By Eariel Carthen
Growing up I got along with my brother so well. He was great at video games, could tell you any and everything about comics, and could understand any reference you threw at him. However, as we got older, I started to find that it was difficult to connect with him. My mom chalked it up to me just becoming older and being a young woman now with things I needed to navigate through. And she could have been right for the most part. But I couldn’t help but feel like it was something deeper.
My mom always kept all our old grade school papers. I mean she kept everything, she’s a functioning hoarder. She can find out what someone was doing in 2004 just from all the documents she’s kept over the years. I remember I looked through it, this big bin just full of assignments from Kindergarten to High School. At the bottom I found a worksheet for Aspergers and on that paper was his name scribbled in barely legible letters. He couldn’t have been any older than a second grader writing this. Yes, I remember the therapy classes he had to go to every week, but I never exactly knew what they were for. It wasn’t my place to worry about. The only concern that was in my head was why he was able to go but I couldn’t. But now that the answers were in front of me. I was hurt that my parents hid this from me. Did they think I wouldn’t understand? And I wonder why they would think something like this would even be worth hiding. They arguably made it worse and added more strain to our bond because to my outside perspective, I could never know. Looking back, I realized how much of his life I never saw.
Recently, my English professor taught me a word called Sonder. It’s the realization that every random person is living a life just as vivid and complex as your very own. Everyone has their own story that they star as the main character in. In his words, “we all carry these invisible things that no one knows about.” And these things could be anything from financial stress, to grief, to insecurity. But for a lot of us, one of those invisible things could be disabilities. There’s a lot of invisible disabilities people carry with them. You may or may not find them in a medical book but they’re there. Things like chronic fatigue where energy for the day is limited. Simple chores like just doing dishes or even showering would have you exhausted. But to the outside eye, you just didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Or even things like color blindness that don’t allow you to see the vibrant world as it is. Never understanding the complexity of some like ‘iridescent’ because it’s something you just can’t process. Being unable to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures like sleeping, or being too anxious to even feel comfortable speaking. Things that you’d never know. I don’t write this to force you to become hyper aware and start accommodating everyone you walk past. I just want to give further perspective on something that might not be as thought about when it comes to disabilities. Out of sight, out of mind after all.
No matter how much she avoids speaking on it, I know my mom was depressed. And this disabled her from taking care of us. It’s hard to write this without it feeling like I want to make things about me but after all, I’m probably the person who I’d know the most about. Probably.
I remember a period where I neglected myself. I mentally couldn’t choose myself. I couldn’t choose to take care of my hygiene, my relationships, or my happiness. But to the outside world, what did I have going wrong? Both my parents are still in my life and together, they spoil the ever-loving hell out of me, I have a roof over my head, I can move at my free will. But everything that I was carrying was still so heavy. It stunted my ability to move with free will or be appreciative of anything I had going.
Nobody could ever know what was going through my mind at the darkest times, and vice versa. We unfortunately can’t just open each other’s brains and see inside. Well, I guess it’s not too unfortunate, because that actually sounds pretty gross. But it would be great to just come to an understanding. Society just leaves you with the question, how do you start getting the help you need even when you don’t look like you need it?
Instead of trying to find an answer, there’s side eyes when people see someone they perceive to be ‘too healthy’ to need a certain accommodation. I could imagine it’s like this weird sort of limbo. In a way you’re too disabled for the able-bodied but too able-bodied for the disabled. Huh.
I would never tell anyone what I was struggling with for fear of it being seen as not that serious because I’m too young to feel this way or it’s just teenage angst and I am over exaggerating. The need to hide something that’s already invisible is fascinating to me.
My parents made the invisible that much harder to see, to this day they may or may not even know that I know. Oh, and if you’re wondering, me and my brother’s relationship has actually gotten better. But everyone doesn’t have to make the same mistake we did. Treat your neighbor with respect, we’re all just trying to make our way around this huge rock in the middle of earth, and you never know just how much trouble someone’s having finding their way
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