Queen James

Surviving Surviving

No one taught me how to be handicapped. How am I supposed to be something I was never taught to see? When I was a girl eating bologna sandwiches and watching the history channel instead of cartoons on Saturday mornings with my father, he told me I could be and do anything — well, except be a surgeon or fly a plane, as if those could ever be my only two limitations. I was raised to be and feel normal and think my handicap was just part of normal life, that there was no difference between me and someone who is not visually impaired. And that is one hell of a way to be. It really is. But my desire to be normal drove me to being embarrassed and even ashamed of my handicap to the point I would go to great lengths to hide it. The last thing you would ever hear me say was “I can’t see it.” No one showed me how to own it. No one understood the pain, anger, trauma, and isolation I feel about it. No one gets what it was like being a survivor. And survivor is such a bullshit term too for someone who still feels like a victim.