Passing

I don't know a word in Swedish for "passing". Not "passing" as in "going past someone or something", but as in "being perceived as something I'm not and thereby avoiding unpleasantness or discrimination". There should be a word; the concept is necessary to understanding how a lot of people live.

I'm passing in several ways. Being married to a man, I'm passing for straight. It's not something I want to do, except that in some situations I feel safer, and doesn't that tell you something about our world? Most of us are assumed to be straight until and unless we say something that shows our Difference. When I speak about a partner by name, people feel that their view of me as straight, as normal, is reaffirmed. When I mention an ex-girlfriend they do an extra double-take, which is fun to watch... but I don't like having to first consider whether I feel safe enough to say something like that.

Another way I'm passing is that I look healthy on the outside. You can't tell from looking at me that I've a chronic health problem. You might see me walking with a cane, or you might see me taking a painkiller, but mostly I'm good at not showing the pain. Calle knows the signs, mostly, and so do some of our close friends, but to someone who doesn't know me I think I look "normal". When I'm going riding, I always take a double dose of painkillers and that clears the way for me to work as well as anyone else while I'm there. Except, of course, that I have a limited supply of energy - well, so does anyone, but I've got fewer spoons than most - and that the painkillers don't make it alright, they just make it less bad. (And I'm not completely unable to do stuff without painkillers - it's not impossible, it just costs more spoons.)

I'm passing for healthy at work, most of the time. I don't use the cane at work unless it's a really bad day - I don't want to be seen as Other, as Less, as Different. People don't know that my spending a lot of time on the loo is to give me a few extra moments to recover, or that my mostly spending my lunch hour reading is so I don't have to spend a spoon on interaction. Sometimes I choose to, but only if I've checked my spoon supply for the day.

I wonder in what ways my coworkers are passing, and whether they're doing it consciously or not.

And I need to think about ways to replenish my spoon supply. Starting with going to a yoga practice tonight.

Insight

The yoga class was good. It's a drop-in class and they'd just moved to a different place, so I was the only one there. That means I got to talk a lot more with the instructor and she could choose exercises she thought would suit me without having to regard anyone else's needs. They weren't too strenuous, though I think my muscles will be complaining a bit tomorrow. The breathing exercises worked a lot better after an hour's yoga, so obviously something worked.

We finished with a meditation, which included smiling inwards - focusing on different parts of your body and smiling at them. And I got this kind of revelation. I've been speaking of my pain as "the hedgehog" - when I hurt a lot, it's that the hedgehog has its spikes out. It's "the hedgehog" that doesn't like me moving too much and bumping it around, and so on.

The thought came to me that I've been hostile towards the hedgehog. I've been feeding it nothing but anger and dislike. But since I've chosen to view/visualise my pain as a living creature, then it seems to me that it reacts the way a living creature would. If I treat an animal with hostility and anger, then it'll meet me with even more anger and fear.

What if I try to treat the hedgehog a bit better? I don't have to like the way it makes me feel, but it's there, it's not going to go away, so why not learn to get along with it?