Images out there

I'm usually hesitant to share images on this blog. Let me clarify. I am hesitant to share photographs of myself, my partner, my children, my family and my friends. I'm not really au fais with how this internet thingo works but I am kind of becoming pretty aware that whatever you post on this big webby thing is permanent. Even if you delete something people are able to access cached files somehow and gain access to what you no longer wanted them to see.

I know that sounds so very naieve, the way I have described it....but I'm a wordsmith, not a computer programmer, mathemetician or scientist......which reminds me.....did I ever tell you about the time I got 4% on a Maths exam once???

That's for another day.

But yes, I am very aware of what I post because I know that there are people out there who think nothing of right clicking, Saving As and then using my precious images for their own means... And I am no longer a firm believer in the goodness of all mankind. There are some nasty people out there. Go have a look at GOMI if you don't believe me....but then again....no, don't.

The fact that people can use your own images without permission for their own means came screaming out at us in technicolour this weekend. My eldest daughter became aware that her image was being used on some kind of health information website. The image is a nice one, don't get me wrong, but the point is, somehow someone Right Clicked on one of her photos from back in the day when she wrote a blog, saved it and then used it to add to their rather dodgy information about dwarfism. I'm not going to link it here because the information isn't accurate at all. This image is being used without her permission.

She then Google searched the image and found it has been used in other places as well as being someone's Avatar on a not so very nice forum which seems to dedicate itself to bashing Christianity.

Wow.

So...what to do?

Personally, I'm rethinking the images I will post here. I'm asking my loved ones if it's ok to post their images and how they want me to edit them. I'm considering just head shots that reveal very little of people's conditions. Although we like to think we live in a world that embraces difference I am very aware that living with a physical difference, particularly dwarfism, can still evoke the worst in people and making fun of people with dwarfism seems to still happen on an alarming level.

I'm still learning. I wish I didn't have to be shocked to learn though.

The Other Side of the Coin

I've always been confused by people who seem determined to dig their own holes, in spite of having clear examples of hope in front of them. Is it that they just want to wallow in their own pain? Is it more comfortable to be there? Does the working toward creating a bright future seem too hard...or is their picture of a bright future unrealistic?

I consider that I'm living a bright life, despite the shadowy bits. The sunshine always casts shadows...and that's ok. Shadows are part of the landscape. I have people who love me. I have a job that pays the bills. I am independent. I am strong, fit and healthy. Wouldn't you think that would be enough to convince someone that life with a genetic condition is still good, purposeful and fulfilling?

You would think so.

But there are those who, in spite of the brightness and soothing warmth of the sun will only look for and focus on the shadows. It's as though the presence of the shadows consume the very brightness that is still shining.

I met a woman and her 8 week old baby daughter in a serendipitous happening at a local supermarket. I was oblivious to her presence until she stopped me and blurted out, "My daughter's like you!" I looked in the carriage and there she was; this dear little baby girl who most definitely did have achondroplasia like me.

We discovered that we lived very close to each other and thus began a friendship of sorts. This woman leaned on me for support, reassurance and advice. Her family watched our family and we were their examples of a family with short statured members all living fulfilling, purposeful, happy lives - despite surgeries, despite attracting public attention simply by walking out our front door.

But it was the staring and comments that this woman focused on. It angered her, upset her...and it was as though she expected that the rest of humanity would not look or stare. In a perfect world this would be lovely...but we don't live in a perfect world.

Instead of watching how we coped with a curious world and gleaning information about how to help her daughter cope, this woman got angrier and angrier...reacting to any form of staring or comments that we or her daughter received. She did not know how to differentiate the natural curiosity of an innocent three year old child and the obvious, cruel taunts of a group of teens that should know better. Staring was staring and the starers, whether they be a three year old child or a sixty year old man bore the wrath of a mother who, I believe deep down, was having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that her baby was born "not quite right".

And, despite all our encouragement and support, the family never really got over it. The little girls difference was at the forefront of their minds all the time. The girl grew up very, very angry to the point of responding with animalistic snarls towards any form of attention she got. The mother never taught her how to be independent so she never learned skills like cooking for herself, shopping, travelling alone. Her mother never even let her daughter have her own ATM card for fear that she would be mugged and robbed, therefore teaching her daughter that the world was out to get her, that she was incapable of defending herself. She never learned to shop for herself, never learned how to catch a bus or a train on her own. 

