I suck at math.

This is not a time when I am fishing for compliments or reassurance about my intelligence. It’s just a fact. I suck ass at math and I probably always will, at least to some degree, until we all have personal robots who are designed to not only pick dirty socks up off of the floor, but to also figure out the appropriate amount for a tip in a restaurant.

I suck at math does not mean that I didn’t fare that well at algebra nor does it mean that I sometimes forget how to convert the temperature on the kid’s thermometer. It means that I lack some pretty basic mathematical skills, like division and addition in my head, that most of you probably take for granted. Throw a couple of numbers at me and ask me to add them up without a pen and paper and I’m pretty much fucked.

There are a couple of reasons for my terrible math skills.

One is simply that I don’t have very many math courses under my belt. You see, I had surgery to remove a cyst from my right ovary when I was in grade eleven. Those surgeries resulted in a terrible, raging infection that nearly killed me and subsequently resulted in a long hospital stay and even longer stay at home. I missed about two months of school. Which meant, of course, that I had a lot of catching up to do. I looked at my course load (yes, I was doing homework while I was away from school) and decided to drop my advanced level grade eleven math course. To catch up in that class, I would have had to stay after school for the rest of the year and have one on one sessions with the teacher and let’s face it… I was sixteen years old! I didn’t want to spend my Friday nights listening to Mr. May say, “Use your e-raz-or!” I had exciting sixteen year old plans!

So, I dropped it with the intention to take it again in grade twelve. And I did. Except, here was the problem.

I hated being in a class full of grade eleven kids. I was taking grade twelve and OAC everything else, and didn’t put a lot of priority into the math class. And…well…see…the teacher who taught the class was, um, super, super smokin’ hot, okay? And it was close to summer time and he would wear shorts to class and talk about who the “math stars” for the week were (believe it or not, I never made it to that wall of fame!) and tell us all about his dog and how his wife forgot to pick him up from work one day and well, I pretty much just sat in my desk and imagined doing dirty, dirty things with Mr. Neil on that desk of his.

I only passed that class, * barely * , because some dink with the same initials as me never signed his name to his homework. He just put, “JP” so Mr. Neil gave me the marks for the homework even though I hadn’t turned in a sheet of homework since the start of the class! Ha!

Right. So I don’t have great math skills. And lack of math classes probably contributes to that.

I also think that my lack of math skills might have something to do with heredity. My Dad is severely dyslexic. And it doesn’t just affect his reading skills. If you ask my Dad what time it is and the digital clock reads, 1:13, chances are he’ll say the time is 3:11.

I truly have trouble understanding the explanations for mathematical equations and usually need it explained over again, going * backwards * before I can get it.

I suck at math.

There are absolutely times when my lack of math skills come into play, but I can tell you this:

Sucking at math has never made it difficult for me to climb a flight of stairs.

Sucking at math has never required a separate entrance to a building.

Sucking at math has never required me to have painful surgery, nor has it required lengthly recovery times.

Nobody has ever been scared to touch me because I suck at math.

Nobody has ever made assumptions about the rest of me and my life and my personality because I sucj at math.

I have never been shunned because of my poor math skills and while it is definitely something that I’m not exactly * proud * of, I’ve never really felt the urge to hide it. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal because of one very clear difference:

You can’t tell that I suck at math by looking at me.

It is definitely true that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses and that we all face different challenges because of, or in spite of, those very strengths and weaknesses. We * are * all challenged in various ways, whether that is because we suck at math or because we were born in a body different from most others. Yes, we are all equal.

But equal does mean same.

By forcing people to gloss over their experiences and boil everything down to a convenient anecdote (what a surprise…I’m thinking of Ani again! “We are made to bleed. And scab and heal and bleed again. And turn every scar into a joke”), we are actually forcing them to pretend that they are the “same” as everyone else, when clearly, the human experience is different for all of us. And what we actually serve to do when we force people with clear, physical disabilities to gloss over their experiences and their challenges in day to day life out of our own fear of what life with a physical disability is actually like and out of fear of allowing someone to “feel sorry for themselves”, is to alienate them.

They know they aren’t “like everyone else”. Telling them that is a bold faced lie. And all that it does is subconsciously tell them that talking about their differences, being honest about the challenges and likewise, the solutions to the challenges, some of which can be pretty fucking creative and genius, is showing weakness. And most of these people, at various points in their lives, have already felt more weak and more powerless over their lives and the very body they were born with than most of will ever feel.

When we tell them that they are “doing a great job!” or when we tell them to stay strong, be okay, don’t feel sorry for yourself, someone always has it worse than you, we are completely invalidating their own human experience. We are also telling them that nobody wants to hear it. Nobody is interested. Nobody has room for any more compassion…it’s enough to have to look at you, it’s enough to have to “accept” you, please don’t ask us to try to understand, too.

And yet, most of us, on some level at least, crave validation, don’t we? There are reasons for community… the gay community was born out of a need, wasn’t it? To be around other gays and other lesbians, to feel embraced and accepted, to be encouraged in their identity and to share with others their own experiences and therefore feel validated… “you’re not alone.”

I am a survivor of rape, incest and abuse. Hearing, “you’re not alone” was one of the most powerful moments in my life. Likewise, finding someone who would actually * listen * to what has happened to me without recoiling in horror was one of the most powerful moments in my life. I, too, have spent much of my life making my experiences easier for everyone else to handle. Most people can’t take hearing much more than, “I was molested” or “I was raped” or “I was physically and emotionally abused”.

We all need to have our experiences validated from time to time so that they don’t eat us alive. This is often what stops us from sitting on the sidewalk, rocking back and forth and mumbling to ourselves! And blogging itself is often a way for us to have our experiences validated, isn’t it? We share our stories, leave comments and read comments and feel a sense of community and a sense of support from the people reading our stories. And likewise, we feel like we “know” one another as we relate to what we read.

So, why is it then that it is so difficult for us to allow someone with a physical disability or a physical difference from most the population to share their challenges and experiences? Why does that scare us so much?

Because of political correctness. Because it is our honest and genuine fear of making someone feel like an outsider, right? We teach our children “not to stare” so that we don’t make someone in a wheelchair feel uncomfortable. We tell our children that “we’re all the same on the inside” so that they won’t call attention to the physical differences we see in strangers.

Because we know now that being disabled or differently abled or physically challenged does not mean that someone is incapable of doing anything for themselves. I truly believe and understand that this tendency to invalidate another’s experience was born out of very good intentions.

They’ve had enough attention in their lives. We don’t want to give them any more unwanted attention.

And yet, we don’t know where to draw the line. So we don’t stare, don’t make eye contact and try to speak as minimally as possible. And we thereby force someone to try to become invisible.

My question is this:

Why don’t we just ask? Why don’t we just pull an Emma or a Kate and ask the questions that a physical disability brings to mind?

Why does Don have crutches?

Why does it take him so long to take off his boots?

Can Don drive a car?

Can Don go down our basement stairs?

Did something happen to Don to make his legs look like that? Or was he born that way?

Does Don like gum?

(Ha)

And furthermore, start looking into the questions that nobody dares to ask.

Can Don have sex?

Can Don reach orgasm?

Is sex or orgasm more difficult for someone with Don’s disability?

How does he get into a sexual position? How is sex initiated?

By never asking these questions and never talking about the answers we propel the idea that there is shame in a physical disability.

I have been looking into these questions and more for several months now and what I find more discouraging than anything, is how few answers there are out there and furthermore, how little information there is for the people with disabilities regarding sex and sexuality.

This * must * change.

This * will * change.

At some point, someone has to say the words that most of us find comfort in:

You’re not alone.