Comparison

 “Comparison is the thief of all joy” – President Theodore Roosevelt

Oi oi oi, where to start with this one.

Firstly i don’t think I’ve written an actual blog page post for almost a year, so if you are here and reading this, hello, and thank you for taking the time – it means the absolute world to me.

I want to try to share some of my thoughts on the subject of comparison because it’s a common theme in my mental wellbeing peaks and troughs. I want to preface with the fact that I understand comparison is something that anyone can struggle with, or thrive off I guess. In this post though, I’m speaking from my lived experiences as a disabled gal and for me the negatives it creates. 

Not so long ago I would never have dreamed of calling myself disabled IRL never mind publishing it online for anyone to read. Some of you will already know, but for anyone new, or if you’ve forgotten, here’s a quick backstory rundown.

Age two I caught a virus and had an auto-immune response where my body produced too many white blood cells to kill off the virus and with the remaining antibodies, it attacked my peripheral nervous system resulting in the messaging pathways from my brain being destroyed. Growing up, having my medical condition was all I knew, and that’s what I usually called it. The term disabled was never really in my vocabulary at a younger age, it just wasn’t ever used when adults were talking about me and despite the countless hospital appointments I don’t have any distinct memory of feeling othered. 

Fast forward through teens and twenties and as humans we grow from, and in, our environments, experience more complex emotions and learn new things all the time. If you take a second to think about what you’ve learned about disability from TV, movies, media, societal narratives I would bet money on for any positive information there would be triple the amount of negative. Am I right?

Speaking honestly, I learned that disabled people were singled out as kind of weird, not really seen the same as non-disabled people. Treated ‘differently’ and often the butt of the joke. There was absolutely no positive representation anywhere and naturally I grew to hate any association to the word disabled and any comparison to the pitied lives society sold the picture of. 

With this underlying detachment from anything associated with disability yet living in my physically disabled body, I created a really toxic thought pattern where everyday, over everything, I would compare my actual experiences to a make-believe non-disabled me, based on what I saw non-disabled people around me functioning like. Although I’ve always had good friends and done really amazing things, I always compared my life to what I would be doing if I wasn’t disabled. Things I’d be doing with friends, who I would be ‘worthy’ of dating, aspirations and goals I would achieve/work towards as a non-disabled person. Did it all. 

I never spoke openly about this as I probably didn’t know I was doing it half the time, and never realised that it was negative, it was just my norm. My body is different and has different abilities so I always wished it didn’t so I could do things the same way everyone else did. [Go teenage conformity – woo]

Only a few years ago, as I was sitting outside a campervan somewhere in the South Island of New Zealand I really made a conscious decision that this way of thinking was no longer serving me at all. As I had been growing into my own comfortability over the years prior I was becoming more confident in my life and not having to have a vicarious subconscious ideology of being non-disabled – only took me 25 odd years. I do think as we get older there is a desire to please people less and it’s not as important to fit in certain ways that seem imperative when we’re younger which helped too.

This moment for me felt like an epiphany. A decision that has changed my life since. I didn’t want to hide a whole huge part of me anymore and as a first big step I posted the first picture online of me in my wheelchair. (Obviously made it joke like to appease my self-deprecating defence mechanism but hey – progress is progress). Previous to this I maybe slipped a splint in once or twice, always only on holiday and with the justfication (if I ever needed one) of it being really hot so I only had them out to be cool enough – absolutely not because I thought it was acceptable for them/me to just be.  From this sentence alone, although the decision happened in a moment, it was going to be anything but a quick solve. I had a lot to unlearn. A LOT to unpack. There are a lot of posts about unlearning and deconstructing ableism on my IG feed but if you have any questions then definitely let me know. 

Taking another jump forward a couple of years and life now looks pretty much a cycle of waves which the majority of the time I can sit quite comfortably in. Learning from the highs and most definitely from the lows.  It helps me to identify common themes, tipping points/’triggers’ if you will. If I’m feeling down, obsessively negative and overwhelmed with life the one sure fire ugly root of it all is comparison. 

I compare my physical abilities to that of my friends when we are hanging out or have things to do which leads to inadequacy and guilt for *thinking* I’m holding them back or slowing them down. I compare my appearance to those with different builds and aesthetics and non-disabled bodies. I compare my value as a friend/partner/employee/human to people who don’t experience my disabled life. I compare myself to other disabled people and feel like I shouldn’t even bother writing this because it’s not worth anything, I’m not as disabled as some so why does my experience matter? Comparing myself to others feeds my soul inadequacy, grief, invalidity, self-loathing, negative self-talk, depression periods, increased anxiety and rock bottom self-worth and honestly loneliness.  

Now I’m going to try to not be too cliche or airy fairy here but also not unrealistic either. It would be untrue of me to round off this post by saying it’s all about switching those feelings off or not believing them because for me, and I think a lot of other people, when we are in a wave of intrusive thoughts it can seem absolutely impossible to snap out of it and go back to thinking everything is good. 

I mentioned just above that I live somewhat comfortably in a cycle of these waves which might sound ludacris, but the comfort for me comes in knowing that it is a wave. I don’t have a quick fix solution to snap out of these moods but I am able to now recognise and reassure myself that it will pass. This has given me a lot more control even when it feels like I’ll not make it out the other side. 

I guess I’ve achieved this through perseverance and trial and error. I’ve come such a long way, from comparing my life to what it would be like if I was non-disabled EVERY SINGLE DAY, to fighting through and breaking it down into these waves. I don’t anticipate the waves but having a realistic outlook that they might happen takes away the shock and allows me to have safe resources in place – whether that be unquestioned duvet days, friends ‘in-the-loop’ but who don’t need justifications, just open lines of communications.  

I 1m% have happy/unphased periods too, and you best believe when I am of rational thinking I know I am a bad Bi$$$$$$$H, a class worker, a damn good friend. I know my worth is not attached to my physical ability or what differences my disabled body has. Snacks come in all varieties!!!

If you can relate to this in any way and feel like reaching out then please do. Be open to others helping you because you’re worth it and you’re also worth helping yourself. We don’t need to compare ourselves to others, it serves no purpose because we will never be them. I am always eager to learn new information and techniques and ways of thinking to enrich the fulfilling times and continually shrink the harder times. 

I wouldn’t say the waves necessarily get easier but I try to give myself the best shot at minimising and surviving their occurrences. I’d really love to be in a relationship again someday soon and this is my longest running hurdle I have to battle to let someone in in that capacity. Comparing myself to others tells me noone would want to choose me as a girlfriend because of my disability, ableism tells me no boys will want me as a disabled girlfriend when they could have a non-disabled one. 

But then I thankfully remember… and what do we say to comparison and ableism??????????????????????????????

ALL TOGETHER NOW