The beginning of high school was to prove that my personality had certain "desirable traits" which gained me acceptance into this new community. There were a few fringe benefits in the deal, one being the popularity and respect I gained from people because of my "impeccable morals", but I now realise what a stuffed shirt I must have been and how frustrated I was at keeping my saintly image alive!
In my first year of high school I was voted into the position of class captain. It was really great at first because my "good behaviour" had paid off, although my position was short lived. The class teacher was not so confident in my ability physically to hold the position. I was advised on certain grounds to give up the "public" position of class captain, becoming instead "acting" captain within the confines of the classroom. Her reasons for my giving up the position were based on the possibility of a situation arising where I would be needed in the principal's office immediately along with other class captains. She saw the limitations of my size as preventing me from getting to the office in time. On looking back to the incident I realise how pathetic the excuses were. But at that stage I was Miss "Well-behaved" and so didn't put up any protest to defend myself in the matter. I was afraid to challenge authority for whenever I got into situations with "higher" powers, it was a case of being spoken down to, where my opinion wasn't important. At times I realise that indeed I was "handicapped" when I didn't know how to cope in certain situations, and I let people boss me around.
In the hope of being involved in school activities, I auditioned for the choir. The nun who was head of the choir liked my voice and got me to sing for a few other nuns. I thought such performances implied that I was accepted into the choir. However this was not to be the case. The nun was impressed with my voice, but she didn't want any short girls in the choir. As you can realise that put me at the bottom of the list. It seemed so unfair that my height was to be considered before my voice in such an instance. It is also interesting that in that year other girls tried out for the choir and were accepted even though they were relatively of small build. But once again it was just one of those situations in which I had to give in! It has only been in the last few years that I have learned that I have to stand up for what I really believe to be my right.
Perhaps the next series of events that coloured my remaining years of high school were the relationships I experienced through puberty. In this stage of my life I experienced some good memories and some not so good-but then who hasn't had to endure pain in this most eventful part of human life? The only difference was that my size was to play a very large role in the whole business. I think that what most concerned me during that time was the need to prove my worth as a female, not as someone who lacked sexual feelings because my body was not the same as everyone else's standard shape.
Dances were a bit of an experience that had to be endured in order to meet boys. The peer pressure at high school demanded such boring rituals in order to be part of the scene. At a few dances I was a wallflower. But in other instances, where I knew more of the boys the dance was most enjoyable. Through my years in high school I had a few involvements with boys, some of which ended painfully whilst others have developed into good friendships, which are still enjoyed. One incident occurred with a boy when I was in grade 10 and laid great emphasis on my height. The boy was very tall. We had met through the grade 10 social and decided to keep in contact with each other in a boyfriend, girlfriend style. Everything at that point seemed pretty good. He would ring me up and we shared a lot of time doing the usual "pesky" teenage thing of tying up our phones for hours just chatting. We then arranged to see each other in the school holidays. This was to prove unfortunate, since until that point he wasn't concerned that the person he was talking to over the phone was actually physically different.
He arranged that we should go to a Pentecostal prayer meeting, which he was very involved in. I went along and at the place was introduced to his "charming" mother. I don't think he explained to his mother that I was physically different, and the look on his mother's face verified my assumption. Her comment on seeing us together further added to the idea I had of her: - Talk about the "long and the short of it!" There was an immediate change in the whole scene The next day we had planned to go to the movies together and so on arrival at the spot where we would meet I found him to be rather cold and not the least bit affectionate. He refused to take my hand and so I guessed that "mummy dearest" had obviously had a few "loving and Christian" words in his ear. Sure enough, my intuition had been correct.
My immediate reaction was one of hurt and yet acceptance. I think the most unfair thing about the situation was that the friendship had to be discontinued because his mother had "screwed-up" ideas about me and had projected them onto her son. I didn't hope for a long-term romantic relationship, but what I did expect was that we could at least enjoy a friendship that did not have to put great emphasis on my height.
I think that a lot of boys who were the same age as myself felt very conscious of peer pressure. They felt unable to cope with what people would say and think were they to become involved with me at more than the "just friends" level. It was only those who had enough confidence in themselves and who didn't worry about what people thought who were willing to become involved with a person who was physically different.
