Faith, Hope and Love: Choosing to Live On

“On you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike, and I know you’ll hike far, and face up to your problems, whatever they are.”-Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss

I grew up in Special Education and was bullied a lot. (Being called the r-word constantly, manhandled, subjected to group embarrassment, isolation, rumors, assault, verbal abuse and threats.) It was common for various authorities to respond to these events by blaming me or my family. I saw the stress of dealing with it start to weigh on my parents, particularly my Mom. It broke my heart.
This was in the 1990s, so children growing up in my area Northeast were being taught about the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, but the disability rights movement was never mentioned. As far as I could tell, the Civil Rights Movement didn’t include learning-disabled people, and neither did the precept of equality it had ostensibly imparted to my culture.
Hence, it was common for adults to see me being bullied and not do anything, either because they didn’t know how to handle the situation, were circumstantially barred from doing something, or because they felt that students with learning disorders didn’t belong in mainstream education. In their minds, intervening was burdensome for them. In fifth grade these dynamics got so bad that my parents pulled me out of church and after school activities. As someone whose identity and morals were grounded in my faith, the former event was particularly devastating for me. By that point was I already experiencing symptoms of mental illness that made me vulnerable to the idea that God did not love me, and these events seemed to confirm it.
These circumstances left me with a lot of sadness and confusion about what kind of person I was, what the world was like, and how I should handle that intersection. Indeed, I found that these dynamics felt even more frightening as an adult, as they stood to impede my access to education and employment. As I got older, I also dealt with a lot of fear my family’s history of mental illness, lack of desired autonomy and unemployment. Indeed, during my last depressive episode three years ago, I felt as though all of my years of struggle had been useless and that I wasn’t going to make it after all.
Nevertheless, there are three things that have always kept me going, and they include my faith, my family and my community. I really believe in a God of infinite love, who values my life and wants me to base my identity in Him, rather than what the world tells me. He created me to participate in the world and make it better, because He loves me.
Similarly, my family loves me. They want me to live, and I want to live for them. I understand that no matter how many times a dark voice tells me that I am a burden and that they would be better off without me, it just isn’t true.
The last thing that has aided in my journey has been my community. Not every disabled person is as blessed as me when it comes to family life, but for some people, family is also created via ties formed by connection with others, such as in the disabled community, our faith communities, our colleagues and our friends.
Extreme stress, such as that created by the social dynamics related to having a disability, can make nonexistence seem preferable to being alive. However, it’s important to remember that that stress isn’t telling the truth.
If I had ever given into any of my suicidal impulses or thoughts, then I wouldn’t have had years of lecturing in disability studies, having my research published, being a substitute teacher, testifying at legislative hearings, keeping a blog, having philosophical discussions with friends, shoveling my parents’ walk, baking homemade pies, entering the Catholic church, or planning a new career full of even greater joy and purpose.
Whatever your circumstances are, you aren’t alone. I firmly believe that if I could recover from my last depressive episode, anyone can recover. Moreover, disabled people have the personal and communal strength to exert dignity in any circumstance. You matter, your community cares, and you owe it to yourself not to give up. As Dr. Seuss says, “Your mountain is waiting…so get on your way!”