It’s dwarfism awareness month this October. I love the idea of helping your average person known a bit about what it is like living life from a physically different viewpoint.
But, I wonder, what does dwarfism mean to us? The people with the conditions, the syndromes? How do we view our own lives? The day-to-day stuff. Our selves as smaller people.
Personally, it’s been a difficult relationship trying to marry ‘Little Lady’ with the ‘day-to-day Lady’. Especially when most of my life I’ve been told I’m ‘normal’ by, I like to think, well-meaning relatives who neither have the emotional capability or nuance to realise saying that only heightened my feeling of being ‘different’.
On the one-hand, I’m desperate to meet other dwarves and share life experiences, on the other I’ve fought tooth and nail to be seen as more than my short stature being indicative of my mental capabilities. It makes for an exhausting life at times. A battle. One which I admit I’ve had few resources for of late.
That said, I love being my height. It’s taken me a while to get here, but I’ve figured that it’s the only body I’ll have in this life, I may as well accept it. I know it’s not something you hear very often, to say you love your body from someone with a disability. Sometimes I wonder if it’s frowned up on to think this way.
Hear me out though.
Having my particular form of dwarfism has given me far more opportunities than would have been available or expected from the small town I was brought up in. I’ve travelled to places that I would not have thought to. Met people from all walks of life. Been able to participate in education and employment opportunities I dreamed of as a child. Given me a self-confidence and knowing of my own mind, that can evade my peers.
Dwarfism has been as much an enabler as some of the rubbish that it has thrown into my life.
I’m human though, and I’d be lying if there were days I wish I wouldn’t be overlooked in the shops, that I could look people in the eye when talking or to stop the stares.
Dwarfism, swings in roundabouts, just like everyone else getting on with life, good days and bad. You have to move forward, but still managing to have a good moan along the way 😉
Laters,
Little Lady x