Disability and manhood: Being a burden

At the urging of a few friends, I've decided to expand upon my previous post on this subject. I'm not one to mince words, so I figured I'd stab directly into the dark underbelly and see what oozes from the wound.

Growing up, we're taught that self-reliance is a major milestone in achieving authentic manhood. And then there's someone like me, who has never cooked a single meal or made a cup of tea, ever. The bitter irony of life with a disability (from my perspective, anyway) isn't the list of things you can't do for yourself, it's the time and effort people around you must sacrifice so that you can have something vaguely resembling a normal life.

Aside from regular sustenance, here's a partial list of the things I need help with on a daily basis:

• Bathing
• getting dressed
• using the toilet
• going anywhere that isn't within the confines of my home
• getting onstage at karaoke bars (just kidding, I would only sing under threat of death...perhaps not even then).

To complete each of these, as well as hundreds more infinitely mundane things, someone else has to be actively involved, instead of doing the stuff they'd rather do. Even though my family and friends frequently tell me that they don't mind helping out, being the guy who always needs help results in periods of deep guilt and self-loathing. From there, it's just a short mental hop to "Everyone else's life would be easier if I were dead."

I know it's a gross over-simplification and fortunately, these feelings are offset by doing well in my work or brightening someone's day. What this boils down to, as life so often does, is an ongoing balancing act. I'm just happy I'm able to spend most of my time rightside-up.  

Disability and manhood

What does it mean to be a man? In many ways, I'm a traditionalist; I believe that manhood is defined by how consistently we uphold our personal values and moral codes, regardless of society's fickle whims. As I see it, manhood has very little to do with whether you care about sports or even your sexual orientation.

To truly be considered a man, you must make your own choices and have the strength of character to accept their consequences. If you want respect from others, you have to prove yourself worthy because despite what many in the current generation of young adults seem to believe, it isn't something to which one is automatically entitled, simply for having been born.

At the start of this piece, I called myself a traditionalist, but I'm also a cerebral palsied quadriplegic who needs a lot of help in daily life, even with some of the most basic tasks. So how do I reconcile these two concepts?

I refuse to be a victim or blame others for the circumstances in which I must live. When people with disabilities are featured in the mainstream media, we are still commonly typecast either as tragedies or inspirations. However, what I consider more disturbing is seeing sites with a specific focus on disability running articles in which people drone on about how someone called them an "offensive" word or how the world should change on a fundamental level so that they don't ever feel excluded.

Let me be clear; I believe that every reasonable measure should be taken to make public spaces as accessible as they can be. What people need to realise though is that whether we like it or not, those with disabilities are an abnormality of the human condition and we cannot fairly expect to be catered for at all times.

Perhaps the chief characteristic of manhood is realising that life in our world very seldom treats us as we'd like, and continuing to move forward without collapsing into a puddle of self-pity and resentment.