A Support Rather Than a Setback

Now In Session | The Art of Adjusting Series| Part 1

"I'm done with my body," she said. "I don't want to deal with it anymore." She had been dealing with mobility issues for months and struggling to see her cane as anything other than an assault on her independence. I validated her feelings and thought to myself how much I could relate to her inner turmoil. I initially tried to help by suggesting an exercise in perspective taking, and when she pushed back at every reframe I offered, I stopped reaching for clinical language and chose, instead, to be transparent about my health challenges, and what my own experience with mobility aids taught me.

I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2016 when the entire left side of my body went numb and walking without assistance became its own daily negotiation. I was extremely hesitant to use the tools that were available to me because it felt like admitting I was disabled and I was not ready for that. I often held onto my daughter, who was a teenager at the time, whenever we went out in public and during one of those outings, as I was holding on to her for dear life, she suggested I use one of the mobile carts at the store. I dismissed the suggestion. "I can't use that," I said. "Those are for disabled people. I'm not disabled." She looked at me with a side eye and remained quiet, allowing me to live in a delustional world where I could negotiate my way out of it by simply refusing to claim it.

Fortunately, that flare eventually went into remission, and I spent decade mobile, with minor flare ups here and there. Towards the end of last year, I had a significant flare that created mobility issues again, and I simply stayed home and quietly built my life around what my body could and couldn't do on any given day. One afternoon, I decided to be adventurous and drove myself to the store to run a few errands, convinced that because what I needed was close to the entrance I could be in and out without a problem. I told myself I could manage it. I made it through the doors and the pain radiating from my feet into my legs told me I had miscalculated before my pride could argue back. I looked to my right and saw the cart I had ignored every single time before, and this time I chose to use it.

$100 worth of plants and my autonomy back. Not a bad afternoon.

I didn't know how to operate it at first and bumped into a display before I found my rhythm. But once I did, I started moving through the store like a kid in a go cart. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my medicine, continued through other parts of the store to explore and ended up spending money I hadn't planned to spend. I told my kids later that I was so depressed about having to use the cart that I bought a hundred dollars worth of plants to commiserate. That was partly true, but it was also my way of holding both the grief of needing the mobility cart and the quiet relief of finally letting myself have it.

Like Michael McCary of Boyz II Men, who also has MS, I decided a cane would keep me off of bended knee.

Afterward, I had to acknowledge that the cart did not take anything away from me; my body and my own resistance had already been doing that. The cart gave me back the afternoon and the ability to run an errand on my own terms. It gave me back a version of independence I had been white-knuckling my way toward and never quite reaching, because I kept refusing the very thing that would have made it possible. I eventually decided to get a cane to help me better navigate my way around the house and discovered that it gave me back the autonomy to move through my own space more confidently. I began to see mobility aids as a support rather than a setback.

My client sat in quiet amazement and said she had no idea that I struggled with similar issues. She expressed how much it meant to her that I had shared my story because it made her feel seen in a way that a therapist with education but without the lived experience of a chronic illness could not. Hearing how I navigated similar issues encouraged her to reconsider her stance on the cane being an assault, and to consider how using it would give her the freedom to maintain her autonomy and independence. She then asked about how I had navigated everything before having to use mobility aids and so I told her about the life I had quietly built around my limitations.

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