Now in her mid-20's the girl is a recluse; never leaving the house because she can't deal with the world. She has no job, no life skills, no confidence.

And I started wondering if there was more I could have done...but I know there's nothing more. Sometimes your life can be a good example for another and yet they choose to see what they want to see. It's still not enough. They want anonymity for their child...that sweet, blessed invisibility that the average Joe-Bloe is born with just by being average...or normal...or unaffected by any genetic anomaly. The human race is a curious race and we all, even those of us who are born "different", are curious about anything or anyone who is different to the norm. 

Yesterday I bumped into the mother who was still stuck in her angst and resentment. She acknowledged that by doing everything for her daughter she had created a rod for her own back and raised a child who will never be independent because she was never taught how. She remained negative the entire time I spoke with her and, after telling her of my running plan, became the first person who doubted it's success.

I always knew that I'd been raised to be independent, that by being born first and expected to be the "big sister" I had responsibility thrust upon me at an early age; that by being put into ballet classes, Brownies, Guides, Little Athletics and Youth Groups I was encouraged to be out and about in the community and learned to cope with people's natural curiosity and sometimes rudeness...but I also learned social skills just as any other child my age would; that by being just one of seven children I learned to fend for myself because there was no time to mollycoddle and over protect. But to see the other side of the coin yesterday was a real eye opener and I saw what could've happened if things had've been different for me.

Schoolyard tactics

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I made the fatal mistake of stumbling upon Free Jinger and GOMI the other day.

It got me both sad and riled so I started writing the following under the title of "The World Is A Big Schoolyard".

The world is a big schoolyard. I've finally worked that out. I can't believe how long it's taken me to come to this. I'm not saying that everyone stays in the schoolyard. There are a vast number of people I know and love who no longer reside in the schoolyard but have moved on to maturity and with mindfulness. However, if you just scratch on the surface of adulthood you see it's still there - the schoolyard politics and hierarchies and competitiveness and jealousies and terrible, horrible bitchiness that grows and spreads like a cancer devouring (or trying to) the goodness in its path.

I just don't get it. Why would you have a forum totally dedicated to hating on bloggers? Why would you troll on other people's sites that they tend so lovingly just to feed your own hate and jealousy and then bitch about it to others? If you don't like a blog, if you want them to "Get Off My Internet" then it's simple - JUST CLICK AWAY! Then they're not ON your internet are they? Practically every blog I read and love is featured on GOMI. And the bitching! Nasty, hateful, spiteful stuff. Awful.

I guess it's part of the reason why I've been so quiet on the blogging/diary front lately. I just don't do hate. I don't do bitchy. I have never been able to understand it and I have handled it badly when it's been directed towards me. (no, I wasn't featured on GOMI as far as I know. They seem to leave writers under the disability category alone...kind of.)

Which got me thinking a lot about my family of origin and wondering what we would have been like if I hadn't have been born with achondroplasia. Would we still have the same acceptance and attitudes towards difference if we hadn't had first hand experience of difference ourselves? I ponder on this a lot. I remember early years when I didn't know I had a difference. I remember starting at children/young adults who were different and my mother calling us on it. I remember a boy being cruel to a little girl with an intellectual disability at school and I couldn't work out why. She was just a little girl as far as I was concerned.

I remember a young man named Paul who had an intellectual disability. It concerned me when I was three or four as I knew he was much older than me but he was acting a lot younger than me. After he and his mother got out of our car and we were driving home I said, "That boy's not proper, Mum!" Funny how I knew to wait until they were out of the car to make a statement like that.

I remember a young woman with an intellectual disability who lived across the road from us. Sally was in her 20's...or maybe even early 30's. She came over to our place many, many times and played Totem Tennis with us. You'd see her walking the streets with her dog...who was not desexed and constantly (so it seemed) on heat. Consequently there were a whole pack of male dogs with them. We kids knew that Sally was a grown up but acted like a little kid...and that was ok. We didn't tease her for it.

