Tag: Disenfranchised Grief

Who I am feels inaccessible to me.

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

I know that’s a weird statement, but bear with me a second. I’ve posted several times about the disconnected feel between my body and my mind, and that can make who I am feel inaccessible to me.

Like I’m never going to get to be the person I’m supposed to have been. Or myself if that’s any different. I’m that alone, doesn’t mean that my life is any less than anyone else’s as I make the best of it. It can put a lot of pressure on the life I lead now, make the decisions I make my life more important.

Failure hits harder when you have less chances to win.

My brain hasn’t got up with the idea that my body means there are less choices for me in society. And honestly, I’m not sure that it ever will. I think as a result who I am supposed to be is never going to feel reachable to me as a result. And who I’ve ended up being doesn’t feel like who I was supposed to be.

This is something that I think people understand a little more when there’s a visible change in someone’s circumstances. When the illness or disability is sudden and the effects noticeable. It’s seems like grief can be understood when change is involved. When it’s something you’ve had to deal with all your life, people seem to think you’ve already adjusted to it, so they’d be no grief involved.

But there is. And it’s valid.

Life involves a lot of grief that is hard for people that haven’t experienced it to understand. But that doesn’t make the feelings they feel less valid.

Mothers Day 2024

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment
Image Description: A picture of a photo collage of my 3 furbabies.

The first picture is the largest one of my yellow labrador Immy, lying on my bed.

The second picture to the top is of my caviler king charles Bella sitting on the floor. They are both looking at the camera.

The final picture is of Ellis my grey cat with white patches who is side ways on to the camera.

The text above the pictures reads: “Thank you to my babies for making me a mum 🤎💛🩶”

Having no children, and knowing that that’s not possible, makes Mothers Day difficult. The older I get, the more of the people around me have children and move on with their lives, the harder it gets.

But the furbabies make it easier.

Sometimes I think I’m not allowed to feel the feelings today, because disenfranchised grief like this is never understood.

And it’s even harder for me to explain or feel because of that. So today I just did my best to ignore it all.

But if you’re feeling these feelings I just want you to know I see you.

Losing my mum has made this day even harder.

I’m sorry if this post doesn’t make a lot of sense. I feel very frazzled writing it.

Feeling some feelings.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

My response to someone’s Facebook post in a CNBC group that I’m in. I became really emotive while writing it and I thought maybe I’d share it with you all.

I know where you’re coming from I think. The idea that people thing any life is obtainable because you don’t have children is so deeply untrue. I’m disabled and poor. The entire world is built against people like me. Less than 100 years ago. I’d have been left for dead. So no I can’t just live my best life without kids. But even if that were possible, even if everything else lined up in the world to allow me to do that, none of it makes that the life I wanted. Any life I live, even if it one day becomes a good life, even if by comparison to others it is already a good life. Will never be the life I dreamed of, the life I wanted to lead. And there’s an element of grief involved in that. Feelings that need to be felt. Feelings that go without respect. Because at least you can…. No. I can’t. And thank you very much for just pointing out something else unreachable.

This is your reminder, and my reminder of a few important feelings. It’s okay to grief the life you wanted, it’s okay to have bad days where that’s all you can think about. Feeling how you feel doesn’t undo the good going on in your life now. Find ways to let it out. You deserve to be allowed to grieve, just like everyone else. You don’t need to be happy all of the time just because the rest of the world wants you to be. Your happiness is not something that exists to make everybody else feel better about their own life. Your happiness and your emotions are about you and no one else.

I had to say goodbye to who I thought I was going to be.

On By Katy DalyIn Writing PromptsLeave a comment

I miss my mum of course, but this is of course not an inaccessibile situation, unless you believe that the world is completely inaccessibile when you loose someone you love, and honestly I’m trying to figure that out. But as a disabled person they’re other things I grieve, and struggle to say goodbye to.

Describe the last difficult “goodbye” you said.

There was a point in my life where I thought one day I would suddenly no longer be disabled. This was because there was so little representation of adults with my condition, I literally thought it was something that you grew out of when you became an adult.

So at some point in my life I had to say goodbye to the person I thought I would one day be. I had to accept my limitations, more accurately the limitations placed on me by the world I live in. And revaluate what I want to achieve within the realm of that.

I don’t like that the word limits me. But I owe it to myself to recognise that these limitations, and to not allow myself to feel guilty for not overcoming them.

Within this, I faced several goodbye within myself, several elements I had to let go of. The idea of being a dancer, the idea of being a parent, the idea of being able to live independently, the idea of being a teacher as my primary source of income. These are all things I wanted for my life that I have had to let go of.

As disabled people I think we need to allow ourselves to deal and process our disenfranchised grief. There is no shame or devaluation from any emotions. And I believe pretending that I don’t feel them, as I tried to do for many years, doesn’t actually mean I didn’t feel them.

This mantra applies to so many areas of my life, which suggests I am dealing with a lot of goodbyes to myself and a lot of areas of grief and disenfranchised grief.

Whatever you feel about a situation is valid, and you should be allowed to feel that without guilt. You are allowed to struggle, I am allowed to struggle with saying goodbye to who I thought I could be and who I wanted to be.

Miss you forever mummy 💜