We owe ourselves kindness

Last month, The Riverdale Press published an editorial titled “Choosing understanding over stigma this Disability Pride Month.” In that editorial, we discussed the various journeys people with disabilities take toward self-acceptance, self-advocacy and being understood and taken seriously by others. While Disability Pride Month has since come and gone, I wanted to take a moment as we prepare to move into a new season and speak about disability from a more personal angle.

When I was in college, which feels so quickly like a lifetime ago, I had my most profound run-in with chronic illness. I was skeletal. Hair falling out in clumps. Struggling to walk up the stairs to my dorm room. I was days away from dropping out completely when I received a diagnosis that changed my life. The specifics of that diagnosis, however, are far less important than what the illness taught me, and continues to teach me, about my relationship with myself. It is my hope that those lessons may be of use to others as well.

Before sickness set in that year, I had prided myself on a lifetime as an active person, spending each Vermont weekend of my college days hiking or snowboarding or staying up far later than I would dream of doing now. But that winter, holed up on a lofted metal cot in a dusty dorm room and trying to force down healthy servings of limp dining-hall vegetables, changed everything for me. It was one of the hardest experiences of my life not only because of the physical toll the illness took on me, or that the uncertainty and fear surrounding my condition had on myself and my loved ones — but because it kickstarted a forced rethinking of who I was and what I was capable of. I had to confront my mortality, my limitations, and therefore my attitudes toward those things, in a way I’d never had to before. In many ways, this meant exercising a kind of patience and grace toward myself that was completely foreign to me.

While I am now healthier than I have been in years and my weekends are once again spent being active outdoors — though no longer pulling all-nighters — that journey of reckoning with a new self never really stopped. I’ve come to realize it’s a journey we are all on, in our separate ways, and always will be, though its shape may change. For me, it has meant continuing to treat myself with kindness, even when I fall ill or can no longer do something that once came so easily to me. It sounds simple: “be kind to yourself.” The kind of throwaway slogan that might be printed in glitter on a graphic tee in the children’s section. But occasionally I am reminded of just how difficult that can be. Being kind to yourself when things are going well, when you meet the expectations you set for yourself, is one thing. Continuing to treat yourself gently when you are frustrated, or sick, or tired or lost is something else entirely.

Living with a chronic illness, no matter how well managed it is, can mean running into unexpected ups and downs. Some days, the world may seem bright and boundless. On others, it shrinks to the size of whatever duvet in which you’ve become cocooned. Recently, I was knocked down, hard, by the flu, and found myself once again stuck in that latter reality. And even though I have had years of practice navigating illness and the negative self-talk that can come with it, I still found myself repeating those familiar refrains of “why am I not better yet? Why can’t I just complete this task like I normally do?” Because self-compassion is a muscle, and sometimes we need reminders to exercise it.

So here I am, touting what little authority I have on the subject of being kind to oneself, reminding others to do the same. This collective entity of humanity has found itself at a time in which we are made again and again to witness the cruelties of the world, either in person or through our screens. In the midst of it all, more than ever, we owe ourselves kindness. We owe ourselves the same time, space and understanding we are taught to afford others. Making the world a kinder place overall begins remarkably close to the heart.

Alexa Lewis is editor-in-chief of The Riverdale Press.

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