Once my little brother and I did tease her though because we thought she wasn't wearing any knickers. Truth be told, she possibly had a massive wedgie. Mum tore strips off us. We were sent to bed without dinner. Our teasing had nothing to do with her disability and everything to do with the fact we thought she had a bare bum!

Sally came to a sad end. Years later when we moved away we heard news reports that Sally had wandered off from her residential care facility and had become lost. She died of exposure.

A kid in our neighbourhood once yelled at my brother, "You're just picking on me because I'm black!" to which my brother replied, "No! I'm picking on you because you're a little turd and you're annoying!" Racism meant nothing to us. My little brother shouldn't have been picking on that kid anyway, but his race had nothing to do with it. (for the record....that kid was an annoying little turd!)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that these are the actions of children.....and children grow up....or they're supposed to. Meanness and nastiness and bias doesn't compute in my family. Not accepting people because they look different, think different, act different, have different values, religious ideas doesn't factor. When we encounter such nastiness the common question is, "But why???"

Which is why I can't understand those who don't move on from childish ways....and continue with the schoolyard tactics of bullying and teasing and bitching and hurting others simply because they can......and these days they do it from the "safety" of their keyboard and screens. They don't have to witness first hand what their nastiness does.....which to me is the penultimate of cowardice.

So.....please.......if you don't like a writer's content, if their lives make you gag, if you can't stand seeing one more picture of their perfect children, if you don't like the way they are living their life, or educating their children, if you don't hold to their same religious beliefs or lack of......then for the love of all that is good......CLICK AWAY! Don't leave that snippy comment. Don't bitch about them on a forum. Just don't go there. Let them live their lives and you go and do the same. Spread a bit of goodness into the world by wishing them well and moving on.

We have enough hate in the world. Hating is easy. Challenge yourself to taking the better road. Live and let live.

Just hold the eggs

Our house was egged on Saturday night.

I don't like eggs at the best of times.

Evil little ovals of yuckiness! I mean, come on! Who was it who looked at what emerged from a chooks bum and said, "Mmm! Yummy! I think I'll eat that!" 

But seriously, yes our house was egged to welcome the first official weekend of Daylight Savings. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. Our house isn't the only one in town that endures an egging once the longer days are upon us but I think it's the most frequently targeted. 

For obvious reasons of course. Most hooligans know where we live and who lives here. 

This egging was a pain in the butt more than anything as it had been a warm day and we had the window open. The eggs were thrown at the window so they hit the screen, broke and went onto the blinds and the curtains. 

Little buggers.

It's gotten to the stage now where I just sigh, grab a bucket, mop and the hose and go clean it off before it hardens. Yes I've been to the police who have promised there will be more patrols but in the grand scheme of things I suppose eggings are not too serious in their opinion. They've got domestic violence and robberies and stabbings to see to. Totally understand.

We've had worse than eggs and times where they've entered our property and damaged our gates. These have definitely been reported to the police, who did actually step up patrols in the area.

I can't really tell you why I am no longer outraged or incensed or even hurt. Maybe I've just reached a stage of my life where I know that their actions reflect more on their character rather than mine. I know that we're targeted because we are a family of short statured people and the bullies think that's funny.....but for some reason I have moved on and it has no bearing on how I feel about myself and my kids and our place in the world. I know we belong and I know we're pretty cool people....and I'm sure that if these bullies actually swallowed their fear (because that's all it is, you know!) and took a chance to get to know us, they'd think we were pretty cool too. 

And I really wish they would do that......

.....because cleaning smashed egg off windows and brickwork is a bitch of a job.

Protego Totalum - AKA Living in my bubble

Protego Totalum : is an incantation of many protective enchantments used to defend a certain small or enclosed area. Taken from the latin Protego meaning "to protect" and Totalum,  meaning "as a whole".

Taken from HERE.

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Living as a person with an obvious physical difference has meant that when I am out and about doing my regular everyday, mundane things, I am noticed. A lot. It comes as part of the package. Everyone does it. I even do it. A difference registers in the brain. For me, I register the difference and move on....but most human beings register a difference and linger on it longer than is often comfortable.

