Introduction

The biopsies of my life growing up fast and hard and being disabled in the real world is one that did not come easy. It took me over forty years to overcome it and a lot of the reason I was able to be because of my prayer life.

Understanding Trauma and Trust

Just like people in war come back with post-traumatic stress syndrome, people that are disabled that are abused by their peers also shut down their emotions, believing that they will not get hurt again. And this takes a long time to get over and to be willing to trust your peers and make friends again, and as I have talked with others that have been abused and not because they are disabled but because they have an abusive father or mother it takes a long time to find out and be able to understand relationship and trust others because someone is not taught respect.

My Family and Boundaries

I was lucky despite my parents' divorce; both of them treated their children with respect. The only problem I had was my parents gave me no boundaries, which in a way were good because my disabilities are my boundaries, and if I had not accepted those boundaries, I would have gone mad. As I did accept my boundaries, I also realized I am no different than anybody else because we all have boundaries in our lives, just whether we want to accept them or not, and my disabilities are visible but others may not be visible.

A Humorous Encounter

But like the child in the men's dressing room where I was getting dressed looked at me and asked me what happened and I said this is aware it came and its just because, and then he says it looks strange and then he said it looks like a chicken wing, I broke out laughing and just had to leave before his father started to apologize for his son's curiosity and honesty. And if I didn't have the sense of humor with this disability, I would go batty and there are a lot more stories that I could tell like this.

Sincerely yours, Andrew