 |
| Amanda-Leigh holding Luigi before exercising |
Yesterday morning I wrote my heart out in my personal journal.
There are some things so private a woman cannot share publicly. Some things I
can. There is one thing I feel I must share. I want other people to be able to
understand exactly where I have come from. At the same time, I do not wish to
exploit myself. There is only so much a woman can offer of herself before she
begins to feel violated and terrified that other people will know her true
self. And then what? Will the world want to change her also? Will the world
like what is shown? Will she go back into her safe haven of hiding?
These are my true struggles I face on a daily basis. This day ends my
eight week supply of Phentermine. I will be honest. I am terrified of running
back to my old ways of using food to cope with problems. I am terrified of
succeeding. I am terrified of fitting into new clothes and receiving
compliments I heard in the past. When a woman’s body changes, she changes as
well. I do not like having rashes in the summer time. I do not like grown men
staring at a part of my body that is sacred. My body is not something I want to
be given away freely. I have worked so hard to mold my muscles into a new
artwork.
I look at myself in the mirror and I do not feel disgusted with
myself anymore. When I take two showers a day and brush my teeth after every
meal, I am able to feel a sense of having my own identity in this world. When I
wash my face, I feel better about the woman. I do not feel trapped inside a
locked door the way I used to. I am not losing weight for anybody else’s
pleasure. I am not working so hard to please anybody else. Nobody else gets
paid for my feelings of discomfort in modernism. Nobody. In fact, I do not receive monetary gain from
hours of working out. I do not wish to receive monetary gain from doing
something God wants for my life.
When I have worked out on my stationary bike recently, I remember being at the old J.D. McCarty Center in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1984-1985. I would spend hours in Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and Physical Therapy each day. At dinner time with other residents, I would be falling asleep in my plate. When I saw one of the therapists when I returned to the Center the day puberty hit me, he really was not nice to me. He made a smart comment to me that my mind has blocked. Probably this is for a good reason.
The old J.D. McCarty Center was torn down years ago. I used to
visit the big empty lot on 12th and Alameda in 2010. I never visited
the Center in 2002 before it was torn down. I could never bring myself up to
going back. I was able to visit the burial place alone at the age of thirty. At
the age of thirty, I was stronger emotionally and wrote about the past in my
personal journal. Plus, I had a strong feminist counselor at the time who was
able to get everything out of me without closing up. Closing up was the easiest
way I coped with everything from childhood. That was the way I did not have to
deal with everything. I could deny reality existed.
The old J.D. McCarty Center is nothing like the old dried up weeds
were in the child’s movie The Secret
Garden. When I left this empty field, I have not looked back. I am truly
amazed at one movement, however. On the end of one side a window area enclosed
a swimming pool. Where are the remains of this pool? Was this pool dug up, or
does soil and grass fill its lifeless body? Why does this even matter to me as
a thirty-three year old woman?
These questions and emotions are real. These are not some fictitious characters in fine
literature. What I felt was real. I may have taken the wrong paths in life and
gotten myself into some whoppers of hungry sinners, but I am nothing like my
enemy. I do not wish to be like the one who sits high on a throne while other
people worship him (or her). I am not like one of the king’s sons who had an
automatic career waiting for him. I have worked my up from day one. This is
something to be grateful for. I have worked for this independence I have
discovered. I have been given a second chance at life.
Over the years, I have
not had a desire to personally look the Administration up from the Center and befriend them on a personal level. Feelings and experiences from the past remain covered up beyond the soil and grass of the open field. Nobody crosses the boundary of that comfort zone. I am comfortable knowing that nobody from the Center grew with me. This gives me a feeling of
comfort. Nobody from that period is looking for me. I do not wish to make my
presence known from that period. Nobody from that period had the strength I did to keep up with the reality of life's challenges. Nobody's character from that period grew stronger to help a patient who struggled. My success in this world has been independent of the Center. The Center was my launching pad. Does a successful Prince return to his small launching pad in a pond as an older, wiser man? In his naive, years of fruitful ways, he may return once or twice. Then the Prince moves on to bigger and better explorations of this world. The Prince does not revisit places or people who may hold him back from worldly success. There is no need for a second edition of Babylon Revisited by a modernized F. Scott Fitzgerald, is there?
