It’s Ok To Take Up Space: Unsupervised Shopping

Today is a bad day. Today, I have visible and obvious disabilities. It’s -30C and I can barely walk, but I left the house anyway. I struggled, but I’m learning to take up space just as I am.

Since October 0f 2019, I’ve left my house to go for groceries about twice a month, mostly with my husband because I feel safe with him and he knows what my deficits are so he’s very helpful. Between the two of us, and by only leaving the house on very good days, we hid that I’m disabled pretty well.

Now my husband is officially working two full-time jobs so his days off are mostly for my neuro rehab at Synaptic. Not that he’d ever say anything, but I can’t imagine that it’s much fun for him when he has a rare day off to be stuck helping me with groceries and other errands.

There’s no reason now that I can’t do it myself. It’s just emotionally and physically hard, but so what? That’s my life now.

Until last week, my husband came with me because he’s my emotional support person and he’ll protect me from everything and everyone. It’s been very reassuring while I’ve tried to come to terms with my new normal. As someone with PTSD who not only woke up disabled one day which is devastating for anyone, but to face a world that I know to be unsafe with my ability to fight or flight gone? I can’t protect myself or flee from danger out in the world.

It’s been a little a lot for both of us.

So far we’ve both been winning; I’m nervous about leaving the house alone and he’s nervous about me leaving the house alone. So we do everything together and everybody wins!

Over the past year and a bit, I shrank. I was afraid to take up space. On bad days, I’m slow. I’m stumbly. I can’t find my words or do simple math. I bump into and drop things. Because I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone or get in anyone’s way, I’ve stayed home most of the time since the winter of 2019. If I left, I typically made sure my husband came with me.

Having to bag my own groceries during Covid has been a source of anxiety. My arms are slow. When I’m tired, my left hand is pretty useless. At the end of a grocery excursion I’m fatigued, which is most unfortunate because bagging the groceries comes at the end.

I’m still trying to figure out who I am now. If I’m no longer the rock, no longer the fixer who has it all together, what’s my role in the world? I’m not a dancer anymore. Not a runner, not a good hiker, not a long-distance walker, not an athlete, not a paramedic, not a business owner. (This will be a whole other post for a whole other day.)

I do know that I’m still a human being and I’m allowed to be out in public and take up space.

It’s okay to leave my house whether I’m having a good day or a bad day.

This is my life now, and just staying home when I have bad days isn’t always going to be feasible. Burdening my husband with taking me for groceries on his few days off a month isn’t fair.

There’s really nothing stopping me from doing it alone like I’d done our entire marriage, except my own emotional stress.

I’m not quick any longer or physically strong, and I don’t have any endurance anymore. I’m not high-performing in any area. Barring a lottery win or other significant upswing of circumstances not dependent on my physical ability to earn wages, I’m likely to spend the rest of my life in poverty just trying to survive and manage my disease, dependent on my husband, (thank goodness he’s amazing) and unlikely to achieve any more goals of much significance.

But groceries, I can handle.

I lurched and stumbled my way into and around the grocery store and I wasn’t fast but I took up space.

Sometimes it took me an extra thirty seconds to be able to find what I wanted, and then it took me a little longer to be able to grab it because of my tremor. Getting an item into my cart, then being able to get walking down the aisle again is a slow process.

So what?

People can go around me. Or they can wait, I don’t care anymore.

A doctor told me today that MS isn’t a terminal illness. She was being reassuring, but boy am I not excited that I could live another 40 years like this and likely get worse, so I’m afraid I can’t be apologetic for the next few decades that I have a disease that I tried really hard not to develop with effects that I didn’t ask for or cause. I don’t have anything to be apologetic for, and I don’t have the energy.

After all the hard things I’ve been through just the last few years, I should feel bad because someone in the grocery checkout has to wait an extra 85 seconds while I bag my groceries?

Am I hypersensitive to others based on my background? Yup.

Am I also having what I think is a fairly normal response after I had one woman angrily call me a drunk when I stumbled into her restaurant table in November of 2019 and another complete psycho accost me last summer when I couldn’t get across the street fast enough for her?

Also yup.

But I’m starting to realize that my anxiety about being out in public is a me issue. Anyone who’s going to be a jerk because I’m slow or uncoordinated?

That’s a them issue.

It’s okay that I can’t do things quickly or perfectly. It’s okay that things are harder for me now, and it takes me longer to do things.

I’m allowed to take up space anyway.