I don’t have a lot of people to turn to, never really have… I’ve been pretty isolated most of my life, so I’ve just sort of muddled through by reading a lot and trying to figure out how to deal with stuff on my own.

But I’m not really sure how to handle this. I’m disabled and have been most of my life, and I haven’t really let it stop me for the most part. It gets in the way, but I brute force my way through. Often to my own detriment.

I guess I’m not doing as well as I thought… I’m applying for a disability upgrade, and one of the things I can submit is statements in support of my claim, letters from the people around me about how my disability impacts my life, and theirs. If this doesn’t sound like a normal disability process that’s because this is the VA service-connected disability process, rather than a normal one.

Anyway, I asked a couple of my closest friends to write something up about how they have seen the impacts, and it low-key hurt my soul to read. Reading how they have been negatively impacted by my limitations, and how they view what I go through has been the worst kind of eye opening.

And I’m not sure how to deal with that, or even where to look.

If you’ve got motherly or fatherly advice, if you’ve been through similar, if you’ve been through something else hard, please feel free to share. Anything helps.