In the final years of high school I started to get pain the lower lumbar region of my spine. The pain made it very difficult to study and my school work was affected either by having pain which caused difficulty in concentrating or by being away from school on occasions when the pain was too great to bear. My mother often thought I was putting on an act and on many occasions made me go to school regardless.
It was not until grade 12 that my back pain was investigated. I was taken to a specialist in back manipulations and received various manipulations for my spine and neck. The doctors had realised that the bones in my neck were wedged in a way that didn't allow the same ease in movement of the head that other people have. At the same time the specialist realised that I had a wedging in the lower part of my spine. The series of manipulations proved worthwhile only for a short time after each session. The doctor then referred me to a neuro-surgeon.
The proposed solution for my headaches was to have the nerves severed in the back of my head -chordectomy. I was told that the only nasty side -effect would be the lack of any sensation in the back of the skull. In the end the operation was not done on the grounds of my age and the eventual realisation that such an alternative would probably have caused more discomfort than the headaches. Anyway, on arrival at the neuro - surgeon, X-rays were done of my spine and it was discovered that I had at some stage a broken back which had healed itself and that it had been part of the cause of the pain I was getting. What came out of that session was that the nerves within the spinal chord in the lower part of my back were being compressed, thus explaining the major cause of my pain-this is a condition common to people with achondroplasia.
An operation was now advised in which part of the vertebrae would be removed to allow the nerves more room. In for a penny! In for a pound! I agreed to go ahead with the operation-anything was better than the pain I was having. So I gambled all and went ahead with the operation. This all occurred in January 1979, my first year out of high school. I was intending to repeat the senior year externally since my grades in the last year had not been as high as I had hoped.
At the same time, however, I had been accepted to begin training for kindergarten teaching. With the operation consuming the first two months of the school year. I had to put off commencing the program. The operation went ahead successfully in the minds of the surgeons. Needless to say it was very painful but since I was older, I seemed to cope better with the whole situation. I was sent home looking like a hobbling Hobbit, and it took some time to regain my sensuous gait, (not that I really had one before). I had to learn to walk for the fourth time- I am actually getting pretty expert at the whole business.
When I regained reasonable walking ability, I went to meet the head of the kindergarten centre. On first glance I realised that she didn't quite expect me to be so short and sweet! The advice given by her was that she didn't recommend that I take on training for two reasons.
1. That the training would be too demanding, in that if a child was up a ten foot pole, I would not be able to get the child down. (She didn't consider the fact that anyone would have difficulty in the same situation.)
2. If I went for a job after going through the training, and if there was another person (nice and normal) applying for the job, then obviously the other person would get it in preference to me.
Well at that stage of events I became resigned to the fact that there was no use even trying to persuade her, for she was biased from the start. It seemed just like those many situations I had been in before and I didn't put up any opposition to the outcome.
Looking back on that incident. I now realised that I should have put up some strong opposition and gone ahead with the training. But when you're in pain and the whole incident looks too hard to handle with lack of experience, you can easily give up and that's what I did. It would have been great to have been a kindergarten teacher. I would have been about the same height as the kids and it could have been a great experience for young children to be in contact with someone who was different. It might even have been possible that sonic misconceptions about "small people" could have been corrected. At least a little light could have shone on one part of the world! However, this was not to be.
I went ahead with the decision to do Senior again and I resumed the role of a student, hoping for good grades in order to go on and do higher studies in some place that wasn't so concerned with the physical abilities of people.
My year was filled with a lot of activities. My mother remarried and that proved to be a rather difficult business with my having to move and begin a role in her husband's house as someone not wanted. Apart from the home scene there were many more social events happening in my life. I also began having bad back pain again. The operation did not prove to be the answer to my prayers. It has rather been more of a problem. I have found that I can't walk as far as I used to without getting severe pain. The pain is what I suppose it would be like to have a knife stabbed into the lower spine, and it means having to rest for a while after walking for a few minutes. The headaches were of course the same as before. Clinically, the operation should have been a success, but as far as I am concerned if my taking of pain-killers is any indication, the whole situation is worse than before. I have found that other people with Achondroplasia have undergone the same operation and have had the same problem following it. Usually they have to have another operation to correct the damage done by the first one.
