing the game, then that does irritate me – but more than anything, I hate how being involved in the game makes me overthink EVERYTHING. And yet, I still do it! Often with people I don’t even like that much! I’m also incredibly picky and very very rarely say yes to going on a date with someone. So am I part of my own problem? Possibly.

I think that part of it is that if you actually sit and think about the efforts a person would have to take to not think, speak about, or see romantic relationships in everyday life then you come to realise that it’s kind of impossible. Every time you turn the television on, it doesn’t matter if it’s reality tv or a drama, odds are there’s a hefty section devoted to finding a relationship, being in one, or leaving one. Then you walk down the street and someone’s being cute with their partner, or there are advertisements suggesting what you should do with your partner, or what you should buy them. Plus, you’re judged if you go out and do things on your own, let alone the lame fact that it’s kind of unsafe for a woman to fly solo in towns and cities once the sun has gone down, so even if you wanted to go for a drink on your own, there’s that little voice in your head wondering whether it’s worth the potential hassle.

Therefore, we’re encouraged to be lonely, we get bored, and if those two weren’t enough, the sex drive comes along to make us momentarily ignore that part of our brains which tells us that something is probably not a great idea. Because maybe it is a good idea for the near future. And it’s not that deep anyway! And they’re interested in me! Or they seem to be… And it’ll make for a fun story to tell everyone tomorrow morning.

I try not to waste time regretting my actions, since I know that if I were put in the situation again, I’d probs do the same thing anyway, but sometimes the embarrassment does find its way into my internal monologues and when it does, you’ve got to flush that shit away like a spider in the bath.

But second-hand embarrassment aside, at least I try to treat people the way I’d like to be treated so it’s not as if I’m out here being a massive cow when I’m making questionable decisions. However, this isn’t the part where I promise never to text someone who I know is only going to play some game and then irritate me by doing that, because ladies and gentlemen, I am silly at times. Buuuutttt, I will congratulate myself for finally being decent at knowing when enough is enough and just deleting the conversation thread. That’s some solid character progression right there. Go me.

Get your kit off!

15th Aug 20222nd Sep 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Last week I was sitting with one of my best friends and I asked her how often she looks at herself naked. (Bit of an intense way to start a blog, I know, but I didn’t know how else to kick this topic off lol). I asked her this because we’re all well aware of the level of scrutiny our bodies are under in regards to what size they should be, what shape, what colour, what texture, et cetera et cetera. So, I guess I was just curious about how often my friend stands in front of a mirror and has a look, to then compare it to how often I do the same, especially since the act of looking at your naked skin in broad daylight is one of the most vulnerable things you can do. After all, we might not always like what’s reflected back to us.

My friend’s a total queen though; her response was ‘all the time’ and I said the same – buuuut, I did go on to explain that I don’t spend too many seconds looking at my Spina Bifida lump or my legs in the mirror, so I’ve got room for improvement.

I think that in general, as women, we’re not encouraged to stand with ourselves and get familiar without being critical, so it can be quite unusual to see a woman who is totally comfortable with her naked body. However, I would like to clarify here that by ‘totally comfortable’, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t things you dislike, or would prefer to not look a certain way some days because we’re going for honesty here, not idealism.

One of the best things I ever did for getting comfortable with my own skin was starting to sleep naked every night. I wouldn’t say that before doing that I was ever particularly uncomfortable with my body, but sleeping naked just forces you to see and feel yourself exactly as you are: you get used to your boobs falling in every direction depending on how you’re sitting; you see all the stretch marks and ‘imperfections’ highlighted by the sun when you wake up, and you stop getting a little startled by the image of your naked body first thing in the morning. But overall, sleeping naked allows your skin to breathe and everything feels better after that.

