Chez Aspie - D. J. Kirkby's blog

Friday, 8 October 2010

I don't blog here anymore - new website link below

Hi everyone

I don't blog here anymore. I'm now blogging on my new website so please come and visit me there and change your contact details for me to: http://djkirkby.co.uk/blog/

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability — to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this...

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome to Holland.’

‘Holland?!?’ you say. ‘What do you mean, Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.’
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills.., and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.’

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.
©1987 Emily Perl Kingsley

"Shrek" Rap

My mum misses me, my family dissess me.
Society dehumanises me.
Despises me. Criticize me.
They are fossilized. I do not apologise.
I am ridiculed, violated, bullied Ignored.
I am stared at, laughed at spat at.
What have I done to you?
I mind my own business.
I do not listen. I do not see or give you the third degree.
I am holistic, simplistic certainly not materialistic.
My disability is your prejudice, systemic injustice.
Your presumptions and assumptions.
Intolerance of my difference.
Your misperception I take objection.
I am not a disorder, im not a symptom.
Its not catching.
Im not a label or a vegetable or a crystal angel.
Im not a lost soul or out of control.
Im not from outer space, or a charity case.
I am suppressed not possessed.
Institution is not a solution.
I don’t have a condition, im not an exhibition.
Im not an artist or a musician, or on a hostile expedition.
Maybe I will become a politician.
Im not an Einstein or like Rain man.
Im not Pinocchio or Peter pan.
Im not ill, I don’t want your pills
Or your out of date text book skills.
Im not a zoo exhibition or a freak show,
Im a feeling human from head to toe.
I can get lost in the worlds beauty
So don’t make me fit in your reality.
Why should I conform To what you think is the norm
Like a Big Brother contestant
All we want is acceptance.
The world loves Happyfeet Nemo and Shrek
So should I paint my face green and be on Star Trek?
I create employment and opportunity,
I educate the world in diversity.
You cant bleed the devil out of me,
People like me have influenced history.
You need me.
So don’t cure me. Don’t pity me just let me be.
Casdok

Chez Aspie - D. J. Kirkby's blog

Pages

Friday, 8 October 2010

I don't blog here anymore - new website link below

Stress Test

Stress Test