Given how serious my accident was, I'm lucky not to have more problems with the way I look. One thing gives it away, though - my crossed eyes! My brain bouncing around inside my skull damaged a particular nerve that runs to my eye muscles. That damage causes those muscles to behave differently and so the eyes are pulled out of alignment. They will look a lot more normal after surgery I hope to get early next year. Right now, however, they make me look a bit funny.
I don't really mind that. I'm a bit short too and my philosophy on that has always been, sure, underestimate me if you want. If you do, though, I'm going to enjoy proving you wrong! Still, underestimating me is one thing. Treating me different because I look funny is quite another.
My Mum recently came up with a very sensible idea to help with looking funny - dress well! Always dress for a state better than indicated by looking funny - for instance wear a collared shirt, nice pants and decent shoes.
I went looking for articles on the problem of coping with looking funny. Eventually, I found this article on disfigurement from scarring. To get to the interesting stuff, you have to skip to the section, Living with Scars, on page 6. It is worth a read, though. It quotes a researcher as saying, "when people with scars are friendly, relaxed and outgoing, they can overcome strangers' initial recoil." I hope, though, that dressing friendly and outgoing can further improve reactions.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. I was lucky enough to have a surprisingly good outcome to my surgery, which I talk about in the post, The Slow Walk to Freedom.
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Looking Funny
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4 comments:
Really interesting link, Mike.
I think you have an interesting story too behind your accident, unlike the person who gets injured because they were driving drunk.
Tracy,
Thanks for your comment. I did think about writing down more of my story here. The focus of this blog, however, is not on stories. It's only focussed on recovery!
I am thinking about writing further posts about how I deal with my story. Further info may well come out in the fullness of time, too. For now, though, I only want to focus on How to Recover. And for that is doesn't really matter whether I injured myself driving drunk or not.
So hold your horses for a bit longer yet! :-)
Cheers,
Mike
You are an inspiration, Mike. When I asked my optometrist in Indianapolis, IN about the types of patients he's had, I was surprised at the extent of their problems, and it made me thankful that I only have astigmatism. Please continue inspiring people with eye problems, Mike. Let them know that being different shouldn't bring them down. I wish you well!
Thanks for the encouragement, Danny. I'm glad of comments like yours. Regretfully, however, I lack sufficient time even to properly talk to TBI recoverers about how to recover, let alone recoverers from other conditions.
If you think that there is some potential for similar ideas to be talked over by those suffering from eye conditions, then I can only encourage you to step up to the plate and take a swing at it.
Whatever you decide to do, though, I wish you all the best for recovering from your condition.
Cheers,
Mike
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