Why I Published A Picture of a 24-Year-Old Looking Bored With a Stuffed Dragon

Like many people, I recently saw a picture of a disabled teenage boy in his underwear. I'm not going to post the picture since I don't find it appropriate or appealing to distribute near-naked pictures of minors. If you don't know about the picture, it was the main picture on an NPR article about the boy's parents and their experiences taking care of him. Now you have enough information to find this picture--and what 16-year-old wouldn't be thrilled if the entire Internet community could find a picture like this of them?

It's true that most 16-year-olds wouldn't like it at all, but almost no one considers your perspective if you have a severe disability.  When disabled people complained about the picture, NPR ran another piece defending their decision and a bunch of non-disabled people made comments about how beautiful and important and meaningful the picture was.  All these people--the author of the new piece, the photographer, and most of the commenters--failed to comprehend any of the complaints that had been made. It is amazing how much people just refuse to hear information that has to do with disabled people having a perspective.

To hear them talk, the only people who had problems with the picture were just weenies who were shocked to see an image that refers to personal care.  The commenters especially seemed to feel that they were crusading for great justice, shutting down a bunch of Cloudcuckoolanders who want to remain unaware of the fact that some people need this kind of care and it can take a physical toll on their family members. The popular phrase was, "When I look at the picture I don't see all the stuff you're complaining about, I just see LOVE."

Most importantly, this is bullheaded ignorance of the fact that a)disabled people have opinions, b)most people would not like a picture like this to be distributed of themselves so it's a double standard, and c)no reference was ever made to the boy, Justin, being asked his opinion, nor whether he was able to give his opinion.

But on another note, I'd like to put forth my disabled opinion that this simply isn't a very good picture and that it represents neither love nor the real experience of caring for a severely disabled person. I'm not a parent, nor do I expect to ever be able to be one because of my disability; but my job is taking care of a severely disabled person, who I happen to love. My job involves personal care sometimes (how shocking), but also endless attempts to take good pictures of Anna. She doesn't care about pictures, but her dad is a photographer, her mom is an artist, and I am a member of the Selfie Generation, so we feel compelled to document every adorable and interesting thing that Anna does. Since Anna is quite adorable and interesting, she has to contend with this kind of thing pretty often.

Here are some of my pictures that I consider bad:

I consider them bad because they don't do what a picture should do--show who a person is. In the first picture, Anna is not looking at the camera and her face isn't visible. In the second picture, she is visible, but she is tired or lost in thought, so her personality is not portrayed in the picture. Actually it's not a great example of a really bad picture, because she sort of has an expression. The point is that in many candid pictures of Anna, she looks very blank and much more like a stereotype of a severely disabled person than she does in real life.

Here are some pictures I'm proud of, because they show Anna's personality.

 

I'm not a very good photographer, but I can sometimes get accurate pictures of Anna just by choosing the right time and talking to her while I'm taking the picture so she is interacting with me instead of hiding from the camera. Or I might take a picture of her while she is doing something she really likes to do or interacting with someone else. This seems pretty obvious, yet Andrew Nixon of NPR did not seem to think doing this was important. If you cut out the "shocking" part of the picture (that the boy is almost naked and his dad is carrying him) this is the supposedly loving image that you get.

I feel he could have taken a better picture of the dad too, but the most obvious problem is that you can't see the son's face. He might be smiling back at his dad, but you really can't tell because of the angle, and you have to work hard to even guess what his expression might be. I don't see the love or realism in this picture because I can't see the connection and interaction between the father and son. Some people think that taking care of a severely disabled person is just a heroic task where you cart around someone who doesn't even know you're there, but that's not reality. It's not unrequited love.

Andrew Nixon took a picture of two people, and failed to take it from an angle that included both of the people in the picture.  Without the "shocking" parts, it's obviously a bad picture. Rather than people not liking the picture because it's too shocking, it seems to me that people who like this picture like it only because they find it shocking.

The article includes another picture, where Justin is getting physical therapy. No one has much of an expression, and Justin especially almost looks like he is asleep. I don't really mind this one too much though, since it was not used to illustrate the article and everyone is fully clothed. Finally, at the end of the article, is an actually good picture of Justin. It looks to me like someone who Justin actually relates to (i.e., not the photographer who obviously doesn't know how to interact with him) has stepped in between him and Nixon.

Justin is at his birthday party, and clearly interested in what's going on. I think he's not looking at his cupcake as you might expect, but at a person he likes. Anna's dad also thought this was the best picture in the article and should have been highlighted because, "he's with it; he's paying attention."

There were a few comments on the article from people who thought Justin had, and I quote, "no cognition" and therefore his life was meaningless. His mother contacted some commenters to explain that of course he has cognition, which I am glad she did. But she could have done something better if she had demanded better pictures to be used in the article than ones that did not show Justin's face, or where he looked blank, which play right into the idea that severely disabled people don't think and disabled people in general don't have perspectives.

