{"id":32,"date":"2011-09-14T02:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T02:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/?p=32"},"modified":"2011-09-14T02:23:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T02:23:00","slug":"the-ugly-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/?p=32","title":{"rendered":"The Ugly Part"},"content":{"rendered":"

I probably shouldn\u2019t be allowed near a blog right now. Someone should be here to say, \u201cJen, drop the keyboard and slowly walk away from the blog.\u201d There is, however, nobody to do that.
This is in fact precisely the point. Disabled people, or at least this one, have trouble with both acquiring romantic partners and establishing and maintaining close friendships. Aside from the obvious consequences such as isolation, it means I do not have A Person \u2013 that one individual who I know will always be there no matter what. And, unfortunately, my particular circumstances mean I have need for A Person more than most.
I have known all this for quite some time, but last week it became a bit more relevant. Southern California went dark in a massive blackout. Exactly one person went out of her way to check on me. While it turned out I was fine, what if I hadn\u2019t been? When push comes to shove, who will make certain I\u2019m okay?
I suspect some of you are thinking, \u201cThere\u2019s the Red Cross, 911, and surely neighbors will help.\u201d Well, the power company has a list of people who might have problems if the power goes out. I got my call from them 16 hours after the power went out and 9 hours after it went back on. Additionally, in my apartment complex where I have lived for six years, not one of the twenty-five residents asked me if I needed anything.
This scares the out of me. I have a vivid and slightly pessimistic imagination, so I can come up with numerous circumstances where I might need help and can\u2019t do anything to make that need known. I hate admitting this, but my life is pretty much a carefully stacked pile of rocks. One seemingly small shift could cause boulders to go tumbling every which way. Last week was a visceral reminder that disability both makes me more vulnerable and also limits who knows of the plight and helps.
A solution occurred to me. Once a friend told me I was \u201ctoo independent for my own good.\u201d Is that possibly the case? If I were to appear more helpless, would I thus get more help?
I don\u2019t know about you, but I don\u2019t want to live in a world where I have to be les than I am in order to get what I might need. I\u2019m not even sure I\u2019m capable of behaving in that way.
So, on behalf of all the disabled people who walk in shoes similar to mine, even if you don know us well and even if we seem like we have it all together, when disasters like floods, hurricanes, wild fire and massive blackouts occur, knock on a door and use your words to say, \u201cThings are a little bit nuts. I was wondering if you needed anything.\u201d
At the top of this blog, I said I should probably not be allowed to post. This entry is going up tonight because tomorrow I am having yet another surgery (minor, promise). I\u2019ve asked people for rides. I\u2019ve asked people to come by and check on me. I\u2019ve reached out for emotional support because my PTSD<\/a>is acting up. Mostly people have been more than willing.
As I \u201creap\u201d the benefits of this support, I feel a bit horrible even speaking about how abandoned I felt last week. This blog is supposed to show the good, bad, and ugly. Guess I’m living up to the ugly part today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I probably shouldn\u2019t be allowed near a blog right now. Someone should be here to say, \u201cJen, drop the keyboard and slowly walk away from the blog.\u201d There is, however, nobody to do that. This is in fact precisely the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3J0FY-w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peoplearentbroken.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}