For a long while I noticed this noticing. A lot. I knew when people stared. I saw when people did the double take. I heard the comments, the giggling, the obvious mirth. It used to bother me. A lot. I longed to be invisible, camouflaged, to just fit in....but that wasn't going to happen. Ever.

It was my brother who provided me with the perfect strategy for handling being under constant scrutiny. He told me that as the CEO of a business, people were always trying to get his attention, to meet with him, to take up his time - especially when he arrived at work. He told me to avoid this he would pretend not to notice, to look busy and purposeful and to avoid eye contact. He told me that eye contact meant that you were looking to engage with someone and that he had noticed that I was constantly looking at people, expecting contact. 

Look busy, ignore it and eventually you won't see it. 

It was hard to start off with. I realised how much of my time out in public was taken up with looking for people who were noticing me! (that sounds like I was up myself!) I was expecting the stares, the comments, the jitters. It took me a long time to perfect the art of not noticing at all and forming almost a "protective bubble" around myself. 

I now know how to use Protego Totalum!

I hardly notice it anymore! It hasn't stopped. I know it happens. In fact, possibly since the advent of the smart phone I am probably photographed or filmed at least once every day, but because I don't look for it, as far as I am concerned it's not happening.

Ignorance, my friends, CAN sometimes be bliss!

Of course I notice the obvious times. There are times where people are just so obviously downright rude that I can't help but notice and, sometimes, confront them on it. They're the times where someone has breached the protective bubble - you know, "This is my dance space, this is your dance space!" - and they have entered into my own personal space. I'm big on personal space. When your face is level with an average sized person's bum, personal space is very important! 

But for the most part these days I walk about in my little space of Protego Totalum and I am oblivious. This has done wonders for my own sense of self and for my mental health. Constantly feeling like I was on show was really doing my head in. Like, really!

The only downside of this is that there are times where I notice nothing! I friend could be calling out to me from the other side of the road, waving madly at me and I won't notice a thing. (It might help if I didn't have my ear phones in listening to my favorite tunes!) I've had people say to me afterwards, "I saw you at the ***** today and I was waving madly but you ignored me!" We laugh about it, but they know it's just a part of the way I do life....they also think I'm nutty, but that's another story. 

I am not alone in this. At the convention last week I laughed as I noticed other short statured friends doing exactly the same thing. Maybe it's a coping mechanism we all have.

All I know is, Protego Totalum works for me.....and I'd like to give a nod to Hermione Granger for giving me the cool label for it!

Literal vs Figurative

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Have you ever thought about how much of the way we listen, speak and understand comes from implied language?

No?

I didn't either, until I started working with someone on the Autism Spectrum. (AS) I work with Akash, who identifies as "an Aspie" or "someone with autism". He is very high functioning - I'd call him a brainiac. He'll talk your ear off, he knows how to get your computer working better, stronger and faster (like the Six Million Dollar Man), he knows about film and photography, he writes music and lyrics....basically he's super smart!

We have struck up a friendship through a project Akash dragged me into. And I do mean dragged. He just came to me one day and said, "Come with me! I need you to interview *this person* for our new e-magazine!"  and Take 5 with Leisa was born! Akash just throws me into these interviews. I know nothing about the person, nothing about what they do, up until I interviewed Samuel Johnson from Love Your Sister two weeks ago.

I learn a lot from Akash, possibly because he is so vocal and up front about his disability. If he doesn't understand something he will say so....and because of that I have realised how much of our spoken language also includes unspoken inferences.

For example, one of our colleagues walked past Akash's office yesterday with a plate of food and announced, "I have food!"

Now those of us who have no problems processing language and the inferred meaning behind it know that the meaning of the sentence, "I have food!" is, "I have food left over from the catering for the meeting we just had. You are all welcome to share it if you would like!"

But Akash doesn't know that. He furrowed his brow and said to me, "So....she has a plate of food? What does that mean? I can see she has a plate of food!" So I had to explain to him the implied meaning behind the sentence. Although he understood that the food was now there to share he thought that announcing that, "I have a plate of food!" was silly and akin to just randomly announcing, "I am wearing shoes!"

