I lived with a disability I didn't know about.
It's not news, but looking backwards, after living your life, you can see just how much becomes understandable that wasn't understandable at the time. I made my choices with no knowledge, as if my life were 'normal.'
And it didn't happen in any other way. My parents know that. There is freedom in me accepting that.
I cannot hold myself responsible for choices I might have made differently had I possessed knowledge that I simply didn't possess. I cannot demand that the person I was should somehow have understood what nobody had explained.
It happened. It didn't happen in any other way.
But there is another truth, and acceptance can't erase it:
It should have.
I should have known.
Not because I should somehow have worked it out for myself, but because living with a disability without knowing you have it changes the choices available to you. You interpret difficulties differently. You explain yourself to yourself and if asked, to others differently. You make decisions from an incomplete understanding of your own life.
But there is also judgement.
Presenting differently is noticeably different. And being noticeably different courts attention. When your disability is mild, it's harder to brush off, because the obvious signs aren't there. Neither is the sympathy you might get: like with a broken leg.
This is where I need to separate acceptance from approval.
I can accept that my life happened exactly as it happened without pretending.
I don't need to invent another past, because there isn't one.
But I am allowed to look at the past I do have and say:
It didn't happen in any other way.
The physical support was there.
I missed out on not knowing, and having no mental and emotional support to help me.
I should have.
Both are true.