I'm not saying it is the parents' or Andrew Nixon's fault that people make those kind of assumptions about someone with severe disabilities, but they all could have fought against those assumptions by making an effort to include better pictures of Justin that portray his personality and inner life. Apparently none of them realized why it was important to do this, and they unintentionally advanced the idea that what's important about severely disabled people is the physical support they need, and not that they have personalities like everyone else.

Round and round in my bed life

My life is pretty great. Let's talk about it. Okay, it's not the greatest life ever, but there are certain times of the day when I feel really satisfied. Last night I remember taking out my contacts, throwing them away, and reaching for my glasses; and feeling pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do this. I used to take three hours to get ready in the morning and now I can take less than one hour--and that's not racing against the clock and working super hard to focus on what I'm doing.  I don't even use timers right now.

Around the beginning of last year, the idea developed that I could try to make my activities of daily living easier. I'd give most of the credit to the family I work for.  First of all, my job is so easy and fun that I can focus on things besides hating my life and being afraid of getting fired.  Second of all, Anna's parents are really organized. Of course I've met organized people before, but I was never in the right frame of mind to notice and appreciate it.  This time around, I was.

If I'm looking for pillowcases or paper towels or stacking cups or shoes, I always know where to find them in Anna's house.  Each pair of shoes even always goes in the same compartment in the thing that holds the shoes.  Her long-sleeved and short-sleeved shirts are in different places, and the long-sleeved shirts are divided into patterned and not.  Her hoodies are organized in such a way that you can identify them without unfolding them.  And a lot of things are labeled.

This makes everything more predictable, which is great. I decided that I wanted my living space to be like this, but even more so. Since I run into problems when I have to make decisions, I decided that I would do exactly the same things in exactly the same place when I was doing activities of daily living like getting dressed, putting on makeup, or putting in my contacts.  Over the first year that I was trying to make things easier, I realized that reducing the number of steps was even more important than making things predictable.  I decided to set things up so that I barely had to move to get ready in the morning and get ready for bed at night.  By the way, this might not make sense if you don't read my mush post first.

Right now my schedule is like this:

I wake up in the morning (usually before my alarm). I reach for my phone to see what time it is, and open my computer, which is on a large table next to my bed. I might check tumblr or something, and if I'm thirsty I drink some of the seltzer that I always have in my room. I have a recycling bin next to the bed for all my cans of seltzer. If I'm hungry, I drink a bottle of Ensure or eat a corn tortilla or some crackers, all of which I can reach from my bed.  Then I start up whatever TV show I'm watching right now.  I put in my contacts.  I throw the contact boxes away in the container I use as a trash can.  Then I reach for my backpack, which is at the end of my bed, and take out the Ziploc bag in the left corner pocket, which has all my makeup in it.  I sit on my bed and watch TV as I put my makeup on.  Then I put the Ziploc bag back in my backpack so I'll have makeup if I need it during the day.

My bed has bars which means I can hang a lot of stuff on it.  I usually have some clothes hanging on the end of the bed--all the clothes that have been worn at least once, but are okay to wear again (shirts and leggings=two days, pants=three days, skirts and hoodies=until I do laundry).  The other clothes are in my cubbies, which are next to my bed.  I have everything folded so I can see what it is.  I can just look at all the clothes and decide which ones to wear, and I can even reach my desired articles of clothing without getting out of bed, even though I might have to move to the edge of the bed to do it.

I don't brush my hair so I am now ready to go.  I pack my phone and my computer if I want it, turn off my power strip, and go to the other side of my room where my shoes are.  I put on my shoes.  Then I go in the bathroom, brush my teeth, and leave.

When I get home at night I usually just want to get in bed.  If I have something to do in the house, like put my frozen vegetables in the refrigerator or take out the trash, I look at my watch and promise myself it will take less than fifteen minutes.  After that I go in the bathroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face.  When I get in my room I put down my backpack, turn on the power strip, turn on my lamp, change into pajamas, do my *~Skincare Regimen~*, take out my contacts, and put on my glasses.

Bear in mind it's often like eight o'clock at this point, and I might not turn out the light and go to sleep until midnight.  But I've pretty much always fallen into bed and mushed out as soon as I've gotten home.  The difference is that for a long time I didn't accept that I would do this, so I would lie down with my clothes on and then spend the next few hours trying to get out of bed to brush my teeth and wash my face.  Obviously my mouth was 90% cavities and my skin condition was out of control to the point that I didn't want to wash it even when I had the chance, because touching my skin hurt so much.  Now things are a lot better!  Having a face that doesn't hurt is probably my favorite thing about life right now.

Aside from changing the way I do stuff at home, the most important ADL decision I've made was about what not to do at home, i.e. cooking and eating.  This was a hard decision to come to because I grew up thinking of cooking as something that is part of being independent.  My parents had enough money to go out to eat a lot, so we did, but they would cook at home a lot too.  I felt proud when I learned to cook some simple meals by myself.  Over the first two years after college, I made my own meals the majority of the time and was slowly learning to make more and more things.  I didn't make anything complicated, but I enjoyed the food I made.

