Last week I gave a talk about adjusting to disability for ninety 15 year old girls at a school in St.Albans.
Talking about myself is my specialist subject, and I am always happy to share my experiences, especially if it helps to improve understanding and awareness. I will be happy if all I manage to achieve is to make people ask if they can help rather than do nothing or steam in,assuming they know what to do.
After a twenty minute 'highlights' talk about my experiences, I opened the session up to questions, and hopefully a discussion. Silence. I rambled for a few more minutes and then tried again. One hand went up, then several more, and we were off. We ran out of time forty minutes later.
It was more Q and A than discussion, but I could sense that the students relished the opportunity to satisfy a curiosity in a way that they haven't been able to in the past. The questions were interesting, and often very practical. But most common were 'comparison questions,' such as:
"What do you miss most?"
It's difficult to answer that question, as the answer changes at any given moment. Probably most accurate would be,
"Whatever I couldn't do most recently."
But the experience of spinal cord injury is of an abrupt stopping of life. A stillness, an unpleasant silence.
The list of losses is exhaustive, exhausting, and not all revealed in one moment. It gets added to over a surprisingly long period of time, as some of the pleasures lost seem an irrelevance at first. Climbing a stile, for instance, or feeling wet grass between your toes.
But it is not a league table that can be ordered in straightforward terms. It is a collection of holes and I never know which one I will fall through next.
Talking about myself is my specialist subject, and I am always happy to share my experiences, especially if it helps to improve understanding and awareness. I will be happy if all I manage to achieve is to make people ask if they can help rather than do nothing or steam in,assuming they know what to do.
After a twenty minute 'highlights' talk about my experiences, I opened the session up to questions, and hopefully a discussion. Silence. I rambled for a few more minutes and then tried again. One hand went up, then several more, and we were off. We ran out of time forty minutes later.
It was more Q and A than discussion, but I could sense that the students relished the opportunity to satisfy a curiosity in a way that they haven't been able to in the past. The questions were interesting, and often very practical. But most common were 'comparison questions,' such as:
"What do you miss most?"
It's difficult to answer that question, as the answer changes at any given moment. Probably most accurate would be,
"Whatever I couldn't do most recently."
But the experience of spinal cord injury is of an abrupt stopping of life. A stillness, an unpleasant silence.
The list of losses is exhaustive, exhausting, and not all revealed in one moment. It gets added to over a surprisingly long period of time, as some of the pleasures lost seem an irrelevance at first. Climbing a stile, for instance, or feeling wet grass between your toes.
But it is not a league table that can be ordered in straightforward terms. It is a collection of holes and I never know which one I will fall through next.
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