My real battle over the years has been the need to be accepted. Whenever
I do reflect back to the old Center, I do so with sadness. I see this site as a
burial site. Perhaps this is an interesting comparison. I do not know. What I
do know is I am able to love the woman staring back at me in the mirror. I am
able to drink Slim Fast shakes every morning and at noon and eat a light,
sensible dinner. I am not a flight risk anymore. I do not feel the need to
close up anymore. The core of my heart is out in the open.
One thing I hope does not happen is my attitude changing after I
reach my weight goal of 125 pounds. I have watched so many people’s attitude
change as the weight changes. The people begin to act better than everybody
else and pretty soon I lose the desire to be around them. Soon I begin to miss
the old person when the person realized everyone’s good in this world. One
friend assured me this would never happen to me. I have trusted her judgment of
my character.
Two Oklahoma institutions for people with physical disabilities
were recently closed. I read comments posted on the subject. The workers being
let go were their main concern. The main concern should have been on the
families and the patients of these institutions. Where will these adult
patients live now? Will families begin to take responsibility for the adults
they produced and have them live close by instead of depend on the state to
raise them?
One of the oldest institutions for people with mental and physical
disabilities was closed in Tulsa County years ago. Hissom School was the
institution. Families would drop their children off to live. Some families
moved on with their lives. The children grew up in this school. In fact, there
is a documentary about this school along with former students. Some former
students speak up about the abuse they experienced while others do not. Some
can only cry and apologize. Others do not know how to identify abuse.
As a woman with a physical disability, I am strongly against
institutions, or anti-institution to be politically correct. The administrators
can sit down with a family in the beginning and talk a good game the way a
politician can. The meeting usually takes place in a big room with a fancy
wooden table. There are days when you wish Superman would have come to the
rescue and saved you from this place.
That romantic image of Superman begins to block your image of
reality. For me, that has been a blessing. There have been parts about my stay
that I do not wish to come flooding back. I have made my peace with the truth
and buried somebody in my journal. I have learned how to become like
Superwoman. I do not hold worldly powers the way Tolstoy did during his
lifetime. I do trust God and the Gospel to free me of the pain I experienced as
a child.
I do not agree with a small child staying in a place specifically
designed for children with special needs without a parent or legal guardian. I
may take criticism for this. However, I do not wish to apologize. This does not
allow room for potential abuse to not be documented or reported. This does not
allow another patient of the same gender to come into a small patient’s room at
night. This allows a parent to tell a therapist to stop for the day so the
child can live a normal childhood. This allows a parent to not watch the child
fall asleep at the dinner table. This allows a parent to physically sleep in
the same room as the child at night. There are no feelings of sadness or
abandonment on either part. There is a stronger bond that will remain for a
lifetime.
When I was living in Norman, my husband and I met an older couple.
The couple had Cerebral Palsy. The woman was in an electric wheelchair like me.
The woman grown up in the Cerebral Palsy Center in Oklahoma City and possibly
stayed at the old J.D. McCarty Center in Norman. This woman suffered from
several forms of abuse while institutionalized. Her boyfriend took this woman
out of the Center to save her.
This story had a profound impact on me. This couple was a modern
day version of Bonnie and Clyde. The sad part of this story is that many people
who are in this situation do not have loved ones who are willing to take such a
risk nor do they have personal advocates. Either that or the impact of the
abuse is not completely understood and brushed off as the person needing
psychological help. This woman has become an independent advocate in the Norman
area.
This couple would take the city bus to an event that was happening
at a local hotel for a disability get-together. My husband and I would see this
couple several places as we went out. Nothing stopped this couple from creating
a normal life. This woman inspired me to want to do better in my own life. At
the time we met, I had battled with the first round of blood clots. This was
not really a pleasant time. We shared a sense of pain. I did not tell her about
my stay in the old J.D. McCarty Center as we sat in the Burger King. The Burger
King overlooks the field of the old J.D. McCarty Center.
Every time I visited the site, I felt stronger as I left. The
building had been torn down years ago. I was not a child anymore. I was not a
starry eyed child whose entire memory had been blocked. I was able to see the
Center for what it meant to me on a personal level. I am not completely an
insensitive woman where the Center is concerned. The Center was originally
started with a Father asking for donations on the streets of Norman for his son
to be able to have a loving place to go. The son lived with Cerebral Palsy and
the Father wanted a better life for him. This is completely understandable and
also admirable.
