This subject has received the most coverage over the years. It's something I needed to explore more than any other blog, having come into a relationship with a disability I didn't know I had. When anyone is born with a disability, they won’t always know how their disability will physically, mentally, psychologically or emotionally manifest itself, let alone how they may function in a relationship.
When anyone deals with a disability, they need to know about their disability. It’s important, not only for them, but for their spouse. It's not that others should or will have a problem, but living with a disability does bring about other issues.
For me, not knowing about my disability, meant I didn’t know about my symptoms. I didn’t know if having children and having a mental disability meant I would pass any of my symptoms on. Or what it meant for me or my spouse. Diagnosed too late at the age of 56, I know I have autism.
The point is that when you know you have a disability, and you know about your disability, you understand what can happen if you have children. Too late in my case, but highly likely, I have passed autism on.
Knowing is half the battle. It would have been great for both of us to have known what our issues were and been taught how best deal with them.
My parents tried to act like nothing was wrong, since they felt like it would have reflected badly on them. What kind of parents worry more about themselves than their own children?
Nobody taught either one of us how to live a normal life which could have been possible if we had been told about our issues from the beginning.
This is exactly why I have had such a difficult time with my life since they never explained much of anything to me. Only now do I understand why I have such a hard time dealing with people, seeing as I don't often relate to them.
I'm sure that's why I'm having bouts of insomnia, since I am trying to suppress 50 years of rage and am not able to contain it very well anymore.
I'm not a vulcan or an android, so I will have to accept that I am human, even as much as I don't want to be most of the time. I couldn't even bring myself to visit my parents' graves on Memorial Day seeing as I just don't feel that way about them.
I'm angry that they tortured and brainwashed me emotionally, to do their bidding, which destroyed my mind in the end and they never once apologized for it.
It's hard not to be upset, for you too I would imagine, when you wonder about all of the what ifs and what could have been. Now I just have to focus on trying to let go of as much anger as I can.
Thanks Randy. Yes, dealing with any disability is hard, physically, mentally and emotionally. It's even harder when new relationships are formed.
It's up to parents to help and support their children so that provisions are in place. Sad that didn't happen Randy. But being aware is half the battle and you have that, letting go is the other half of the battle.
Although letting go is slightly harder to do, I understand how you feel, it's made easier when we know that what happened to us has nothing to do with us and was never about us.
I gave up carrying other people's guilt I was carrying as my own. Instead we must deal with and let go of our own.