Disability Pride Month

Disability Pride? Jumping on an altered bandwagon? Well let me spell it out for you: like other marginalized groups, people with disabilities have been pitied, scorned, even demonized for health conditions they have little or no control over. After being beaten down that much, it takes extra effort for disabled people to realize how valuable they really are to society. And it’s long overdue that mental illness and injury are taken as seriously as physical illness and injury.

Sure, I go back to the prior century, where "mentally ill" and "retard" were common pejoratives. It doesn't take long going through the backlog of movies and TV to find such moments that are cringe-worthy by today's standards.

Then a few things shifted for me, starting with grappling with my own ADHD, a so-called disorder where focus does not come naturally to me. During the course of my adult life, I have learned to harness that mindset, rather than suppress it, like the AMA and educational entities tried to do. As a referee of Ice Hockey, I harnessed those periods of intense focus. And the distractibility came in handy: while focused on play in front of the net, I got distracted, by a slash in the corner of my eye, and I could call what other referees might understandably miss.

So that got me asking a simple question: why would I ever demonize someone with behavioral issues through no fault of their own? It's a fact that a very small minority of mental illness is violent, despite what Hollywood would STILL have you believe. So we should be treating someone with a mental disability the same as if they are in a wheelchair: do not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. The disabled can't do all of the usual things most people do, but they can almost always do SOME of those things.

That leads me to another major shift: meeting my wife. I met this quirky girl online. Then we met in person for the first time at a coffee shop in Seattle, then a local restaurant, then an apartment building common area, all on the same day. Yeah, we really hit it off! Approaching time to get married, I started to learn of her own struggles with ADD and related issues. But even with the shifting culture at the time, she desperately wanted to be "normal". That's the only reason I didn't know the full extent of her condition before getting married. Normal is just a cycle on the washing machine as our neurodiverse community would say.

I still accepted this unexpected additional burden to live with someone with a heart as big as hers. The full extent of her struggles eventually came out: ADHD exacerbated by severe Anxiety, due to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), that resulted from a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). Yep, her logic centers were physically damaged, but her creativity is extraordinary! She is now my boss, I am her Vice President of Logistics, and you know her as Mrs. Knits (a/k/a Boss Lady). Because while I am really good at the shipping, receiving, inventory, technology, and other logistics that my wife is not good at; I am terrible at entrepreneurship, marketing, and other creative endeavors that Bonnie is so good at!

Then came the most recent shift: the global pandemic. Everyone was cooped up for months on end, and realized that either they had struggles of their own, and/or know someone with mental health struggles. Medical insurance and providers are starting to catch up with the realities of providing adequate mental health care. No longer is it "we'll pay for a little bit of that if you REALLY need it". It's far from perfect just yet, but instead of whispered in the shadows and buried in medical websites, it's become a proactive check-in of how we are feeling. They finally realized the extensive mind-body connections that will lower their costs in the long run. My wife and I are thrilled that the medical establishment, and most other people, are catching up with what we have experienced for years.

There's a recent phrase that I really like: "Don't ask a fish to climb a tree". I would add "Don't ask a squirrel to swim in the ocean". May we all lead from our strengths while continuing to learn even more. Because whatever we are not so good at, there is someone else out there who is really good at it. To use another recent phrase, "you do you!"

We love our community of supporters and want to say thank you for supporting us on this wild ride called life. Happy Knitting! and Happy Crochet!