I went back to the doctor to see what could be done. As far as he was concerned the operation was a success, it was just a matter of time before the back would be better, so with him it was a bit of a dead-end trip. I went ahead with "normal" life and the swallowing of pain -killers,
My year redoing Senior was filled with my personal quest to "get in" with society. I went about being a little social butterfly and in the process met up with a lot of worms. That year was filled with a lot of scepticism on my part my faith in anything hit an all-time low, and I adopted the policy of seeing happiness as a short-term event. I made swift use of any situations that came my way rather than taking life at an easy pace. My motto for that time in my life was "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow some bastard is going to come along and stuff everything up."
I began looking for relationships that would only be short term, and indeed I found them. I developed a belief that I would never experience a long-term relationship with a male. Because I had been so conditioned to believe that for people like myself there would never exist the "normal" relationship that other people enjoy. In my involvements with people that year however, I sold myself "short". I became so determined to enjoy the passing moment that I didn't dare to react too much when I was given the "get lost" sign. I had expected from the start that such an end would be the term or condition of getting involved with someone from the "big" world. I did once go out with another small person, which was arranged for both of us. Fellow friends at the college thought it was cute, "little people marry little people". It was not until the night of our date that I realised the extent to which I had myself been raised with misconceptions and illusions about "difference". It was in confronting my own difference (smallness) in another that I came to appreciate that it just didn't matter what someone's breadth or height was in determining the value of a relationship. I had previously fallen prey to so much conditioning that I had myself developed a very narrow and cynical outlook. Since then, I have gradually started to gain enough "guts" to live my life without the hang ups projected by other people's idea of how to live and what to value.
At the end of 1979 I became involved with a man who was already involved in a de facto relationship. It was just to be a passing affair but it became very blown out of context by a certain group of females from the college. They had found out about our affair and decided to use it as a means to extort money from me by threatening blackmail.
Their actions seemed to me to reflect their inability to accept the fact that the "crippled kid" had actually had an involvement with a male. It was all right for them to "screw" around. but the rules changed when it came to my having any kind of involved relationship. I think they were even jealous of the fact that I had enjoyed a relationship with someone who wasn't interested in them. Anyway I withstood their threats of blackmail. The whole process was a pretty traumatic experience -what had started out as a private business between two people had become the business of everyone else.
The following year (1980) I began studies at Griffith University but due to personal matters I transferred to Queensland University to complete my degree. At the end of 1980, my life took on a major change. I established a deep relationship with the man who was later to become my fiance. It is very important to write about the relationship I share with Paul, because there is a lot in it that is vital for an understanding that the so-called "handicapped" are able to participate in relationships just as effectively as can ordinary people.
Paul suffered the marvellous deformity of being 6 ft 1 in (185 cm). Despite this freakish height, I have to admit that he is a very beautiful person. We first met through a church group and gradually became the best of buds. It is interesting that the difference in our height and age seemed quite irrelevant-we enjoyed a friendship that was a person-to-person thing, and such externals as the packages we came in or the different times we were hatched were the last reason to stop us enjoying a relationship. Anyway as the story went, we realised that we made a good team and that we liked spending a lot of time in each other's company. Unfortunately, our affinity was not viewed enthusiastically by Paul's parents who did not wish that we should develop a close relationship. All was well as long as we just remained friends.
Eventually, Paul moved out of his parents' house because of the restrictions they placed upon him. In February 1981 he moved into the flat I shared with my mother. Due to the closeness of the situation, I am unable to write much about the problems Paul and I have experienced with his family. However, I have learned that people can tolerate "differences" or "handicaps" when they are at a distance, but when it comes into the family for the first time, it is quite a different matter. The problem is complicated by the fact that in their eyes Paul is too young to have made such a decision (i.e. to get married). As one of the more unaccepting members of the family put it "How do I tell people that you're living with a girl? That she's older than you and that she's a midget?" Given time the situation will sort itself out and indeed things are already moving in that direction.
