Wanderin' Thoughts

All my life, I’ve told myself that I would not take on the identity of things that happen to me or things that I do. Mostly because with labels come expectations. Like, if I say to people “I’m bipolar” they will have all kinds of things pop into their heads. Either from media or having known someone with bipolar. Whatever. But if I just casually mention in conversation that I have bipolar, it makes a difference, because it means that my bipolar isn’t the center of my identity. It’s just a part of me, not who I am. A big part, yes, but not the whole.

Same with something benign like a hobby. I knit, crochet, and sew. These are all things I do, but they don’t identify me. I’m neither a knitter, hooker, nor a seamstress (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days). I just pick the craft up now and again whenever the mood takes me and that’s that. But if I say to someone, “I’m a knitter” that comes with all kinds of expectations, they see someone who brings their knitting everywhere they go, joins knitting circles, gets angry when someone confuses knitting and crochet (doesn’t bother me at all), and so on.

I like to write. I love to write. There’s an uncontrollable urge in me to put words on paper nearly every day. It’s one of the reasons why I started blogging. Yeah, I don’t blog every day, but I do write every day. But I’m not a writer, and I’m certainly not an author. Because writers/authors are expected to be a certain way. They’re expected to dedicate their lives to their writing, to join writers’ groups, to be disciplined and, I dunno… write. I can’t deal with that kind of pressure. I write what I want, when I want. The great American novel can wait.

Social media has made this all way worse. Like there’s this kind of pressure to be a certain way if you’re a reader or something. Read this many books or these certain titles or whatever. I was reading bags of books from the library when I was a kid, long before the internet was a twinkle in someone’s eye. And no one had to tell me how to do it right. Like, they were just there for the choosing, and I could bring them home, read them and take ’em back. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I don’t think I would have labeled myself a “reader” though, because that label comes with certain expectations and “rules” nowadays.

I’m not sure if it’s the whole “No True Scotsman” fallacy that gets my goat “A real knitter would…” or I just don’t like labels. But it’s been on my mind lately because I realized that a core part of me has changed this past decade. Because there’s a label I have that I can’t seem to shake… So, I have disabilities, right? Y’all know that because I’ve talked about them, but for anyone new, I have bipolar, fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s, asthma, blah blah blah… but (and this is a big but) I am disabled.

And that bothers me.

My conditions are things I have, and that’s way easy for me to accept. Disability is the resulting state that I live in, which is much harder for me to wrap my mind around. Bipolar, fibro, thyroid problems… those are pieces of a larger picture. But “disabled” is the whole, the net effect of all those conditions interacting with the world around me. It’s like saying: “I have a broken leg” and the outcome of that is “I am immobile right now.” except the immobility is kinda permanent. You know? Being disabled describes how I deal with life, not just the medical conditions behind it.

And it bothers me because I didn’t choose this label. I wouldn’t choose any label. Like, I rejected all of the others, knitter, writer, bipolar, whatever! But this one was thrust on me. It’s not something I earned or claimed. I didn’t consent to it. I don’t get to dabble in it or grow out of it. No, it just arrived and now I’m stuck with it whether I want it or not.

Forever!

I don’t get to opt out of the stigma it carries. And, it affects every bit of my life. So yeah, I’m a bit bothered by that. And I kinda wanted to get that off my chest.

Thanks for reading y’all. I appreciate you taking the time. Take care of yourself, and I’ll chat at you later.