A Journey With Cerebral Palsy

There was a time in my life when I lived behind drawn blinds. Living in a townhouse in the small town of Duvall. Located about forty-five minutes to the southeast of Seattle, the city of Duvall is a quiet suburb. When searching for a place to purchase a first home, I wanted something a little out of the city. The drive on country roads has never bothered me and the idea of living around a farming community has always felt good. So, I chose a place with some small-town isolation, without getting too far out of touch. By the time I went looking for a townhouse, I was pretty deeply engrained in my addictive behavior. Almost feeling like my computer and access to the internet, was everything I needed in the world. The other thing I wanted was my privacy, or a feeling of isolation. Where no one was paying any attention to the way I was living my life. The townhouse I decided to purchase was inside a development of about a hundred connected homes. The way through our group of homes, were narrow roads, acting as our driveways. Meaning there wasn’t much space from my window to the window of the home across the road. The proximity of my place to the homes around me was used for my excuse. The blinds to my windows would remain closed. Almost hiding me away from the world. 

My move to the townhouse in Duvall got me out of an apartment. A single bedroom place I had spent a few years living inside. The apartment was in one of the most bustling suburbs of Seattle. It was tucked back away from the busy roads, but everywhere I would drive, I found the bustle of the city. Making it challenging to feel any kind of isolation. When I walked out of my apartment, I was likely to see another person. With the participation in my watching of pornography, all I seemed to feel was shame, when running into another person. That emotional response, making me feel even worse about the negative habit occurring inside my apartment. When looking for a more permanent place to live, I wanted relief from those judgmental eyes. People I thought were looking at me strangely because of my disability. It never occurred to me, the judgment I was attributing to other people, might not have had anything to do with my disability. They could have been interacting with me awkwardly, because of my aura. Something I wouldn’t learn until years later, was the nonverbal communication of someone engaging in my behaviors. A person watching those dirty images and frequently self-gratifying, has body language that indicates something isn’t right. I didn’t realize those things during that time, I wanted to blame others for my feelings of loneliness. 

When the opportunity came to leave the noisy suburb and find better isolation, I took it. In my years living in the apartment, I was convincing myself, this world was opposed to my situation. It was created for people who didn’t have a disability, leaving no room for me to be happy. There didn’t seem to be an avenue for me to contribute to the world. Even with a job I enjoyed, family surrounding me, I felt invisible in the world. The only thing providing me relief was going into the screen. The fantasies of another world, where I could envision some kind of acceptance. Even though escaping into videos, or creating a fantasy in my mind was toxic, it felt like my only option. So, as time went on, it felt like I only leaned into the behavior more. Moving out to a town with fewer people around, felt like I could isolate myself even more. I didn’t really know it at the time, but when I left the apartment, I seemed to be giving up hope. It wasn’t long following the move from the apartment to the townhouse, I gave up my job. Deciding instead, to try starting up this blog, which I did, to some extent. I actually think my real purpose for leaving the job was to create more isolation. Because my tendency for the first years of the blog, wasn’t to jump in, and write every day. I found ways of perpetuating my toxic behavior and became more isolated from happiness. Even finding a social outlet to encourage my addiction. Staring the blog felt like a crutch to justify walking toward the darkness. 

There was a bar in Duvall called the Dragon. I had a friend from high school who had parents living in the town, when I moved in. It wasn’t long after I had moved into my townhouse, we found ourselves reconnecting. This friend enjoyed frequenting the local bar and had many friends doing the same. Making it into almost a family like atmosphere each weekend. The only trouble was, that kind of family only promoted my lifestyle. That kind of social outlet was only leaving me feeling more alone. Less deserving of the healthy kind of happiness I wanted for myself. With all the drinking and partying occurring on nights and weekends. The behavior I was engaging in while alone, wasn’t feeling that abnormal. Unless, of course, I would interact with people who actually cared. When that occurred, and I couldn’t keep myself together, would often be when my anger flared. Because I believed that I had found a place of isolation. Where the shame and hatred I was feeling inside, had found a home. The people at the bar didn’t seem to care whether I looked at pornography and had self-gratifying issues. They were lost in their own lives of drinking and sex. Even though, I didn’t drink like them, or engage in the promiscuity. I had my own addictions waiting for me in the seclusion of my dark home. My relationships with those people could blossom from that commonality. The happenings in the bar only added fuel to the fantasies I came up with at home. The toxic cycle had taken over my life, without my understanding of anything being too wrong. 

I always remember going back to blaming cerebral palsy for my lifestyle. Or, justifying the manner in which I was living, by telling myself that I was disabled. The life I was living was all I could hope to have. My plan was to spend the rest of my life isolated in that townhouse. I was creating a bubble for myself to live within. It would take a few years until I came across a term for what I was creating during that time period. I was placing myself inside of a narcissistic bubble. Where my pornographic and self-gratification habits had taken center stage inside of my world. I didn’t understand the narcissism I was displaying daily. If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you, no way I was exhibiting narcissistic tendencies. I felt like one of the nicer people who could be met. The years would pass before coming across information to the contrary of my held beliefs. Information that would suggest the selfishness of a negatively addictive way of living a life. The narcissistic bubble I had wrapped around myself was about control. Trying to create a world around myself, where I was in complete control. There weren’t other people, whose feelings I would concern myself with. No intimate relationship for me to be challenged with. All my viewing of dirty content or the creation of fantasy in my mind, was totally under my control. If someone tried to question my behavior, I would use anger to push them back. I wanted people to fear interactions with me, especially people who believed I could do better.