Besides Paul's family many people have found it hard to accept our relationship. It seems one of the biggest problems for them is accepting my general physical make-up in comparison with other girls who would be "more likely candidates for the job". A friend of Paul's could not adjust to the height difference that exists and it was on this basis that it seemed to him incomprehensible that we should be contemplating marriage.
As you can imagine Paul's involvement with me has lost him some friendships. Even their parents betrayed the same sort of prejudice having weird ideas about how Paul and I will function together as a married couple. One father remarked facetiously that we will need a step ladder on the day of the wedding. I can understand the temptation to look at us as a couple lacking the usual "garden variety" features but there is no need for comments with nasty undertones. Such comments indicate the perverted ideas these people have about how those who don't fit the category of "normal" must operate in relation to natural physical functions and emotions. If people have a hang-up about the sexuality of someone who is different from themselves, I wish that they would ask about it rather than cling to silly concepts which result from knowing so very little about anything that is not within the realms of what they consider to be "normal". Please remember that even though I am short in height-there is nothing "short" about my sexuality.
It is interesting that since being with Paul my physical difference has been pointed out more to me. Being with Paul, I get more stares now than ever. When people hear I'm going to be married, they seem shocked to discover that my "intended" is much taller than I am and that he is what society would call "normal".
I have found that people "expect" me not to have fun when I attend social gatherings because I am not (only in their minds) able to participate in activities such as dancing. Paul and I enjoy dancing together despite the many stares and comments. We have overcome the problem of height difference by simply not worrying about anything else except having fun. On the times when we wish to dance with our faces touching each other, Paul simply dances on his knees with a serviette tied around them or his pants rolled up. And for those other times when dancing on his knees gets tiring. Paul and I just dance with my head resting upon his hip. On the funny side of the height difference, we do of course dance cheek to cheek: - my face cheek to his bottom cheek!
We have at least overcome some of the problems, which people of short stature have to put up with when wishing to dance. Paul has found no great problems adjusting to the surprise people show on their faces when they see us dancing. I think this is due to the fact that he loves me, and doesn't worry what people think. In the case of people, who find it hard to dance with anyone who is not "normal", it is due to inhibitions rather than anything else. The secret to our enjoying things is that we do them together, and in not feeling afraid or inhibited we find that more things are possible than we ever supposed. After witnessing our Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers act. Some people actually commend Paul, particularly when he dances on his knees. This commending is more an act of praising Paul for being able to dance with the "handicapped" girl. I believe this reaction of seeing Paul on his knees has a shock effect. Making people realise that physical appearances are quite irrelevant, and that there is a lot more to a person than just the case that encloses his spirit. Some people it seems to show (surprise, surprise) that being different is not such a pitiable thing. There is nothing special about my relationship with Paul, (At least not in the sense of our marriage being made in heaven.) I have been conditioned to believe that if I was so blessed to be in the position of getting married, my God-chosen partner would have to be "special". It gives one the impression that Paul fell in love with my handicap rather than me. We all think we know, though we easily forget, that there is a lot more to love than just the wrapping. The handicapped person is just as able to enjoy a whole range of relationships as anyone else.
Then there were the others who believed I would never be married because no one would ever want me. A mother of a girl with whom I went to primary school expressed just such a sentiment to my aunt. The whole conversation was based on the fact that like most Catholic kids I wanted to be a nun. The mother reasoned that I wanted to be a nun because I stood no chance of being wanted by a male-I wonder if that can also apply to other people who become members of religious orders? Probably not for them it would be a calling. For me it would have been out of "desperation".
Paul and I wished, at that stage, to very much have children. As far as the genetics were concerned it wasn't going to worry us at all about what "the harvest will be" At that stage, we weren't worried at all about what size or shape or colour our child will have. What we were concerned most about is being good parents to the child and giving it an experience of love and care. Genetics has nothing to do with producing a juvenile-delinquent, that can come about by the characters children model from their parents. So Paul and I weren't worried at all about the internal scene are very concerned about what "traits" we pass on by our actions. Paul's pedigree has nothing undesirable (though who knows what could be lying in the cupboard). Apart from achondroplasia, there is nothing else known to be floating around that might adversely affect our child's genetic make-up. The important thing will be that we are having a child - a life. We were not out to beget a perfect form without flaws, all we wanted was that our children should know that they are loved and wanted, not something to be accounted for in the list of possessions.
