I hate when a character becoming disabled is treated overall like a tragedy. What I am confused about is that losing an ability does cause a struggle to adapt and some mourning which, in my personal experience, really sucks. The frustration of relearning how to eat without the use of a thumb is real, but someone who can’t use their thumb shouldn’t be assumed to have a worse life. A character starting to need a mobility aid isn’t something to be pitied, but someone who has always loved to run no longer being able to participate in that hobby is usually distressing. What are tips / ways to show the negative emotions that come with losing an ability without making the reader think becoming disabled / more disabled is overall a bad thing
Thank you for any advice! This blog is really helpful
- @writeintrees
Hello,
I think it's just the regular idea that sometimes things can be objectively harder, and it doesn't mean it's hopeless or tragic.
Immigration is hard. Going through a break-up and back to the dating scene is hard. Being poor is hard. Being an ER doctor is hard. Seeking asylum is hard. Having your parents divorce is hard. We don't need to pretend there are no difficulties, or that everyone is uwu awesome all the time.
There are symptoms that are horrible. You experience ableism. Structural barriers. Everything is expensive. You lose the ability to do certain things, and you have to spend a lot of time or money on others. Those things are, for the most part, included in the "becoming disabled" package and they are overall bad. Acknowledging that is just being honest about the situation, disability by definition results in limitations in various life activities.
There is also the community. You meet new people, many that you'd have never met otherwise. Gain a new perspective on things. You might discover new hobbies or sports. Maybe you learn a new culture. A new language, if you become Deaf. Some people even find religion, spirituality, or some other deeper meaning in their experience. As time passes, you get used to some of the bad things from the previous paragraph, you learn how to work around the others, and you simply keep living with the ones that still piss you off. There might not be a time when a cervical spine injury stops causing you physical pain, but there might be a time when you manage your opioids as just another part of your day before picking up your son from school.
The key is to find balance. We don't need "pushing through chronic pain" to show that it's not that bad, we need a community that will help and be there when the chronic pain is, in fact, too bad to deal with. Does it suck that maybe you won't be able to go out because you have to stay in bed -- yes. It literally just does. But maybe your friends love you, and will come hang out with you rather than leaving you alone.
Similarly, it does suck if your entire life was soccer and you lose your leg. You first go through shock. Then the 5 stages of grief, in a randomized order, like three to ten times. It's all meaningless and over and all that. But human beings generally try to find solutions and adapt, grieving forever is not exactly helpful. So maybe you try to go back to playing, but on crutches. It either does or doesn't work. Maybe your prosthetist gives you a flyer from a local amputee soccer team that's looking for players. Will it be the same -- no. It could be worse, just too different, or it could be better, because you are now around people who you know for a fact understand you. And if it doesn't work out? You try other stuff. Maybe you end up playing water polo, because it's the one sport where you feel "like before". Or get into video games about sports, or start doing videos about soccer and talk about it with others online. Maybe you never fully find your "thing", and just hop from hyperfixation to hyperfixation looking for what hits right, ending up exposed to hobbies you never even considered doing before. At least you're no longer just playing a stage of grief slot machine.
I just don't think disability is fundamentally different from any other makes-your-life-harder event. It's like if you had a partner, but ended up breaking up or divorcing. You cycle through stages of grief, tell yourself it's over and horrible forever, all that ad nauseam. But eventually you'll probably meet someone new. Now, it won't be the same person. Maybe they're worse in some things, or do some differently, and you're not used to them. But they have their own charm too, and you eventually learn how to function together. At no point do you develop amnesia about your past relationship, but you're satisfied with where you are now regardless. I don't think this ending would be a bad thing.
There doesn't have to be a moment where the character 100% accepts their disability with everything that comes with it. I don't think most people do. I don't like the way my eyes work or hurt from such rare events as "sunlight", but I simply try to adapt to the way they are. There's really not much choice.
The disability experience simply has parts that are bad. There is no way of genuinely showing pissing yourself or having a migraine as a positive thing, I don't think there's literally any point in pretending these are pleasant. But they're just one part of life of that disabled person. If the positive parts are shown too, it won't be solely bad.
mod Sasza