Redefining My Cerebral Palsy My Way
While writing yesterday’s post, I was going to leave it as “Perhaps the brain damage†and carry on. But then I chose to add “or brain injury†because some people now refer to cerebral palsy as a brain injury and I didn’t want to alienate or offend them by saying only brain damage – that wasn’t the point of the post.
But then it struck me in that moment. There’s a difference between damage and injury, perhaps only a slight one, but those two words do conjure up a difference in meaning, at least to me, in that moment.
Damage, for the the most part, occurs to a thing, an object, a good. Once damaged, a thing or object usually cannot be completely restored to its undamaged state. Damaged goods are typically devalued, discounted or discarded.
Whereas injury happens to living creatures; to birds, to animals, to people. Unless it’s a life-threatening injury, the person survives; perhaps not quite the same as before, but some parts or characteristics or qualities remain the same.
Defining cerebral palsy as permanent brain damage, which is always how it was explained to me and to those around me and is how I’ve seen it defined in countless sources, feels so heavy, so dooming, so damning. I began life damaged: devalued, discounted, and, by some, discarded. Where is the hope in that?
Instead, yesterday, by saying “permanent brain injuryâ€, I felt that weight instantly lift. Yes, the injury is permanent. I’m not denying that fact. But the injury happened to parts of me; other parts of me, of my spirit, of my being remain uninjured, unharmed and intact. Those parts remain valuable and worthy.
It’s my cerebral palsy. I am the one who has to live with it every day, day in and day out. Therefore I am who gets to define it, and, today, I’m defining my cerebral palsy as a permanent brain injury. Brain damage be gone!
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