As of today I have been out of my office for a week. My office is a toxic waste dump. Literally! Our best guess is someone spilled fuel oil that got into the groundwater and is now in our sump pump well. That is under MY floor, by the way. The lady from the lab has been in to take samples but until someone figures out what it is and what to do, my office reeks of hydrocarbons.
I am borrowing a very nice office. The borrowed office is spacious and neat. My office is small and crowded and full of stuff. I really miss my office. It is my space.
Monday was a great day. My husband drove me to the ski slopes and turned me loose. The sky was bright blue. The sun glistened off the white snow. There was a cold – but not frigid – breeze blowing. I skied down medium difficulty slopes and I was in heaven. Do they have ski slopes in Heaven? I certainly hope so. The scene I just described is one of my special settings.
Me. Me. Me. My stuff. My places. As Sammy Davis, Jr. sang “I gotta be me”. The thing is, visual impairment developed later in life sometimes makes it hard to be me. Self determination – acting in accordance with one’s own core values – is seen by some as one of the basic psychological needs, but can be difficult when you have limitations.
So, is it really so important to be yourself? The “correct” term for being true to who you are is authenticity and there is evidence authenticity is pretty important. According to Karen Wright writing for Psychology Today (2008), daring to be yourself is correlated with many positives such as vitality, self-esteem and better coping skills. Inauthenticity can be experienced as feelings of emptiness or self- betrayal.
I was once asked what family and friends could best do to help a loved one with visual impairment. My spontaneous answer was people need to help us be who we are. Loss of identity is terrifying and frustrating. I want, I need, to live my values, engage in my activities and be surrounded by like-minded souls. Basic and essential requirements for a satisfying existence.
How to accomplish this? Fortunately I had a wide network of contacts before I became legally blind. My husband also learned a simple adage: happy wife, happy life. That is a corollary to “when mama’s not happy, nobody is happy.” He learned quickly it was easier to deliver me to an activity than listen to me mope around the house all day!
Other suggestions? Elizabeth Hopper writing for healthypsych.com suggested in The Study of Authenticity (February, 2018) that admitting your vulnerabilities is both being authentic and courageous. Most people will applaud your bravery. I have also found those same people are often willing to help.
Second, Hopper suggested mindfulness. Being truly present will allow you to react to a situation as you are and as it is, not as you think it should be.
Her last suggestion is to seek out situations that allow you to be self-aware. What contexts and situations allow you to be yourself? If you are a jeans and t-shirt sort of person you might be better at a blues festival than at the opera. How to get there? See point one.
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”- Polonium, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 3)
Written January 29th, 2019