teal deer on feeling trapped
Jun. 16th, 2010 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelI am feeling kind of whiny today, so I ask y'all's forgiveness. Feel free to skip if you don't want to read.
... so I realized the other day that one of the things that's been subconsciously bugging me is that I can't go anywhere. Literally. I mean, I can do several-hour trips, but that's about it; I can't go any longer than my bladder will hold. (There are a few bathrooms that I can use, with sufficient help, but most either aren't big enough or aren't the right height or don't have enough back support in the right places or have too much back support in the wrong places... I need a specific height and a specific length and most places don't fit that.) I also can't use beds other than my own -- getting in and out is next to impossible, even with strong people around to help -- but the bathroom thing is the more limiting factor.
Last time I went to Chicago, using the bathroom would invariably reduce me to tears of exhausted frustration. And I have gotten less mobile since then, less balanced, less able to move, less able to adapt.
And okay, all things considered, this isn't a bad place to be stuck in. It's decently accessible, there's a fair amount of community events, I have a very supportive church, I have people that have known me since I was a kid, etc. (And I also realize that I am steeped in privilege to be able to have the things that enable me to live in this apartment, and also to get out of it; if I didn't have the lift/sling system for getting in and out of bed, I would probably be bedbound or close to it; if I didn't have the special mattress that I have, I'm sure I would have pressure sores all over my back. I am lucky.)
...But I want to be able to go places.
I want to be able to go out to the bay area when someone I know is visiting SF, so that I can meet them or hang out with them or whatever. (It's not practical. I would have to take public transit, which extends the travel time compared to driving, and since I can't go to the bathroom at all, I might be able to get there and immediately turn around and come back home but I can't spend any significant time.)
I want to be able to go to the coast, which is cooler than the oppressive 100+ summer heat, and which also has ocean and birds and deer and stuff I don't get to see here.
I want to be able to go places that don't have as much light pollution so that I can just lie back (well, tilt my chair back) and watch the stars.
I want to be able to go places. Anywhere. Everywhere.
And to some extent, reading and writing are escape routes. But it's not the same as being there. Especially the writing thing -- I don't want to set everything in a fictional northern-california town that happens to bear a lot of resemblance to where I live, but if I do other things I'm terrified of getting it wrong, and even if that weren't the case, I'd want to get a feel for it. No amount of reading can replace experience. And I say that /as/ an incorrigible reader.
It took me a while to really notice the net that was closing in around me. I verbalized it Monday, talking to someone (who isn't quite a therapist but is sort of a pseudo-therapist-listener-type, so is okay with this sort of losing-my-shit), and I didn't plan it, didn't see it coming until it was spilling out, all the anger and frustration and need to be somewhere else.
Even staying here, I'm trapped, to some extent, by the need to schedule everything. By the fact that I rely on other people to help me go to the bathroom, so I can't just up and go somewhere, I can't ... I have to always be aware of what I'm drinking and when and how much and when the next scheduled PA visit is and it's just ... I know that "normal" people also have restrictions, that it's not a matter of "hi I can go pee whenever I want to yay", but to some extent it *is*, and I'm frustrated by that, and just... I don't know. Trapped.
And there's no way to get around it.
... so I realized the other day that one of the things that's been subconsciously bugging me is that I can't go anywhere. Literally. I mean, I can do several-hour trips, but that's about it; I can't go any longer than my bladder will hold. (There are a few bathrooms that I can use, with sufficient help, but most either aren't big enough or aren't the right height or don't have enough back support in the right places or have too much back support in the wrong places... I need a specific height and a specific length and most places don't fit that.) I also can't use beds other than my own -- getting in and out is next to impossible, even with strong people around to help -- but the bathroom thing is the more limiting factor.
Last time I went to Chicago, using the bathroom would invariably reduce me to tears of exhausted frustration. And I have gotten less mobile since then, less balanced, less able to move, less able to adapt.
And okay, all things considered, this isn't a bad place to be stuck in. It's decently accessible, there's a fair amount of community events, I have a very supportive church, I have people that have known me since I was a kid, etc. (And I also realize that I am steeped in privilege to be able to have the things that enable me to live in this apartment, and also to get out of it; if I didn't have the lift/sling system for getting in and out of bed, I would probably be bedbound or close to it; if I didn't have the special mattress that I have, I'm sure I would have pressure sores all over my back. I am lucky.)
...But I want to be able to go places.
I want to be able to go out to the bay area when someone I know is visiting SF, so that I can meet them or hang out with them or whatever. (It's not practical. I would have to take public transit, which extends the travel time compared to driving, and since I can't go to the bathroom at all, I might be able to get there and immediately turn around and come back home but I can't spend any significant time.)
I want to be able to go to the coast, which is cooler than the oppressive 100+ summer heat, and which also has ocean and birds and deer and stuff I don't get to see here.
I want to be able to go places that don't have as much light pollution so that I can just lie back (well, tilt my chair back) and watch the stars.
I want to be able to go places. Anywhere. Everywhere.
And to some extent, reading and writing are escape routes. But it's not the same as being there. Especially the writing thing -- I don't want to set everything in a fictional northern-california town that happens to bear a lot of resemblance to where I live, but if I do other things I'm terrified of getting it wrong, and even if that weren't the case, I'd want to get a feel for it. No amount of reading can replace experience. And I say that /as/ an incorrigible reader.
It took me a while to really notice the net that was closing in around me. I verbalized it Monday, talking to someone (who isn't quite a therapist but is sort of a pseudo-therapist-listener-type, so is okay with this sort of losing-my-shit), and I didn't plan it, didn't see it coming until it was spilling out, all the anger and frustration and need to be somewhere else.
Even staying here, I'm trapped, to some extent, by the need to schedule everything. By the fact that I rely on other people to help me go to the bathroom, so I can't just up and go somewhere, I can't ... I have to always be aware of what I'm drinking and when and how much and when the next scheduled PA visit is and it's just ... I know that "normal" people also have restrictions, that it's not a matter of "hi I can go pee whenever I want to yay", but to some extent it *is*, and I'm frustrated by that, and just... I don't know. Trapped.
And there's no way to get around it.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 09:14 pm (UTC)(I'm a "technology can fix this!" sort of person; if you're interested in hearing about some that might could help, just poke me.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 12:37 am (UTC)