Good times, bad times: coping with disability respectfully and responsibly

Posted in Sandi's blog on 13 July 2010 | 0 Comments

Although I regularly refer to myself as a nauseatingly positive person, and overall this is true, I am a person after all and like most people I have my share of good times and bad times.

I live by a simple set of rules, well, Buddhist concepts actually, referred to as the Three R's: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all my actions and these do keep me in good stead, but I was failing to maintain these 100% of the time and I felt it necessary to figure out why. In order to do so, I have been quietly monitoring slippages and observing what triggers cause me to fall off track.

I have now realised that pretty much all of it is to do with how I cope around my sight loss and how this coping, or sometimes severe lack of it, impacts on me, as well as those around me. There is no way that I can eradicate or even mitigate a lot of the stress and frustration that I feel as I gradually lose whatever is left of my eyesight and subsequent independence. I can't control my emotions, but as Tracey the Tree Hugger pointed out, I can control my actions. By knowing what the root cause is, I can identify and understand my emotions and, as such, have a good shot at handling how I react to these emotions a lot better than I have been.

Feeling stressed, frustrated or downright hacked off every now and again is perfectly natural. So, when such things lead me to a place where I may lose an R or two, I try my best to avoid it, but I sometimes fail and can allow these emotions to become anger, or worse, for that anger to be foisted on unassuming others.

And if I do, in such instances, inadvertently treat someone disrespectfully or try to blame them for something that is clearly not their fault, I am able to rectify matters by returning to the final R, taking responsibility and immediate action to put things right.

As a result, I am able to remain happy clappy overall because living by these simple rules allows me to be human, to acknowledge that life is filled with both good times and bad times. I just don't let the bad times get the better of me.

0 comments | Tags: Living with Sight Loss, Coping, Disability