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The Toughest Arena
Oct. 4th, 2019 11:30 amAre you sure you want to stay with a person who’s going to be in a wheelchair for life?
The toughest arena I have to face probably looks like paradise to everyone else.
14 years ago I met a person who would later become my spouse. They were one of the most amazing people I’d ever met. They also had an absolutely terrifying family.
I’m not saying they’re the worst in-laws in the world. They love me, and they’ve done their best to accept me... in their own way. But they might be among the most difficult people I, personally, could have had as in-laws.
Soon after spouse and I got together, I became very ill. I lost a lot of my already-not-great mobility. Spouse was wonderful. In their mind, I was still the person they loved, so why would they consider leaving me? But their family asked them The Question. Are you sure you want to stay with a person who’s going to be in a wheelchair for life? And that was just the beginning.
Every time we tried to be ourselves together, it was a problem for this family. One of their parents, at least, was homophobic, and I represented that issue embodied. Both parents wanted the spouse to have children, and I’m the reason spouse hasn’t given them grandchildren. The list goes on and on.
My in-laws come from a level of privilege that I would have found unimaginable before I met them. They’ve worked for their money, but I find it incredibly intimidating, coming as I do from a middle-class family who really struggled to make ends meet until I was 7 or so.
They’re a family that values appearances. Respectability. Excellence.
I present a challenge to all those things.
For the best part of 14 years, I’ve been rumbling with how this all makes me feel. I feel horribly ashamed of my body around them - for a while I wouldn’t even use my wheelchair around them, and it’s still stressful to use it with them now. I’m ashamed of being autistic and, relatedly, very demonstratively emotional. That’s not respectable. I’m ashamed of my dyslexia, which prevents me from learning their language well, which I *hate* about myself because my spiritual codes of hospitality say I should be learning their language, and they remind me often that I should be, too. But I can’t.
We used to stay in my mother-in-law’s house when we visited the in-laws (they live abroad). We don’t anymore. I put my foot down, and it caused some serious frustration for my spouse, but I couldn’t handle the way I felt about myself *on a minute-by-minute basis* without being able to get a break from them all.
I’m about to go abroad on holiday (vacation) with them for a family celebration. I nearly didn’t agree to go. Most people would think I was an idiot for even contemplating not going - they were offering to pay for me to come to the kind of resort I would never be able to think about affording otherwise. But for months, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I can handle a family holiday in close proximity to all of them, in a place where it might be hard get my own space. But family is important to my in-laws. All of us being together is important to them. This celebration is important to them. It’s actually really sweet that they want me there. It’s just going to be so hard.
I leave to join them at the resort tomorrow. For the 24 hours before, I’ve come to my little retreat - it’s called the House of Prayer. It’s really lovely and quiet, with lots of space to think. I’m trying to sort out my head before I spend 5 days with the in-laws. I plan to write lots of Extra Shitty First Drafts (which have been having a really interesting positive effect for me, ove the past couple of weeks). And meditate. And anything else that helps with what some Pagans call shadow work, which seems to be a theme of my life recently. (I rather annoyingly forgot my colouring books. The one more thing they need here is an art room!)
I expect the coming week to be a serious arena of confronting shame about myself, and attempts to set boundaries so I can minimize that a bit. No clue how that’s going to go. Argh.
[I’ll set this post to friends-only soon, but I wanted a bit of time with it out in the world. Sometimes, owning my own story is about telling it in public - even anonymously - when I’ve kept it inside for a long time.]
The toughest arena I have to face probably looks like paradise to everyone else.
14 years ago I met a person who would later become my spouse. They were one of the most amazing people I’d ever met. They also had an absolutely terrifying family.
I’m not saying they’re the worst in-laws in the world. They love me, and they’ve done their best to accept me... in their own way. But they might be among the most difficult people I, personally, could have had as in-laws.
Soon after spouse and I got together, I became very ill. I lost a lot of my already-not-great mobility. Spouse was wonderful. In their mind, I was still the person they loved, so why would they consider leaving me? But their family asked them The Question. Are you sure you want to stay with a person who’s going to be in a wheelchair for life? And that was just the beginning.
Every time we tried to be ourselves together, it was a problem for this family. One of their parents, at least, was homophobic, and I represented that issue embodied. Both parents wanted the spouse to have children, and I’m the reason spouse hasn’t given them grandchildren. The list goes on and on.
My in-laws come from a level of privilege that I would have found unimaginable before I met them. They’ve worked for their money, but I find it incredibly intimidating, coming as I do from a middle-class family who really struggled to make ends meet until I was 7 or so.
They’re a family that values appearances. Respectability. Excellence.
I present a challenge to all those things.
For the best part of 14 years, I’ve been rumbling with how this all makes me feel. I feel horribly ashamed of my body around them - for a while I wouldn’t even use my wheelchair around them, and it’s still stressful to use it with them now. I’m ashamed of being autistic and, relatedly, very demonstratively emotional. That’s not respectable. I’m ashamed of my dyslexia, which prevents me from learning their language well, which I *hate* about myself because my spiritual codes of hospitality say I should be learning their language, and they remind me often that I should be, too. But I can’t.
We used to stay in my mother-in-law’s house when we visited the in-laws (they live abroad). We don’t anymore. I put my foot down, and it caused some serious frustration for my spouse, but I couldn’t handle the way I felt about myself *on a minute-by-minute basis* without being able to get a break from them all.
I’m about to go abroad on holiday (vacation) with them for a family celebration. I nearly didn’t agree to go. Most people would think I was an idiot for even contemplating not going - they were offering to pay for me to come to the kind of resort I would never be able to think about affording otherwise. But for months, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I can handle a family holiday in close proximity to all of them, in a place where it might be hard get my own space. But family is important to my in-laws. All of us being together is important to them. This celebration is important to them. It’s actually really sweet that they want me there. It’s just going to be so hard.
I leave to join them at the resort tomorrow. For the 24 hours before, I’ve come to my little retreat - it’s called the House of Prayer. It’s really lovely and quiet, with lots of space to think. I’m trying to sort out my head before I spend 5 days with the in-laws. I plan to write lots of Extra Shitty First Drafts (which have been having a really interesting positive effect for me, ove the past couple of weeks). And meditate. And anything else that helps with what some Pagans call shadow work, which seems to be a theme of my life recently. (I rather annoyingly forgot my colouring books. The one more thing they need here is an art room!)
I expect the coming week to be a serious arena of confronting shame about myself, and attempts to set boundaries so I can minimize that a bit. No clue how that’s going to go. Argh.
[I’ll set this post to friends-only soon, but I wanted a bit of time with it out in the world. Sometimes, owning my own story is about telling it in public - even anonymously - when I’ve kept it inside for a long time.]