My feelings were that I couldn’t do any better for myself. I was stuck with the cards I had been dealt. Some of those cards were exceptionally positive. A comfortable place to live and a blessing of a life. However, some cards kept me in a position that didn’t seem fair. Back then, cerebral palsy felt like the worst of the cards. The enemy to a normal looking life that I watched everyone around me, growing into having. Things were feeling like every effort I was making to move beyond the traps of my disability were failing. So, I leaned into the only thing that seemed to take the pain away, my addiction. I was giving up on the world and myself, without fully understanding what I was doing. My ‘new’ life revolved around nights spent out at the local bar. Spending all my time with the lost friend I had reconnected with. Wanting to get myself accepted into his social circles of toxicity. I continued my working out but left the trainer I had been working with for years. Eventually, it wasn’t just my mental health starting to spiral, it was my physical health, as well. Slowly my weight began increasing from the nights spent out at the bar. Having a drink or two and eating food not conducive to promoting a good training routine. Many of my days were spent watching television or looking at pornography, waiting on my phone to ring with the meeting time, at the bar. The blinds were closed to hide my actions and stop the light from shining inward. The dark house promoted my feelings of hopelessness.

In this closed off world of addiction and isolation, I didn’t have to try. I could sulk in my victimhood and blame everyone else for my choices. My life was turning into that of a loner. When the only real social interaction I strove for was that of my Duval friend and his circle. Most everyone else was isolated out of my life, to some degree. His attention was my main priority because he had no problem with my addictive lifestyle. He struggled with his own counterproductive choices, and we fed off one another. Both presumably acting in our own best interests, within our own narcissistic bubbles of addiction. The thing driving a wedge into that friendship was the thing keeping it functioning for years. Our individual narcissistic tendencies, over the period. The final dagger into the friendship was, like many falling outs between men, a female. One who became part of the group at the bar. I thought she was going to save me from the life I was living. Move me from the darkness of addiction, out into the light. But the girls we meet inside the bar that facilitates the addiction, aren’t the girls who rescue us from the behavior. Like most the women inside those bar circles, she drank, smoked, and wanted free attention. She was never going to rescue me from the addictive path I was on, she wanted to take advantage of it. Even if my addiction couldn’t be outwardly seen, it could be felt. I was a mess of desperation.

From those moments inside the bar, everything started to crumble. The change surely didn’t happen overnight. It would still take years after being removed from those bar nights. The isolation of losing one of my only social outlets was scary. When I found myself having lost a friend and a potential partner, the blinds remained tightly closed. The viewing of pornographic images picked up in frequency. My want to be left alone intensified and my temper flared with frequency. I couldn’t even make a life of bad choices and addiction work. With my cerebral palsy, where was I to go from there. After having lived through those social circles of addiction, desperation, and hell. I have come to believe that rock bottom can be hit more than once. The climbing out of my darkness was not a linear path. Because the thoughts and beliefs leading me to shut the blinds and hang out in barrooms, didn’t just disappear when the relationships frayed. Even though it was a blessing to have these relationships leave my life. The darkness intensified in the months following the breakdown of the relationships. It first took place with him. Then, fighting to hold onto a person I still thought could help me out of my darkness. Only to realize, after he seemed to exit the situation, things didn’t get better. More time went passing before an understanding of who she really was in my life. Though we stay in touch from time to time, my continued healing process seems to continually increase the distance. Even following the departure from that social life. It would take years before the blinds started to open. 

Getting caught inside an addictive lifestyle can be devastating. Especially, when thinking there isn’t anything wrong with the way of living. Addiction had been an aspect of my life for years. Though, I thought I had found ways of getting through many of my days. It wasn’t until moving out into a smaller town. A place I had always thought would be fun to live. That move, which found me living in my own home, for the first time. Turned out to be more isolating than I had planned. Moving my struggle with addiction onto another level. The move led to the reconnection of a friendship that didn’t help my situation. Only encouraging my dive into toxic ways of living. I walked down a path of victimization and gave up on myself. Believing the answers to my hurt would be wasting away my days in isolation. Having cerebral palsy was causing to much pain. My addiction was helping momentarily relieve those feeling of a life lost to that pain. But in a matter of a few painful months, all of that changed, and my life started along a new path. I was feeling too much loss to understand the significant of what was happening. Following the exit of those ‘friends’ from my life. I started to bottom out. Leading me to discover the damage of my negative habit. The courage was found to look my challenges in the eye. The blinds began creeping open, letting the light sliver through. I started to take responsibility instead of blame cerebral palsy. The challenges of healing began.