Originally posted on My Mending Wall:
As I was growing up in a home where I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused, where the adults were addicted to substances such as alcohol or drugs, where chaos thrived, I lived in denial. Even when I knew in my mind and in my heart that something was amiss, but wasn’t sure what; that my life was unmanageable, but wasn’t sure why; that…
5 WAYS TO SOOTHE VERBAL BLUNDERS
Open mouth, insert foot. It’s the verbal version of walking through the restaurant with toilet paper on your shoe. We’ve all experienced the mortification of poor verbal choices. Sometimes, embarrassing stuff just happens. Letting those blunders happen more often than not, though, is a problem that goes beyond stuff that sometimes happens. In fact, as I describe on my website www.BeingHeardNow.,com, verbal pratfalls reflect how good your communication skills are overall. Luckily, […]
VERBAL OOPSES
I was in the health food store yesterday and helped a little girl, about 8 years old, who couldn’t reach the roll of plastic food bags. When I left the store, I saw her standing with an older woman; I smiled at the woman and asked if the little blonde was her granddaughter. In halting, Scandinavian-accented English she told me no, the little girl was her daughter. Hoping my embarrassment didn’t show I went […]
SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!
Twenty seven years ago, when David and I first married, among the things I heard him say was that he wanted “an independent woman” as a wife. To someone like me, who has m.s. and who learned in childhood that playing “the victim” was the way to being loved, that description of “independent” was scary. Not because of working, because I always have, but from the standpoint of not being […]
How Come It’s “We’re Pregnant” But It’s Not “We’re Disabled”?
I don’t know when it became fashionable to identify pregnancy as an adventure à deux. It always seemed lopsided that pregnancy excluded men from throwing up, having swollen ankles and shrewish moods. I’m not even talking about all those forever changes like stretch marks, a bigger butt, and wider hips. With the possibility of gestational diabetes, postpartum depression, or miscarriage, the adventure becomes a challenge, albeit one that affects the […]
“If you have multiple sclerosis, you’re treated with respect.”
The following assertion was made by Maxine Cunningham, founder and director of Empowered Walking Enterprise/Ministries. My response follows. “Dignity is not a word that we often hear in connection with how we treat persons with a chronic mental illness – YES if you have cancer, ALS, multiple sclerosis, etc. Dignity and full personhood – that we might be whole.” As a therapist with multiple sclerosis, and a Board member of the Invisible Disabilities […]
Don’t park there! You’re not handicapped!
The note felt angry. Certainly blaming. Obviously rude. I understood because I’ve left that kind of note, but only on windshields without placards. No takers when the manager of the Goodwill store where I was shopping made the following announcement (I had to bully her first): WILL WHOEVER LEFT A NOTE ON THE CAR OUT FRONT PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT OF THE STORE. I wanted to have the opportunity […]
Stop and listen. Be reminded.
Every now and then, the background becomes foreground, and I stop. And I listen. And I’m reminded. I hope this song will do the same for you.
CAN I BORROW YOUR FINGER FOR A SEC?
Here’s a news flash: stress can make you sick. Maybe you haven’t gotten the message that stress can have a permanent effect on chronic illness. Clouds your thinking, screws up your judgment. Gives you the weepies and the angries. Can take away your will to vacuum the house or cook a meal. The effects of stress on the mood and memory components of your brain can get screwed up […]
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