Quick sidenote: I do realise that a lot of my words and descriptions here lean very close to the topic of masturbation, and whilst I’m not really going to go into that much today, I will say: for god’s sake, masturbate! Especially you ladies! It’s good for you! (Literally.) :)))

Many people (especially (British) women) would rather die than speak about topics such as this one, but after being lucky enough to have known women of all shapes and sizes who are so comfortable in their own bodies that they’ll take their kit off at any given opportunity, I’ve never underestimated the power of being proactive in loving your body. Every clothing campaign badgers on about it nowadays – some in a very live laugh love sort of a way (*puke*) – but the human body is truly a remarkably beautiful thing, and even though we’re never going to love ourselves entirely every single minute of every day, making sure that we at least accept ourselves every day does wonders.

Regardless of how we each feel about our own bodies though, we should be careful to never (!) shame another person for being confident in their body just because you wouldn’t do the same. I like to sit/hang around my house in a towel, or my underwear and I’ll put the bin out with ‘just’ a big t-shirt and knickers on; you not doing the same doesn’t mean you love your body any less than I love mine, but it also doesn’t leave room for my body to be sexualised or criticised when all I’m doing is watching TV or putting the recycling out. After all, if you can’t wear as much or as little as you want in your own house, then where can you?

Cover those callipers!

7th Aug 202214th Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I was seventeen the first time somebody complimented my shoes. I remember, I was walking up the stairs in the secondary school I’d been attending for seven years already, when a new member of staff who I didn’t recognise came in the opposite direction, took one look at my callipers, and said ‘I like your shoes’. I stopped dead on those stairs feeling a mixture of shock, outrage, and confusion because I thought that he was taking the piss and I wasn’t exactly sure how to react to a teacher being blatantly cruel to me, but then I looked at his face I realised that this compliment was genuine; it didn’t come from a place of pity and it wasn’t him trying to wind me up. So I gave him a stunned look, said ‘thank you’, and went to tell my friends about what had just happened.

It’s strange because I know that my reaction to this type of situation implies that I’m insecure about my shoes, but I think to draw that conclusion is too easy. The fact is, that I know I’m physically disabled, I know I have to wear these callipers to correct the positioning of my feet, but wearing these shoes wasn’t a choice I ever got to make; I don’t particularly like the way they look, they mess with the silhouette of my outfits, they draw people’s attention to a part of my body I’d rather not be stared at, and the sight of them can make me be treated very differently. Yet, regardless of how I feel about them, there is absolutely nothing I can do to change whether I wear them. So, it’s not that I’m insecure about my callipers and my disability, it’s that I don’t necessarily enjoy the judgements people make of me when they see them – and I can’t really fathom them looking stylish…

Now I know what many of you might be thinking: if someone judges you because of two metal bars on each of your legs then that’s just their ignorance, it shouldn’t be something which you allow to bother you. Fair point, well made. But what I’ve noticed when speaking to people about this kind of thing, and then going out and existing in the world, is that individuals have absolutely no idea of the difference in how the able-bodied world treats me when they can see my callipers, versus when they can’t.

Let’s take going to the airport for example, since I was at JFK last week. I always wear trousers which cover my shoes when I go to the airport because it’s a place where you’re guaranteed to see a lot of people, you might be tired (maybe a bit stressed), and for me, I always know I’m going to get searched because my shoes will set the metal detector off, so I don’t want my callipers to draw any more attention to me than I’m already going to get. However, this then causes me problems when I ask for disability assistance because without those metal bars, nobody can understand how I could possibly be physically disabled enough to not be able to stand in a queue for 25 minutes; people take one look at me and they assume I’m trying to unjustly weasel my way into a shortcut. So, what do I do? I wear an outfit which shows my callipers just to avoid that hassle, even though I know it’ll mean seeing loads of people staring at them when I’m in precisely the wrong mood? Why should I have to do that?