But even though this sounds like a nice progression to independence, I realized that it wasn't benefiting me.  The problem isn't really the time and energy involved in cooking, although that is usually a lot more time and energy from me than it would be from someone else making the same thing.  It does take time but it's sort of fun and I guess it often takes me the same amount of time to travel to my favorite diner....where I'm writing this right now!!! I love you Lucky Penny!!

I bet you would never have guessed I don't brush my hair, right.

Anyway, sorry for the derailment but the main problem is actually dishes.  I don't think anyone finds dishes fun and easy to do, but for me because eating is a more relaxed, mushy activity, it's really hard to go from eating to doing the dishes.  If I eat by myself in my room instead of with roommates, then I get even mushier and end up falling asleep surrounded by an army of dirty dishes.

It is fun to imagine a fantastical universe where some amount of planning or prioritizing could lead me to do all my dishes all the time, but I don't think that is realistic, at least not at this point, and I feel like it's contributed to me being unhappy when I live in a gross, cluttered house full of ants (which happened in the first place I lived after college) or my roommate is always justifiably upset with me for not doing the dishes (which happened in the second place).

It was a major load off my mind when I started going out to eat by myself.  I had almost never done this before, and it can feel like a weird thing to do at first, but it's super great.  Before I started going out to eat I would often get takeout when I felt like cooking was too hard, but this wasn't a good solution because I still had dishes.  When I go out to eat I don't have to focus on anything before eating (getting groceries, cooking, etc.) or cleaning up anything after.  There are clear delineations for when the meal starts and ends.

Even more importantly, it replaces something that was a source of problems with something that makes me really happy.  I love going to diners and cafés, not just because I can eat something that would probably be too hard for me to make myself, but because I like the experience of being there.  It's similar to riding public transit--since I'm dressed and out of the house I'm pretty alert, but there isn't anything I really need to focus on, so I can use my alertness for whatever I want.  I can read, write, and listen to and observe people around me.  This is something that makes my life better at any time of the day, but it's especially nice to start the day like that.

In fact, my initial motivation for going to diners and cafés was happiness, not doing the dishes.  This was because I had a realization about the Stamford Museum and Nature Center.  SM&NC is a place where I spent a lot of time when I was growing up and have a lot of memories of.  My parents brought me to lots of classes and events there, we would volunteer at events, and my dad and I led a hike there every fall for about 19 years.

My priorities in adult life have pretty much always been: 1)survival (getting up in the morning, going to work, eating), 2)lofty goals (writing, reading, having meaningful relationships), and 3)short term pleasure (sleeping, mushing out, or anything else that takes no effort to do).  But last year I came to the pretty obvious realization that SM&NC wasn't just automatically part of my life--my parents had decided that it would be fun to be involved there.  This is why people do things that take effort and don't seem to have an obvious benefit, like going on vacation.  It actually is a good feeling to plan and make time and put in effort just to do something fun.  It's also a different kind of fun from falling into bed at night or running into Walgreens to buy candy on the way to work.  You can enjoy it more if you scheduled the fun.

Obviously, these are just the things that have made me feel better and function better this year, and won't necessarily work or be affordable for other people.  But I wanted to explain and share them in case they could give other disabled people some hope about making daily life easier.  Seriously, I feel way happier and my face doesn't hurt, and that's quite a thrill.

Compare and contrast

I just realized something weird about my feelings.  Actually, I'm guessing this is true of a lot of people and I'm going to write about in the second person, but there's always a possibility I'm just a huge freak.

Basically, things look better when you are comparing them to something worse.  This means that the worse someone is, the more their behavior can impress you.

For example, if your best friend usually criticizes you and insults everything you say, you will feel so special when he does tell you, "That was really smart."  He will seem really nice, and you'll feel like what he said was really meaningful because you waited such a long time to hear it.

If your boyfriend always hits you when he's mad, it will seem amazing if he gets mad and doesn't hit you.  It will seem like he's great for controlling himself, like he's really working hard to treat you well.

Actually neither of these people is nice!  It doesn't have to be this extreme.  But the point is you give more credit to people who deserve less credit.  Meanwhile, if someone is consistently kind to you, you never get the high of being shocked by an ordinary display of kindness.  Their kindness blends into itself and doesn't impress you as much as someone not hitting you 1% of the time.

I think I first got exposed to this idea in the form of a piece I read about being nostalgic for bad relationships.  It was basically about how bad relationships have some really exciting and good moments when your partner stops being awful for a minute and you're so excited about it.  Then you end up being nostalgic when you're in a relationship with a good person, because you don't get excited the same way. (If someone could find this piece, I'd love to link to it--I just couldn't find it.)

This is pretty obvious, I guess, but I was thrilled to notice myself having one of these reactions today because I could self-correct.  Here's to prioritizing people who are actually good to you most of the time.