So I've been thinking a lot about that since yesterday and realised that most of us understand what each other is talking about because we understand inference and implication whereas someone on the AS might not. It's like speaking a different language to them....or it is to Akash anyway.

Now I know to be very literal with Akash and to say what I mean. When we are filming another episode of Take 5 I can't say to him, "Darn it Akash! I didn't put my face on today!" He won't understand it. I need to say, "Akash, I am really concerned because I haven't got my make up on and I wish I did because the lights make me look like a ghost. I need to wear makeup!"

But then again....that confuses him too.....because he can't understand the concept of makeup. He thinks that's silly and a waste of time too.

And honestly, he possibly has a point. Why do we feel the need to cover our faces?

Akash opens up a whole new way of thinking I'd never considered before.

Making lemonade

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No, this is not a home-making post, so if you're looking for a recipe for delicious homemade lemonade you'll be sadly disappointed. However, if you happen to know of a good lemonade recipe, I'm all ears!

Our house was egged yesterday. Again. Yes, it's happened before and it will happen again. Actually.I'm expecting another onslaught today sometime. It is still the weekend and the neighbourhood kids are bored. Heaven help us when school holidays start at the end of the week!

Our attackers are rather bold. They will do it at any time of day, circling the house on their bikes and calling out the "m" word. I filmed one of them on my phone yesterday. Evidence I guess.

I'm choosing to act in love. I greet the boys and tell them my name so hopefully one day, when they get bored with what they're doing they'll choose to get to know me rather than attack us simply because of our genetic condition. Human behaviour truly baffles me. We reduce ourselves to the animalistic instinct of picking on the different, the weak, the infirm, knowing full well we are doing so rather than acting based on the instinct of survival of the fittest. This is what the animal kingdom is genetically engineered to do. Human beings were designed to do things differently to animals. Unfortunately some human beings are unaware of this fact.

I'm choosing to rejoice in the fact that the front windows of our house are sparking clean now that I've washed the eggy residue off. I'd been meaning to wash the windows for the longest time. There's nothing like the smell of rotten egg to stir you into action!

I'm choosing to not let these boys know they're actually getting to us, that their actions hurt. I'm choosing not to react in ways other than making our environment clean and safe. If I discover where these young boys live I will inform their parents, but that will be my only retaliatory action - unless of course the missiles become dangerous objects; in which case I'll be going to the police.

This is one small aspect of living with difference. It's typical, it's annoying, it can be disheartening; but I choose to remember that it is only a minority of society that chooses to act this way. The rest just let us be. I choose not to define myself based on the ignorant actions of others. I know who I am and it makes me wonder if our attackers are happy with themselves and their lives. Their need to attack others simply for being different from them seem to suggest otherwise.

The Public Face

Do you have a Public Face?

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I feel the constant need to put on my Public Face. All. The. Time. This is the face that smiles and says, "Yes, I'm fine. Sure I've seen each one of my four children through extensive, life-changing surgeries. Sure I wrestle every day with access issues. Sure I try and ignore people being insenstive and downright rude and ignorant every day. But I'M OK.

I find I am very aware that I am on display simply by stepping out my front door every day. I attract attention. I attract attention because I look different. I know this. I understand this. I know that if I wasn't short statured and I had never encountered difference I would possibly be curious too. With the upbringing I had I would like to think I would be politely curious. I hope I would. I guess I'll never know because I am the one who looks different so when I encounter another person with a difference I've never seen before I treat them exactly the way I'd like to be treated - with respect. I note their difference and then move on, letting them be just another face in the crowd just as I wish to be.

So, being a person living with a difference I learned from a very young age to put on the Public Face. The face that appears not to notice that people are looking, and staring, and giggling, and digging their mates in the ribs to make sure they notice me too, and getting out their mobile phones to take a picture or make a video to upload on YouTube or their Facebook or just to share with their friends. But I do notice...and I pretend it doesn't matter but it does. I like my privacy. I can make a joke with myself that they're only taking photos and videos because I am so damn hot or so damn famous that they can't believe they've seen me. It doesn't work though