![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
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.
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.
no subject
no subject
no subject
My best friend has Lupus and RA (not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease together)
Up until last year, she ran half marathons (she had to switch to race walking due to the RA)
One day she'll wake up and her body's immune system will have decided to attack a specific body part; sometimes she has heart problems, sometimes she ends up on dialysis.
Stress (and she has a very high stress job) will bring on shingles.
I can usually tell when she's going to flare just before the shingles pop out (she often gets them in her eyes) and when she gets a slight droop in her mouth from the Bell's Palsy that presents during a flare.
Through all of this, she's been as active as she can be, more active than most people. (as I write this, she's over on the other side of the state camping with her 24 year old daughter for the Dave Matthews concert at the Gorge.
No one outside of her immediate circle (close friends, family and boss) know or would guess that she is sick.
We never know what challenges someone else faces and doesn't show the world.
no subject
And about passing, I call it having Chameleon skills.
no subject
I will have you in my thoughts.
I'm glad for you that you can ride on the horse.