This feels like a perfect point in the discussion to use the term many of us have seen knocking about on signs next to disabled toilets since the pandemic, and preach that ‘not all disabilities are visible’. But what I find hilarious, is that my disability IS visible! It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, you can still see the glint of the metal bars at the base of my shoes – god knows people still give any centimetre of calliper a good stare – so I’m not sure that it’s even about how much of my shoes the world can see. I think there’s a problem that people either expect to see disability as consuming the appearance of a person, or not there at all, but if you’re the former then you’re too disabled to be anything other than that, and if you’re the latter, then you’re exaggerating and you’re not disabled enough.

I sit somewhere in between both of those ideas, and it means that a lot of the time, I’ve got no idea what I am so I just do what makes the most sense to me in a given situation. I wear outfits which show my callipers whenever I want and I switch off to the staring, but in the moments when I’d rather everything else about me take precedence over the disability, then I’ll cover them up, even if that comes with expecting to get some shit off of someone at some point – it doesn’t always happen, but it’s highly likely if I’ve covered them and then have to ask someone of authority for a bit of disability assistance. Also, you probably won’t see me going on a date, or meeting new people in an outfit which shows my shoes.

But before I leave you, I want to emphasise that these acts of hiding my callipers aren’t because I’m ashamed of them – I might not actively like how they look, but shame has nothing to do with it – it’s because having a visible physical disability encourages people to focus on it for longer than you might like them to. So even though I have nothing to hide, I hide it to take control of the situation and encourage you to look at and listen to me like you would anyone else, and then you can notice the Spina Bifida later. It’s a double-edged sword though because if I now need to ask for help, if you can’t see my shoes, then you might not believe me…

Tricky, isn’t it?

Graduation, but then what?

14th Jun 202214th Jun 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In my head, I think that I’m pretty good at hiding my emotions…but then every time I’m even slightly upset or angry, it usually takes my friends, family, or colleagues about 0.5 seconds to notice. So clearly, I’m slightly deluded. However, whilst it may be true that my overall mood is very easy for others to discern, I am that person who takes on a lot of things and eventually snaps when all of those things have piled up in my head. Then it’s in the moments when I’m close to snapping that my mood goes down, I’m tired, and I’m likely to burst into an ugly cry if anyone hits me with the ‘are you okay?’.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to confess to the internet that I’m in the middle of having an existential crisis…Though I will say that I’ve had a pretty intense last few months which have gifted me both good and bad stress, resulting in a few days when my mood hasn’t been as chirpy as it is normally. And one of these stresses has been something that I know many of my peers are overthinking right now: what the hell are we going to do after graduation?

For me, my graduation from university mostly brings a sense of relief. The last 3 years have been a lot of fun in parts but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t feel ready to leave; I’m tired of being confronted by the same annoying problems brought to me by Durham University, and I ache to leave the education system behind for a second. I mean, I’ve been in it for 17 years! That’s a long time. Granted, I had a year out before university but I did work in 2 schools for 6 months of that…then I taught in 3 of the 4 countries I visited…So no matter how much I know I’ll continue to study something for the rest of my life, I think I’d like to give formal education a rest for now.

It’s scary though. I can see it in my friends’ faces when we actually sit for a minute and talk about what we each want to do after uni: everyone masks the apprehension at being thrust into the adult world with talking about ‘panic masters’, internships, job placements, and the classically vague ‘maybe I’ll go travelling’ statements. The fact is that many of us have absolutely no clue what’s next or where we’ll end up, and it’s stressing a lot of young people out that they’re expected to have their whole life mapped out when just a couple of weeks ago we were sitting our exams.

