Gleeful about Glee

This week’s Glee made me almost ridiculously grateful.

When you have a serious illness or disability, it can be exhausting to deal with the stereotypes thrust on you. By and large, you’re expected to be something of a Pollyann:

Oh, this illness/disability has taught me so much about life. I have such a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world. And, with a few wheelchair modifications, I can save orphans from burning buildings and still be home in time to make dinner from scratch!

Puh-leez.

But, if you don’t subscribe to that saccharine quality, some people will act as though you’re malingering. I don’t lie around in pools of self-pity, sucking up every last drop. (Well, not for long periods of time, anyway.) Yet I have heard the most amazing backlash from people — from polite to condescending to downright hostile — if I can’t force a chipper attitude some days.

It’s like you either find the silver lining or you’re pronounced to be the dark cloud itself. But what if you’re just traumatized to within an inch of your sanity?

A lot of people don’t know this, but plenty of cancer patients are really, really sick for a year or two after they go into remission. They’re exhausted; they catch every bug available. They feel like hell. But we don’t hear about it because we don’t want to hear about it. Really, shouldn’t anyone who escapes death be grateful? Should they even have complaints?

Lifetime movies and their ilk have trained us to know how things work. You meet with a huge, overwhelming obstacle. You fight it. You win. Life is better than before, plus you have a newfound understanding and appreciation for things.

So I really cannot express my joy in seeing a far more realistic depiction of a quadriplegic on Glee.

He was relatively upbeat in describing what he had learned since his accident. Though he had a bit of a biting wit — apparently, his therapist said he used it to compensate. I can relate.

Overall, though, he was pretty mellow about things. Right up until Rachel asked if she was supposed to be lieve he was happier now. Then he stopped smiling.

Hell no, he told her. I miss my friends, my life, my body.

And here his face twisted a little — not quite sheepish, not quite wistful — while he explained how he used to lie in his room and scream for hours. It was just pure rage coming out of him. Or how, when he got a chair he could steer, he drove it into the pool.

Like anyone who has battled a serious, soul-wrenching illness/disability, the character had weathered far more than he should have to. And he knew it. So he wasn’t going to pretend everything was fine and dandy. It wasn’t. Frankly, his situation sucked.

In fact, even while he was smiling, he was acutely aware of what he lost. But he was also aware that he had to try and find other things that were important because — well, really — what else is there to do?

Disabled people don’t soldier on heroically. We just keep going because we don’t really know what else to do. We get called strong. We’re told we’re survivors as though it’s a badge of honor instead a lack of any other ideas.

Personally, I think people need to distance themselves from us. If they convince themselves that we have some quality they lack, somehow they’re safer from that kind of disaster hitting them.

The thing is, you don’t get a lot of choice in the matter. Your body is hard-wired to try to survive. And when it can’t achieve that, science often steps in to finish the job.

Everyone thought I was so strong for coping with what I did. I don’t think they understood how helpless I was.

I was paralyzed and heavily drugged. I couldn’t rip out tubes. I couldn’t shove away pills. I couldn’t even speak. How much staunch, solemn dignity were they imagining?

My heart rate hovered around 150-180; I had to go on blood pressure medication. Once I was able to move my head, I whipped it back and forth in rages. I had panic attacks at all times of the day.

The rest fell to my main coping mechanism: denial. It’s underrated as a tool, actually. If you can’t handle reality, your brain breaks it up into smaller, more manageable pieces. Most get tucked away for later.

To recap: I was disoriented, drugged, immobile, panicking, furious and in deep denial. Not exactly heroic. Just there.

And why would I want to be so impressive anyway? Heroes don’t get sympathy. They have to be icons to set examples. Heroes don’t get time off; they don’t get to have bad days. Compared to all that, I’ll take “just there” any day, thanks.

Since then — other than the year or so spent in full-fledged denial — I’ve been trying to find peace with my situation. The results have been mixed, and rarely all that impressive.

In the past few years, though, I have really started to come to terms with my limitations. I still resent them. I still forget sometimes and overextend myself. But those days are getting less common.

And, like the character on Glee, I’ve learned some valuable lessons from all this. I had to learn to ask for help. Then how to accept it. I’ve had to learn that you’re still lovable even when you’re not perfect, and that you’re still a valid human being even if you can’t earn money.

On good days, I’m very wise, if somewhat world weary.

On bad days, I am riddled with self pity, and I’m angry at every single able-bodied person who will never know full-fledged exhaustion from three errands.

Most days, I’m somewhere in the middle.

So, okay, there are dark clouds, and there are silver linings. (Most of which aren’t even lightning.) But there’s also the rest of the sky. So maybe we should stop focusing on just that one spot, and realize it’s just part of a larger pattern — for better and for worse.

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