So… people ‘ ahead of me’ time-wise, in the paralysis game, told me that post injury, the dynamic with friends changes. Most friends drift away, they said. It’s all a bit too much for the normals to keep up the charity element, they said.
In my own case, I am paralysed and now divorced too, so there’s another reason why people might disappear.
The thing is, that no matter how much you try to logicalise it, for the wheelchairists there’s always the little voice that says ‘ it’s because you’re in a wheelchair that they are like that ‘. It doesn’t matter that you are told otherwise, the voice is still persuading you that the wheelchair is the real reason.
When i don’t get invited to things now that I definitely would have been invited to before, it’s really not a good thing for me to spend time thinking about it, and i try very hard not to.
Except the bloody voice won’t let it be..
Tomorrow is a party that I’d have been invited to, probably before anyone else was. Now I’m not invited at all. I’ll do something else, for sure, but the little voice won’t let up. ‘ It’s because you’re in the wheelchair mate, not because they don’t like you anymore….’
That’s a lovely choice, isn’t it?
Of course, it could be both. You’re in a wheelchair AND they don’t like you…