I’m a lucky one in that I do know what I want to do, and I have made moves towards that, but even I feel like I haven’t had a second to breathe before I have to sort the rest of my life out. Also, there’s a stigma against the graduates who choose a different route from the traditional ones. For example, I know I’m moving to a new city and I know what I want to do there, but a career as a radio presenter doesn’t exactly have a cushty grad scheme for me to apply for, so whenever I tell people my plans, they inevitably sound half-baked, and that makes me self-conscious. Even though, we don’t all have to work in an office straight after university if we don’t want to…

Sometimes everything feels like it moves so quickly that there’s no way you can keep up, then other days it’s easy – occasionally, even a bit boring. I’m definitely not qualified to be giving advice on what to do in these situations given that I’m part of those going through the experience, but what I have said to my friends when we’ve been in the car or in a living room, stressing about the future, is that the best approach to have is to do whatever makes you happiest. That might be another year of university, working abroad and travelling, moving to a new city to start a new job, or having absolutely no clue and needing a couple of months of nothing to figure yourself out. Obviously, money is a factor in this and it’s not always easy to do exactly what you’d ideally want to do, still, try not to put so much pressure on yourself to have everything mapped out right now; take a minute to breathe.

Truly, there is no rush.

Something’s wrong with my face today

3rd May 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Do you ever have those days where for some reason none of your clothes seem to fit you the way they did the last time you tried them on? You’re getting ready for the day, or for a night out, and your face just doesn’t face the way it should, you’re clothes don’t look right, your hair won’t do what it’s told, and the time is starting to run away; you’re going to be late to whatever you’re supposed to get to, so you start to get a bit hysterical and self-critical until you just wish you could crawl back into bed, hit a reset button, and try again tomorrow when everything hopefully does what it’s supposed to.

Just me?..

I’ve written before about how people shouldn’t let their insecurities control them, and I wondered whether I should write about this topic again when I could just reshare an entry I’d written a couple of years ago. Except, my body, and a whole lot of other stuff, has changed since then and I don’t really see this as a problem that can be fixed by a few hundred words.

So I’m going to give you a few hundred more! Yay!

We each know the power which comes with feeling confident, but like many other feelings, confidence is unfortunately very brittle. Just the other day, I’d woken up feeling pretty good about myself but it only took a few silly things happening throughout the day to leave me with a mind full of self-criticism by the time I was getting into bed for the night. And the frustrating thing is, that the moments which chipped away at my confidence were so minor it was stupid: I saw my reflection in a full-length mirror and I didn’t like the way my legs in my callipers looked, then a friend took a photograph of me and another friend and I thought my arms looked fat, and finally, the hot weather made me tired and subsequently self-conscious about how obvious my Spina Bifida was whilst walking through town.

Not one of these things is important, nor are they anything anyone else would take any notice of, let alone care about. But that’s what insecurity is: getting stuck inside your head about silly things which in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. Only, they matter to you and sometimes they matter so much that you torture yourself over thinking about them.

I’m lucky enough to be able to keep my insecurities at bay most of the time. But the times when I can’t – which do tend to be either when I’m drunk drunk, or experiencing the boozer’s blues the day after drinking – in those moments, I can’t do much except let myself just sit in it. I eat loads of snacks, or I cry to my friend, or I watch a film, or I stare at the wall whilst listening to my sad playlist. And I know that if a psychologist were to read those coping mechanisms, they’d probably say that they’re all really unhealthy – disclaimer: I’m definitely not about to make a case for you to do exactly what I do. However, I do think that my generation tries to psycho-analyse themselves far too much and that we need to just feel whatever it is we’re feeling for a second, without self-diagnosing. Obviously, there are limits and lines where a person needs help but it’s also okay to feel naff for an afternoon. In fact, surely it’d be worrying if we didn’t feel like rubbish once in a while?

I’m not going to patronise you now by listing all the reasons why we should be kinder to ourselves because I’m not a motivational speaker (shocking, I know), but also because we all know this already and knowing that I shouldn’t criticise myself, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that I won’t from time to time. It’s about being able to strike that balance where you allow yourself to feel what you need to, whilst also making moves to pick yourself up out of any ruts you encounter – it’s not always easy, and I’m not a pro, but we do our best.

So if you do wake up and your face isn’t facing, or your body isn’t bodying, and although you know it’s just in your head you’re still feeling meh, then that’s alright! As our lord and saviour Hannah Montana once said: everybody has those days.

An Indelible Friend

Tag: selfawareness