...at a certain point, no matter how intelligent you are, you must face your fears and ask for help. This is one of the scariest things to do in the best of times and it's even harder when you've dealt with rude ignorance in the past.
And then you get to the grey government office and talk to the bespectacled woman behind the big desk and she hands you forms with repetitive questions and graphical pictures of handicapped people and you are sent to another grey building where everyone speaks in soft tones and the occasional person in mismatched sweatpants and old jersey tops comes around the corner babbling... and you know none of this is right... these are all nice people trying to help... the poor babbling soul wasn't asked permission to be born like this and the girl wailing out in pain while her attendant is having a smoke break wasn't given the option between being healthy and having to stand in a massive spider-like contraption because her skeletal structure won't hold her tiny frame.
You remind yourself that you can go days or months or years not talking about disabilities or the loathsome topic of "Special Needs"... you can "pass" as normal for long stretches of time... but every time you get held up by those times of stress or challenge that others are able to navigate and you aren't, you realize that you actually were just hiding from the life situation.
It's true... I wasn't "passing"...
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