– And I’m still brilliant.
«I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.»
– Audre Lorde
There’s something no one tells you about living in a disabled body. They teach us to be brave, to be patent, to endure. But what they never preopare us for, is the rage.
Now I’m not just talking about frustration, nor irritation, I’m talking bone-deep, hot-blooded fury. The kind that simmers in your chest like lava waiting to rise.
It’s the kind of feeling your body remembers.
Mine certainly does.
I remember being a small child – intelligent, curious; yet also extremely different from the other children. In elementary school, I was punished for this. While I had not been officially diagnosed at the time, my teacher – who always picked a few kids to ‘bully’, seemed to think that me just sitting there, not answering or reacting ( small seizure anyone!) – was just me playing games with her. While I don’t remember much of these years, I do remember the feeling of blinking – and not understanding anything. Like blinking and suddenly someone is reading a totally different page of a book, or blinking and your teacher is yelling at you, and you have no idea why.
This lack of understanding what was going on everyday, also lead to extreme sadness from my end. Sadness for the shame of being treated differently than the rest, for no apparant reason. Sadness that my teacher’s bullying made all the kids in class feel allowed to bully me too, and sadness that I seemed to be the only one who didn’t understand why this was happening to me.
As a small, not yet knowingly disabled child, I didn’t have the right words to explain the injustices and ‘quiet’ violences that kept stacking up against me. How being treated like I was less; less capable – less worthy- less human also made me question myself.
And as we all know, this type of sadness can turn to rage.
My rage first bloomed in the classroom; where I was taught less than I deserved.
And in the hallways, where I was talked over – or talked about, but never talked to. In a system, where I was filed away like a mistake they couldn’t return.
And truth be told, while I’m much better now – it has never completely left me.
Bacause I still rage. At injustice. At politicians who treat disabled people as burdens. At the media’s endless scapegoating. I rage at doctors who condescend just because some patients aren’t as directly spoken as I can be. I rage at strangers who think my seizures makes me weak, or even think they are fake; just for attention. I rage at able-bodied people who thinks the lives of the disabled are just cautionary tales and side-character’s in theirs.
I also rage at myself. At the way my body betrays me, and makes it impossible to plan ahead. At seizures that steal my time and energy, at the current-building aphasia that is swallowing my words. At the fatigue that makes simple things feel impossible.
«When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.»
– Viktor E. Frankl
Because here is the thing that people don’t understand:
I know I am smart.
I know I have better emotional intelligence than most.
I know I have the potential to be brilliant.
Not despite my disability – but partially because of it.
I am smart, as it took much longer for me to learn things than many others, meaning I had to learn how to adapt to the current and flow with it.
I have better emotional intelligence, as my lack of friends in school, made me notice and mentally remember the connection between body language and spoken words, before I was even aware I was doing it.
I know I have potential, as I’ve always been trained to believe in myself, even if no one else can see it.
So, even with brain fog. Even with memory lapses. Even with tremors, and scilence and fear. I read deeply. I write with precision and intended beauty.
I reflect, observe, and feel in ways many neurotypical people cannot.
And, yes – of course; I grieve the parts that epilepsy takes from me. And my current aphasia scares me . Not because It’s inconvenient, but because I love language…
Words are my work, my home and my rebellion. What happens to this blog if one day I can’t find the right ones?
This is where alot of disabled people are, in my mind the strongest there is.
Because there is so much strengt in being aware of your own limits, grieving them as you need – and then still daring to try!
«I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.»
– Carl Jung
Many of us live in a culture that tells disabled people that we must be calm, must be palatable and digestable. That if we are angry we are bitter or even greedy. That if we fight , we are difficult. That if we cry, we are weak and broken. But here’s the truth; your rage is not the enemy – Injustice is. Your rage is simply it’s siren.
There’s nothing broken about feeling furious when you’re denied basic dignity! There is nothing wrong with knowing your worth even when the systems do not. Anger can be a compass that shows you where to dig.
That’s where the transformation begins.
Because, we’re allowed to rage. In fact, in some cases we have no choice. Rage is the only rightful response to injustice, to dismissals – and a world that prefers us compliant. But we don’t have to stop there.
It has taken me years to learn how to shape my rage intoo something useful. Not because I stopped being angry, but because I started listening to what the anger was trying to tell me;
That I am worthy. That I am smart. That I matter. That I am capable.
___
Rage, when honored and understood, becomes fuel.
It becomes clarity. It becomes creation.
Soooo what now?
Well, you take that raging fire – and you build with it.
Write your story down. Say what others are afraid to.
Cerate something beautiful that makes space for both your grief – and your joy.
Challenge systems. Question authority. Show up!
And when your voice shakes, or dissapears, or takes too long to form – don’t confuse scilence with absence.
Because your truth is still there.
Even when you feel broken, you are still whole.
Even when you feel lost, you are still a brilliant person.
Even when the world refuses to help, you are still worth a wonderful life.
So rage! But don’t stop there.
Rage – and then rise.
The brilliance you’ve always had is still there.
Go use it.
– Silje
