Do I Have a Superpower? What Illness Can Teach Us About Ourselves

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarashina. It is a fantastic collection of essays that thinks through the possibilities of a political future where disability justice is a part of our everyday lives. In one of Leah’s essays, they argue that sick and disabled folks have “superpowers,” which allow them to heal themselves as well as others. It got me to thinking… do I have a superpower? If not, what value do I have? Am I a good person? What do I have to offer my communities? Leah’s work has been insightful as I ponder these questions.

Sick and disabled folks have many superpowers: one of them is that we often have highly developed skills around care. Many of us have received shitty, condescending, charity-based care or abusive or coercive care—whether it’s from medical staff or our friends and families. We’re also offered unsolicited medical advice every day of our lives, mostly coming from a place of discomfort with disability and wanting to “fix” us.

All of this has made us very sophisticated at negotiating care, including our understanding that both offering and receiving it is a choice. The idea of consent in care is a radical notion stemming from disabled community wisdom. Ableism mandates that disabled people are supposed to gratefully accept any care offered to “fix” us. It’s mind blowing for many people to run into the common concept in many sick and disabled communities, that disabled people get to decide for ourselves the kind of care we want and need, and say no to the rest. This choicefulness has juicy implications for everyone, including the abled

– A Modest Proposal For a Fair Trade Emotional Labor Economy 

When Criticism Makes You Doubt Your Value

Today I was watching the Charmed reboot, and the witches lightworker Harry said something that struck me. Essentially it was to the effect of “having the ability to deeply empathize with others, and being desperately insecure are two sides of the same coin.” Essentially it means that often people who are empathetic–meaning that they can form deep socio-spiritual connections with the emotions of others–can also be very sensitive to the opinions and thoughts of others. No matter how much I tell myself otherwise, I care deeply about what people think of me. As a result, I often find myself in crisis over criticisms that are absent of affirmation [even if it is productive correction]. Over the last year I’ve been in a mentorship program that has required me to defer to the intuition of the programs elders when it comes to everything, including, but not limited to my professional life, my social life, and yes, my character. In practice this has been a experience in withstanding a ton of criticism. Just yesterday an elder told me that my character has (in their words) some deficiencies.

I am in the program voluntarily because my hope is that it will strengthen and sharpen me in a way that will facilitate my growth. However I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the experience has left me in a constant state of self-debut. Almost everyday I find myself asking, am I a good person? Do I have good character? What if I am deeply flawed beyond repair? What if all of the things I’ve thought I’ve done for the greater good are actually nothing but a massive ego trip? It’s been tough. When someone I respect told me that my character has deficiencies, almost immediately I began to think that [perhaps] I have no value. Why am I sharing all of this? Because social media culture encourages us to act like we have it altogether. The pressure I feel, particularly as a professional academic with a Ph.D. from a top-ten institution, is tremendous. But my hope is that by being honest and vulnerable about my self-doubt, I can serve as an example that you can be unsure of yourself and still “keep calm and carry on.”

Disability Justice Shows Us That We All Have Superpowers

So in the midst of my current crisis of confidence, I am asking myself, do I have value? Do I have a superpower? If so, what is it?

Leah’s work is teaching me that when I doubt myself, I can look to my experience as a disabled person for instruction.

We center the genius and leadership of disabled and chronically ill communities, for what we know about surviving and resisting the medical industrial complex and living with fierce beauty in our sick and disabled bodies. We say no to the medical industrial complex’s model of “cure or be useless,” instead working from a place of belief in the wholeness of disability, interdependence and disabled people as inherently good as we are. – from the 2012 Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space Principles (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 102).

Over the years, I’ve spent an increasing amount of time in and out of hospitals. As a result, I’ve accumulated a tremendous amount of experience negotiating hospital bills, and advocating for myself with doctors, nurses and hospital administrators. It’s a set of skills that has been hard won via experience and trauma. But the upside is that during the last few years I’ve been able to not only wield those skills for my own benefit, but for the benefit of my loved ones. I’m also no longer afraid of hospitals. So when a loved one has an emergency I’m able to sit with them for hours. Years ago, when a friends child first became sick, I was able to help her advocate for him with his doctors and nurses. What is beautiful about my superpowers, is that their foundation is rooted in disability justice. That means that they don’t simply belong to me, they are passed on to every community member I share them with.

But Could I Actually be a Healer?!

My experience as a chronically ill person has also strengthened my empathy. I’ve discovered a deep well of joy in the nurturing of others. As I grow in my spiritual practice, and my political practice(s), I am beginning to [tentatively] think of myself as a healer.

before “healing justice” was a term, healers had been healing folks at kitchen tables and community clinics for a long time… As my mentor, intuitive healer Dori Midnight says, “it’s nothing new to invite people into your home, give them some tea, listen to their grief, hold space for their pain, lay them down on cushions on the floor and pray with them or touch them or move energy and offer remedies made from plants and stones” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 99).

I was profoundly affected when I read that passage for the first time. The things I’ve intuitively done since I was a teenager can be considered healing work? and not only that, but they can be considered political work? It is a tremendous thing to consider that the joy I gain from nurturing could be healing to those I nurture. On top of all of that, Leah is pushing me [via this text] to consider myself a person with superpowers [in the metaphorical sense]. That is a powerful, and potentially life altering thing! Particularly for someone like myself who doubts herself at every turn.

Discovering Your Superpower in the Face of It All

So what can you, dear reader, take from all of this? I believe the takeaway is that we are all profoundly powerful in ways that are easy to overlook. Criticism, even in it’s most helpful form can easily become debilitating if you allow it to define your sense of self. When combined with other self-esteem killers like imposter syndrome, it is easy to get swept in a way in the belief that you have nothing positive to offer those around you. Look to your struggles and your pain points. What have they taught you? what have they strengthened in you? While there is nothing more annoying than hearing that tough experiences, “happen for a reason.” I have found some healing while combing my past for the places where I’ve grown, and the moments where sparks of wisdom have caught fire. Disability teaches us that people living with chronic illness and/or sickness have gifts to share with us all. Today I am encouraging you to fearlessly seek out your superpowers… after all, they are probably hiding in plain sight.

peace

a

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