My accident last year - June 24 - changed my life. It’s been a ride, as I’ve slowly learned to walk with the prosthetic - been independent - faced new problems and learned again. It’s a process and suddenly I have a lot of stuff to think about.
Quite often it is the smallest things that are the things I have to take care of. Stuff that I used to take for granted before. Getting out of bed, even small stuff like using the washroom, steps, slopes, and slightly uneven terrain and being mindful of every feeling I might get on my prosthetic leg (usually the pressure-type feeling, not a real skin-touch feeling).
But as I slowly settle into life, finding some normalcy in this sea of new terrain, one thing that has really irritated me repeatedly is when people say it's easy.
The entire journey of a person with an amputation is to ‘look normal’. You can never ‘feel normal’ that’s literally impossible. But you can strive to have a similar(better?) mindset and to look normal. In fact, one of the biggest struggles that amputees (or in general handicapped people) face is that people suddenly don’t take them seriously. It might be partially due to a loss of self-confidence, but it's also because society suddenly sees you as a ‘lesser’.
But in the past few months, I’ve come across three instances when people have said - It’s easy.
It’s not. It’s not easy. It might ‘look easy’ because I want it to look as close to normal. But every step requires me to think, every action requires me to contemplate how it will affect my balance, how it might pain me in the groin etc. It’s difficult, and I am pulling it off very well if you think it's easy.
I can understand people not understanding my problems. Even my relatives, some of whom have stayed with me (my parents, and brother), cannot understand my problems. And that’s because it's impossible. You can’t relate to my experience because there’s no way for you to even think about it.
For eg. if I were to tell you how wearing jeans might feel, you can relate. You can even try it out. That’s not really possible with amputation, is it? (well, it is technically, but are you going to do that?)
Anyways, my point is I understand you not relating to 99.5% of the things I experience. But no one, and I repeat, no one should say it’s easy. That sentence triggers me so much.
I’m not perfect, I’m far from it. I’ve seen people who have more handicap than me lead amazing lives. But that’s what we see on YouTube, the reality, quite often is much more difficult for the person undergoing. I’m ok with pity (don’t like it), I’m okay with people praising me and everything. But anyone who says it's easy, I hate that.
I don’t speak up much about it because I give them the benefit of the doubt. They don’t know the full picture, but I still feel it's sufficient to say it's not easy is easy to understand right?
Just needed to get this off my chest. Relatives and people don’t often understand my plight. All I ask is not to disregard my efforts at rehabilitation. That shit hurts.
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