What Doesn’t Meet the Eye

Because I choose to identify as a Disability Studies scholar, I am always interested in this elusive entity of pain. Pain and suffering. Society attempts to regulate individual and collective responses to pain and its expression. I am endlessly fascinated by the politics at hand, and wonder how my life has taken an often ambiguous approach to the expression of pain.

As most of my friends and readers know, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) a bit before the age of eighteen. Today, nearly twelve years later, I am struggling on a daily basis. I don’t write to communicate constant complaints, but rather, I write for exposure of that which makes people uncomfortable: the continuing presence of pain. To communicate pain is to enter a very complex dialogue. Sometimes people pretend it’s not there. Sometimes, they call you dramatic. And sometimes they choose to ridicule it, through humor, sarcasm, or other methods of “coping” with the reality.

The reality is: it is mine. My body. So how can it be judged, dismissed, or managed? This is a long argument – and this blog remains more personal than academic. And since I believe the two are very interrelated, my post today is about judgment. People still judge a book by its cover. What you see is what you get. After all these centuries of trial and error, people still do it.

With MS, what you see is not always what you get. Yesterday I bought a car. It is a beautiful car. I worked hard for this car. But what most people don’t know is what a car actually means to me. It is a process that involves independence and autonomy. In the past, I have spent months not being able to drive. Someone who used to love me very much drove me around most of the time. Driving was not just taken for granted. Being able to feel the steering wheel, having enough energy to press the brakes, being able to coordinate movement smoothly – this is all part of the process of driving. Most of us drive without thinking of all of these details.

A driver usually drives me to work, because I try to conserve my energy until I arrive to campus. I was almost going to buy a bigger car, a car that would allow me to sit in the backseat while the driver drives. I was very sad and frustrated about this. My very good friends urged me to reconsider. Sara, who I have written about previously in the post “A Dose Called Beirut” told me that I was still young, and a lighter, smoother car might be easier to drive than a jeep. Sara’s support has been endless, simply because she is a believer. She believes in trying, in not letting go of a dream. One of my dreams this year was to buy this car, or any car really, a car that I would drive on my own. Nourah, my good friend, said the same (using her own method of support and humor). She reminded me that I could always use two cars. On bad days, the driver could drive, and on good days, even if they are just a few, I should drive. I should enjoy whatever youth and energy I still have.

As the years go by, as I grow older, I feel that my body is deteriorating. I know that the disease progress is inevitable. On some days, I struggle to walk, to get from my bedroom to the kitchen. The chronic fatigue is eating me up. And there is nothing anyone can do. When I bought a car, I did not buy it simply to buy a car. A few people criticized the choice of car, saying that Kuwait’s streets can only handle a bigger car, a jeep. But it takes more effort. It is even more difficult to get into a jeep. Again, movement. Coordination. Things that you do automatically. I think about all of these things because I am forced to. And like I always say, and try to implement: do what you want today. It’s just today, anyway.

And that’s all for now.