It's late and I can't sleep. Solution? Jump on the internet, put on some music and delve into the pile of blog post ideas that I have been accumulating ever since that surgery that sentenced me to a minimum of eight months on crutches. It's no match for being able to sleep comfortably for a solid eight hours, which is literally impossible when you have an external fixator, but it beats lying wide awake in bed for half the night.
My inability to sleep set aside, this is a topic that I have been meaning to write for a while. It has to do with how we view ourselves in relation to our bodies and how that view changes after an illness or injury that physically alters our bodies.
I want to begin by asking you what you did this morning. I don't mean things like hitting the snooze button six times or banging on the bathroom door because you teenage daughter was taking her sweet time in the shower, therefore making you late for work. I want you to think about the things you did this morning to look good. Perhaps you woke up early to spend an hour fussing with your hair, unhappy with it no matter how you styled it. Maybe you tore apart your entire closet trying to pick out the perfect outfit, lamenting that you have nothing to wear in the process. Or you couldn't figure out which pair of shoes, the wedges or the pumps, went best with you new winter coat.
In all likelihood, there were three primary driving forces behind the choices you made about your appearance this morning: 1) the desire to reflect who you are 2) thoughts about how other people will view you based on how you appear and 3) the practicality of what you are wearing given what you have to do and the weather. Sometimes these three things go hand in hand but as often as not they are in conflict with one another. If it makes it easier, you can think about the choices you make about your appearance in terms of individuality, a desire to conform or be part of a group, social standards of beauty, and/or the social rules that dictate how one looks based on the occasion or setting. All of these influence your choices; based on a situation, one may have more sway than the others.
Regardless of the choices you made this morning and the driving forces behind them, it is clear that physical appearance is an important part of our society and who we are. Fashion magazines, runway models, tv commercials for cosmetics, the newest line of clothing at the trendiest store at the mall. What is socially acceptable to wear outside, to the corner store down the street, the movies, a first date, a funeral, job interview, wedding, casual get together, visit with the in-laws. Can I find stylish clothing to work out in? Do jeans count for casual Friday? The list goes on!
On top of the choices we make regarding clothing, make-up and hair style are the ones we make about our bodies. In our society, there is a tremendous pressure to have a perfect physical physique. What is too fat, what is too thin? What it the difference between being healthy and physically fit? How do I get rid of my love handles and tone my upper arms? Is my waist small enough? Will my butt look okay in this lingerie? Once more, the list goes on!
Given all these things, it is clear that between choosing what to wear, working out or dieting, or worrying about what other people will think of us because of our appearance, we all spend a good chunk of time trying to achieve a certain look. In many ways, how we look is an expression of who we are. But what if an illness or injury prevents you from achieving that look? What if you are limited to clothing that doesn't represent who you are or achieve what you want it to? What if, due to physical limitations or limited energy, you are unable to apply make-up, get out to the nail salon or style your hair. Are you still able to be confident in who you are even if you are no longer able to represent yourself through your appearance. What is your identity or self-esteem based on?
Those of you who regularly follow my blog know that I have an external fixator on my right leg. It is big and bulky and inconvenient. I can't wear jeans, tights or dress pants because they can't fit over the fixator. Likewise I can't wear at least half of the cute make-my-butt-look-good pajama pants that I own. I am resigned to baggy pants, skirts and pajamas bottoms that are many times my actual size because they are what fit over the fixator. As a result of the fixator I am dependent on crutches, a walker or a wheelchair. Getting around with any of these mobility aids it exhausting and time consuming, not to mention sweaty. As a result, I spend the majority of time in my bed wearing loose, baggy clothing. It is impractical to wear frilly shirts or tight skirts that slowly rid up throughout the day as I toss and turn trying to get comfortable in bed or as my crutches rub against them as I hop along. It doesn't make sense to spend an hour getting dressed when I am spending the day at home in bed or, at best, at my computer desk. So I wear baggy sweater and sweat pants. The constant dose of pain medication I am on makes me tired and slightly dopey. As a result, it is sometimes hard to concentrate or try to work out an entire outfit. Even the simple act of showering is exhausting. On top of all that, crutches don't match anything in my closet anyways. As anyone who requires them knows, they are grey and drab and are the first thing anyone notices about you regardless of how you much time you spent carefully selecting what to wear. Am I still the person I am despite not being to wear what I want?
The desire to wear something, for whatever reason, is hampered by my fixator, crutches, how tired or dopey I am and/or my pain level. The question is, am I still comfortable and okay with myself if I am not able to represent who I am through my clothing? Am I still who I am if I cannot do so or does my physical appearance dictate who I am? Will I think of myself differently if people look at me different than usual based on my clothing? In a society where so much depends on appearances, these are difficult and highly personal questions to answer. Furthermore, having an illness or injury dictate, at least in part, you appearance for a short period of time is much different than it affecting your appearance in the long run. Having to wear sweatpants or pajamas for a week or so because of a sprained ankle or broken wrist is one thing; it might even be nice to get a break from the pressure to look good. But what if that week turns into a month, half a year or longer? What if you can't wear the things you want or that society approves of when you have to leave the house? How will that affect how you look at yourself. If it affects how others think of you, are you okay with that?
