as small as a world and as large as alone

3:03pm July 22, 2014

megachiropteran:

every once and a while a non-disabled person on tumblr will send me a message to tell me how amazing/inspirational/badass i am for my academic achievements. and like, i feel conflicted b/c i totally appreciate the acknowledgment of how fucking hard i have to work to get through it, but also i feel kind of weird because then i feel like i’m being used as some sort of, “if they can get through it, i can!” shit. like literally once someone sent me a message telling me that whenever they feel sad they come read my blog to help them feel like they can get through the hard parts of their life. which, was probably a harmless statement in intent, & probably was meant as a compliment, but really it just kind of came off as a “i read about your life and feel really grateful that i don’t have to deal with any of that.”

i don’t know. feelings.

If it matters, I know how that feels.  I get messages like that sometimes too, and I haven’t even really achieved much in my life compared to you.  (Of course, for a lot of people, just existing seems to be an achievement to them.  Which, sometimes it is, but that’s not how they mean it.)  And … when people say they look at my life and it makes them feel better about their own, I can’t even describe how that feels.

12 notes