What does the old Center represent to me in modern times? I have
often thought of this question. I definitely gained strength every time I
visited the grave site. While I sat there, I paid my respect to those children,
men, and women who passed on too soon. I did not remember anybody my age from
twenty-five years. I was not proud of this fact. As I sat there, I was able to
see old images of events and people from the Center who changed my life. I
remembered our Christmas party and sharing the experience with staff and
friends. I remembered dressing in a blue bathing to go swimming. I remembered
my beloved nurse. I remembered the two casts I wore on my legs after surgery. I
remember the little maroon and white Amanda doll I held tight. I remembered the
faces of the therapists and
administration.
Three years have passed since I have visited the grave site. From
modern disability advocates, I have heard patients were put in cages in the old
Center before my time. in several of the newsletters I have read on the new
Center, I have read about appreciation events taking place for the staff
members and administration. There is also big emphasis placed that the patients
should be grateful to the Center. I do not read about the staff and
administration being grateful for the parents and patients of the past and
present for making the Center what it is today. This is the missing link.
I am able to create the missing links to this in my own world. I am
appreciative that therapists devoted their time and dedication to working with me to
become a better child. I am grateful to my beloved swimming pool that helped my
body become stronger. I am grateful to have had the experience of wanting to
become a better person. I am grateful this place created the woman I am today. I probably will never visit this site again before I pass away. I was able to pay my respect to the old building, the old property, and walk the ground I walked as a child. Since the ground was smooth and did not have floors, I felt the tender natural peace of the place that once existed. I did not write anything in the soil. In fact, that warm fuzzy feeling can be left for an older teenager who found love at the Center. My eyes to this place were seen through those of a child that had been found as an adult.
This all goes back to the theme of Thomas Saint Cloud’s “Blue Winds
Dancing” of what the narrator was. The same can be said for the life of Leo
Tolstoy. Who am I in this world? Am I a woman with a physical disability or am
I a non-disabled woman? This is a theme I have struggled with throughout my
life. At age five, I became molded to fill the shoes of a girl without a
disability. I was a girl with a physical disability walking around better than I
had before surgery. However, the Cerebral Palsy remained. So did the speech
impediment. There were still boundaries that did not cross when it came to
differences in the world. As much as I wanted to please everybody by changing, I
was still me. I believe this has been a disappointment to some and rightly so.
For years I was unable to accept myself as a woman with a physical
disability. I battled with self-pity at the death of another person. When I was
born at Grady Memorial Hospital, there were no abnormal signs in my body. For three
months, I was able to be non-disabled. Since I was too young to know what being
non-disabled felt like, something became lost throughout the years. I wanted to
be like my non-disabled friends who drove cars and be rebellious. I wanted to
experience the realism of being a non-disabled person.
For years, I grieved the death of the image with whom I could never
see in the mirror. My critics can say I suffered from self-pity. These people
do not understand and probably never will. When a person is worked with each
day to be like somebody without a physical disability, there is going to be
confusion with the self. Unless I push myself to become better, I believed I was never
going to love myself or amount to anything in this world. This was something I learned at the
early age of five. It took me twenty nine years to accept myself as a woman
with a physical disability.
Today I realize that I am worthy of being loved fully whether or
not I am disabled. I am able to wear conservative clothes that show
self-respect. I am to write each morning I can to show other women (and men)
they have self-worth. I am able to look at myself with a sense of love. I still strive to become a better person in this world, and I have also learned that I deserve to rest at times. I am able to take care of my health. I am
able to look at the memories at the old Center with empathy instead of pity. I am
able to look at the former students of institutions with love and hope for
their futures.
One place I am unable to fully go back to is the year of 1984 when I
stayed inside the old Center. I never could do this when I sat at the foot of
the grave site in 2010. Why do I refer to the old Center as a grave site? My body
changed at this place. I entered the Center as a child. I went back as a
teenager when puberty hit. I then re-visited the Center after it was torn down.
At the age of thirty, I learned how to forgive. Being able to forgive helped me
be able to move on and become successful in college. This was somewhere I needed
to be at in order to find closure and let go.
Even though I do remember being pushed during therapy, I can leave
this writing today with a sense of peace. During the time period, the therapists
meant well. I was five years old. I am now thirty-three years old. When I see
commercials of Jillian Michaels on The
Biggest Loser, I feel memories from the old Center return. This is not a
person I want to be like. I do not want to scream and cuss at people who need
an inspiration. I do not want to work another person to the point of breaking. Real
love and acceptance is nothing like this.