As previously mentioned, the body itself is also a significant aspect of physical appearance and our identity. There is a lot of pressure for women to be thin and toned, for men to be strong and muscular. There is constant pressure to conform to the standards society sets. But sometimes an illness or injury makes it difficult or even impossible to meet those standards, regardless of if those standards themselves are healthy/realistic/achievable or not. A person with a thyroid disorder might be incredibly skinny or carry some extra weight that is hard to shift. Someone who has undergone extensive surgery may have large scars that are highly visible and permanent. A person who has been ill for many months may have lost a tremendous amount of muscle mass. Suddenly, a person no longer has that flawless perfect body. A person undergoing chemotherapy might have a PICC line or nasogastric tube, both things that are visible and different, therefore acting as a beacon for attention. A person who cannot walk is in a wheelchair. These are all things that change how people look. They are also often the first things that other people notice about someone else. It doesn't matter that you have a perfect hourglass because a can or feeding tube can symbolizes that your body is not indeed a perfect flawless body after all. Your make-up and hair, which took time and effort to apply, may be overlooked when people see a cast on your leg, an arm in a sling, an oxygen tank, or some other visible sign of illness or injury. These things that alter your physical appearance and symbolize illness or disease alter how other people look at you which, in turn, may alter how they interact with you. What affect will this have on you, your self-image, your confidence and self-worth?
I know that I struggle with my external fixator. People stare at me when I go out. But they are not staring at me; they are staring at the fixator. And even when they realize that I see them staring at me, they continue looking at my leg anyways. I am self-conscious, probably more so than before I relapsed. I was the same way when I had the PICC line last summer. I preferred to keep it covered, out of site. I still know who I am, but I regret that I cannot fully express it and that my fixator and crutches change how people see me. I am no longer seen as the girl with the cute pixie cute who is always smiling. Now I am that poor thing who has obviously had some serious injury and gone through major surgery; when I am in my wheelchair, I am the woman with mobility issues. People might still notice my smile, but it is always in the context of my wheelchair, fixator, or crutches. I know that these things affect how others see and think about me. Does that mean that I should think differently about myself?
Furthermore, physical changes can have a major impact on how a person thinks of him- or herself. If you enjoy sports and want to be physical fit, you might be proud of your muscles and abs - they represent achieving you fitness, physical and lifestyle goals/desires. If a woman desires a sun-kissed look, she will be happy with a nice glowing tan. If you are a burlesque dancer you might be really fond or even proud of your hourglass figure. A girl who aspires to be ballerina needs to be graceful; being thin and toned might help her feel that way. And most importantly of all, people want to be comfortable in their own skin. They want to feel like their bodies are normal. So what happens if an injury prevents you from working out and maintaining you muscular body? You become very ill and anemic and are therefore always extremely pale? A slipped disk prevents a ballerina from dancing and excising, so she cannot longer dance, can't maintain her toned body and therefore no longer feels graceful. Think of the average person or yourself. If you severally break your leg and spend an extended period on crutches, the muscles in your injured leg will waste away or atrophy. How would you feel watching one leg shrink and shrink and shrink, almost down to the bone while the other remained healthy and normal? Would you still be okay with your body or would you see it as ill or undesirable? How would having something prominent like a nasogastric tube, PIIC line or external fixator make you feel about your body? Weak, pitiful, unattractive? How would changes to your body, like scars, an amputation, muscle atrophy, change how you think about yourself. Do these changes make you less desirable, less deserving of love, ugly, a failure? How do they affect your self-esteem and who you are as a person?
When it comes down to it, our physical appearance - clothing, body type, jewelry, make up, and so on - plays a tremendous role in our lives and how we think of ourselves. In many ways there is nothing wrong with this. Our bodies are naturally a part of who we are and what we see/do affects how we view the world and interpret things, make sense of the world. It is, however, important that our physical appearance does not solely determine our identities or become the primary focus of our lives. It is also important that one's self-esteem or self-worth is not reliant on physical appearance alone. This pertains to everybody, regardless of if they are healthy, ill, injured, or disabled. I want to stress, however, that it is extremely important for individuals who have undergone a significant illness or injury, that changes to one's body or one's ability to achieve a certain appearance should not determine ones happiness or identity. It can be very difficult to separate these things from one another. I myself have been struggling with this, especially since I got my external fixator. But it is important to be confident in who you are as a person and to be able to face the world, be it in your favorite jeans or sweat pants, looking awake or energetic or pale and tired, and feel that you are still worthy of love and joy and comfort and affection. Being able to detach your self-worth and self-esteem from your physical appearance will not only make you happier in the face of your injury or disease, but it will help you remain positive throughout the course of your injury or illness and help you stay motivated to reach goal and get better; it will also help you battle the other things that accompanyserious injury or disease, like loose of independence, inability to work, and so on.
It can be devastating to have drastic changes in your appearance when illness or injury already steal so much - independence, dignity, mobility, etc. It is normal to mourn about these loses, to feel sad, angry, resentful. I have been there; it is okay to feel like that. But in the end it does not determine who I am and whether or not I am able to be happy.
And finally, somewhat of a cliche I guess, it is important not to judge others too harshly on their appearance. You never know what they might be going through, like serious illness or disease. Treating them based on physical appearance alone or commenting on changes like muscle atrophy, various tubes like PICC lines, NG tubes, colostomy bags and so on, assistive devices, may drastically influence the self-worth and self-esteem of individual already dealing with the effects of a serious illness or injury; an individual who in all likelihood had to spend a lot of time and energy to even get out of the house who now feels horrible because they didn't wear the right shirt or have big enough biceps. It is better to be kind and complement a smile than to judge on looks alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment