A Journey With Cerebral Palsy

A compliment can turn out to be, just a compliment. When someone from my past makes mention of my healing journey. Talking with me about how I had previously acted like a shit show, but now seem to have improved on my challenges. The situation left me wondering if there might be a future for the relationship. As things came to a close on our first lunch, mention of seeing each other again, was mentioned. With the term of a future date being casually thrown in my direction. Old parts of me would have been on board in an instant. Counting down the minutes until we communicated, again. Wanting to find ways of moving in the direction of a date as soon as humanly possible. But, that was the old me, who lived a life in constant desperation. Today, I do my best to exercise the discipline I have been trying to build. Attempting to add more structure to my life. Practicing something I used to pay little attention to, delayed gratification. So, instead of staring at the clock, getting back to her in a couple hours, or the following day, I waited. Wondering if there was any validity to the comments she made, when lunch had concluded. It took a couple of days, but I heard from her, again. Still, I didn’t jump at the chance of seeing her instantly. It felt like some patience would be my friend. 

There seems to be a perfect storm with having cerebral palsy and struggling with addiction. The social desperation of having a disability has been stifling. It remains one of the strongest challenges of my world. Engaging in sexual fantasy has been the main tool of escaping from my social pain. Traveling into a world where I don’t have to think about the differences of my life. However, the form of escape I had chosen for about a quarter century, has only been making life more challenging. I thought it relieved the frustrations of living in a world not created for someone with a disability. The stresses in my life, the fears of being alone, would melt away for a period. At times, even leaving me with the belief of wanting to be all alone. Because, if I were left all alone, I could participate in my escaping without interruption. Even trying to convince myself the only thing I really needed for social interaction was watching pornography. My life had gotten to a pretty terrible place. Meanwhile, all of the pornography infiltrating my brain, with all of the sexual tantalization taking place. I was only becoming more frustrated and angry about my world. My emotions of desperation and social longing, only became worse with each image and fantasy. When any ‘real’ woman gave me the time of day, I would latch on with both hands. Desperate for anyone who would date someone with cerebral palsy, I would overlook too many factors, because of my desperation. 

It feels interesting to look back on those days of the past. The challenges of life with cerebral palsy don’t seem to have ever never the true problem. My disability wasn’t the aspect of my life leading to desperation. If you’re reading this and curious. Take a minute, look up concepts like NoFap and semen retention. Then, do a quick dive into the money flowing into the world of pornography. The information might astound you, as happened when I came across it. The impact all of these things have on our social interactions was astonishing to me, when I found the information. My isolation from life wasn’t the product of having a disability. Many of my social challenges were brought about because of my handling of those challenges, brought about by having CP. Attempting to gain relief from stress by escaping into a world of sexual fantasy wasn’t the answer. But, since my days of going through puberty, all the way up to my late thirties, I thought it was my only hope of stress relief. Instead, my habits caused all sorts of added challenges and a desperation for female attention I wish on no one person. The desperation caused me to allow for female treatment that should have never been tolerated. I had no boundaries and would give almost anything to someone showing interest. It was unattractive, elicited pity, and made me an easy target to gain attention for themselves. Over time, my self-respect had fallen into the toilet.

Moving out of the world I had created for myself has been no easy journey. The manner in which I was living had cemented itself over years. Only getting worse after convincing myself that moving out to Duvall, by myself, would be helpful. It only helped me better isolate and dive deeper into my negative habits. Following the turning of a corner in my life. Happening to coincide with the isolation of the pandemic. The climb out from the depth has been challenging, yet steady. There continue to be bumps in the path, but the movement always feels forward. Leading to the recent lunch with someone who had benefited from my desperation, in years past by. The second interaction was another venture into gathering information. Was there any seriousness behind the desire of moving into a dating scenario? Unlike in previous years, I didn’t feel myself looking for her approval. The time, had been put in to work my way away from viewing pornography, completely. Along with large steps being made to pull myself away from imagined sexual fantasies, leading to self-gratification. I had spent over two years along the healing path. When her words, over our first contact in about a year, spoke to the improvement. Now, I wanted to look upon the relationship through the new lens I had achieved. Was the disconnect between us because of my struggles, or was it deeper? It felt worth further investigation.

A gift brought about from my healing journey has been my perception of social interaction. Much less am I overly concerned with my ability to say the correct thing. My concern over someone leaving the interaction and wanting to see me again, has diminished. The change leaves room for me to reflect on how I’m feeling inside the interactions. Asking myself whether I enjoy the manner in which I’m being treated, or appreciate the values of another person. Rarely, in the past, was I concerned with anything being said that might give me pause. Any concerns would be sluffed off, because all I wanted was attention. Those moments of pause could be worked out if I just acted ‘perfect’ enough to gain approval. Well, those ideas inside myself have progressed in changing throughout my healing. Leading me to sit at lunch with new check lists running through my mind. Listening to the words coming out in conversation, without allowing physical attraction to dampen the meaning. I found things that weren’t going to be compatible inside my world. Flags that seemed to have a dull red tint to them, when I struggled with addiction. On that day at lunch, the color simmered like it was radiating from a perfectly washed sports car. It still felt like I was being used, without much hesitation. But, the language of anger as a general philosophy seemed to encompass a large portion of my struggle with the conversation, and it felt unapologetic. With my personal battle of trying to improve my challenges with anger, the possibility of a match suddenly felt like a dead end.  

In the past, I would have found ways of talking myself out of the conclusion. Thinking of trying to give an interaction one more opportunity. But, interacting with people could always be given one more opportunity. One nice moment could be enough to bring me back, like one good golf shot leaves me wanting to play tomorrow. However, in this case we aren’t talking about time on a golf course, things surrounding anger, also lead me into discomfort. The old version of myself, wouldn’t have known when to pull the plug. Allowing for nonproductive relationships to drag on for years. There seem to be many benefits to walking the healing path of a negative habit. Especially a habit causing destruction to one self and the would around themselves. It was certainly the case in my life, for years. I have loved the discovery of setting boundaries I hadn’t felt good enough to set. The shifting of my role within a social interaction. It has all risen from working towards a challenging goal. There still feels like a long path in front of me to walk. But, lunches like the one a couple weeks ago, brings me strength during the process. Leaving me to believe, my development of strong boundaries will continue to grow. Allowing me to set standards for interaction that are reasonable and measured, rather than desperate and anxious.