When I think about institutions that have housed several children and adults with mental and physical disabilities, I do not see a change. I do not see administration stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility. I do not see a public hearing for families and staff members to meet and figure out a solution to change situations. Taking responsibility for abuse or covering it up is what families and victims want to hear. This makes people lose a great deal of respect for authority figures. So, institutions are shut down as a result. Families must figure out what to do with their children.
It’s probably easy for me to put myself in the family’s role of a
child or adult with a physical disability. The truth is, I really do not know
what that role would be like. From living the life as a woman with a physical
disability, I do know this role. What helped me become a social butterfly in
the past was the desire to be around people. I do encourage parents to be aware
of who their child is hanging around along with the person’s history. In modern
times, questionable people seem to be everywhere. Being informed of a child’s
friend will let a person and child feel more comfortable. This will also
prevent the wrong type of person being around a child.
If I was to visit the old Center today, I would probably reveal the
knowledge of modernism. When Tolstoy read literature, he felt liberated from
the authority figures in his life. In literature, no one made him submit to
cruel punishments. If I was at the old Center this morning, my heart would
clothe the grass with flowers of my pain. Drops of red blood would drip from my
fingertips as the feeling of a thorn would prick the palms of my flesh. Every bright rose in a
field has a thorn. I am no different nor are my internal roses. My heart bleeds
shades of the darkest red for those children and adults who have passed away
too soon. I am unable to see a wall with their names engraved on it the way of national
military memorials. Those who died did so with lost hopes, dreams, and selves. Were
these fallen stars born with mental and physical disabilities or were they
subjected to pain and suffering the way I was? Their names will never be known
to me but I pray for each of them.
Someday we will meet in an open field
wearing sparkling white dresses with white flowers in our hair. There will be
no Center, only an open field that is filled with open hands that love each of
us the way we need. This will be God’s promise to each of us as we treat the
kingdom of God like true children. We will no longer have to pretend to be something else in a world
that was not meant for us. We will be the children God designed us to be. Nothing
will ever be greater. In God, we must trust.
The remains of old J.D. McCarty Center
1948-July 2001
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Amanda-Leigh's personal note: I have decided to take the road not taken. This is a decision I do not regret!
Story of the morning:
http://news.yahoo.com/20-years-katie-beers-says-kidnapping-saved-her-080144010.html
Amanda-Leigh's Quote of the Day:
http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html:
Story of the morning:
http://news.yahoo.com/20-years-katie-beers-says-kidnapping-saved-her-080144010.html
Amanda-Leigh's Quote of the Day:
http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html:
- Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
-
Amanda's Youtube Pick of the Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpgY5S3AcSwJoe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful"
Web Links that may be beneficial to my valued readers with physical disabilities or mental illnesses, family members of people with disabilities, or my able-bodied readers:
Hissom Memorial School Revisited
http://www.abandonedok.com/hissom-memorial-center/
Living in the Freedom World (a documentary on Hissom)
http://vimeo.com/19155090
OKDHS Standards for Reporting Facilitated Abuse
http://www.okdhs.org/library/policy/oac340/002/03/0033000.htmOklahoma Suicide Support Groups
http://www.suicide.org/support-groups/oklahoma-suicide-support-groups.html
Oklahoma Support Groups
http://oklahoma.supportgroups.com/
Autism Center of Tulsa
http://www.autismtulsa.org/index.cfm?id=132
Office of Disability Concerns
http://www.ok.gov/odc/
NAMI
http://nami.org/MSTemplate.cfm?Site=NAMI_Oklahoma
Women with Disabilities (recommendation of literature)
http://thechp.syr.edu/abwomen.htm
March 2013's Advisory Committee on Services to Persons with Developmental Disabilities
http://www.okdhs.org/library/cal/ddsd/
http://www.okdhs.org/library/cal/ddsd/
![[info]](http://www.quotationspage.com/icon_info.gif){kind=icon}
![[add]](http://www.quotationspage.com/icon_plus.gif){kind=icon}
![[mail]](http://www.quotationspage.com/icon_email.gif){kind=icon}
![[note]](http://www.quotationspage.com/icon_note.gif){kind=icon}
No comments:
Post a Comment