Paul and I are also considered adopting a child on the grounds that we would like to give someone who has been already thrown into life the chance also to know love. Our choice of child would be one who is, either physically, mentally or socially handicapped. There exists a very long waiting list for the adoption of "normal" kids, but not so long for those who are handicapped. It is hard enough to understand that children are put up for adoption because of a marital or lack of a marital situation or death, but to think that children are put into homes because their own parents cannot accept them is something which causes me to wonder who should be in a home? The parents or the child!
We hoped to go through a natural pregnancy together. However, there is one problem that Paul and I face. That is the situation that "little people" presumably have to have caesarean delivery. This is due to the fact that being short could cause complications in the delivery. However, we are both very interested in pursuing other alternatives to such a delivery. I feel very sceptical towards forms of surgery from having had so much in my own life. Therefore I don't particularly wish to have it for the birth of our child.
On the lighter side of being pregnant, I have often imagined what I would look like when I was pregnant. Ithought I'd resemble a beach ball on legs. Then there is the possibility of having twins. I can just imagine the scene in the delivery room, "Sir, you've got twins but as yet we can't find the mother in there!" Then there would be the headlines in the paper: "Twins gave birth to a mother."
At one stage in my life I didn't want ever to have a child. Because I didn't want to inflict my "handicap" upon another person and to see that person go through the pain and suffering, emotional and physical, that I have myself had to endure. I think this attitude coincided with a period in my life when my handicap was pointed out to me in very hurtful ways. However, in the past few years I have become convinced that there is no virtue in being "normal". Normality is an illusion which people like to hide under "Normal" is a tag that people like to stick on themselves when they are too frightened to be "different", to be individuals.
The only fear I had for my child was the social harassment he or she might suffer by having a mother who is dwarfed. I had hoped to overcome this problem by encouraging my child to have enough faith in himself to ignore the small-mindedness of those who tease. There is, of course, the likely problem that will confront the child when the time comes to marry. One can imagine the hassles when it comes to introducing his mother and her pedigree There are a lot of churches putting forth anti-abortion bills to protect the life of the unborn. But what of the lives of the ones born? What about the rights of those who are born with a "variation" from the usual theme? It is one thing to allow them life. It is another thing to give them a fair go in that life.
I hope that in sharing the first 20 years of my story may have shed some light on what you may have thought about the handicapped. My life is uniquely my own. There are events within it that have at some time or another been experienced by other people who are "handicapped" as well as by those who are not. There is great need within the community to reshape ideas previously held about those who are different.
Leave your eyes closed when you meet with the "handicapped", experience them as people-not as shapes or sizes. Meet the person within the body. See the common point that both of you are human. Don't turn away when I walk by you, I won't bite. Don't laugh at my size or the funny way I walk, remember we are all on the same earth. Does it really matter how we crawl over it? Don't be afraid of who I am, my body is only a temporary shell which I must inhabit. Your body and mine were born the same way. They will both die one day so why worry about such a transitory thing? Start to rethink those values (e.g. "normal", "abnormal" etc.) You will realise that there is so much more to life than these terms, which segregate us.
I hope that I have also shed some light on that tabu topic of sexuality within the life of someone who is "handicapped". Because I am viewed as "handicapped" a term referring to being "unable" then I am also viewed as being devoid of normal sexual responses. Please get it out of your minds that there is something perverted or weird about having sex with someone who is physically different. Don't feel embarrassed about it because the so-called "handicapped" can enjoy life just as much as anyone else. There is nothing evil in being physically different, being physically different is not a sign that God is punishing a person by disfiguring his/her body. I'm not the spawn of the devil, as the ridiculous myths of the Middle Ages put it. Even now, in this modern age, some people believe that my handicap is a means by which God is punishing my family. As one neighbour told my aunts: "We knew it had to come out in your family".
If people could openly expand the view they have about what is "normal" and what is not "normal", life for everyone would be so much richer, but such an expansion is a threatening experience for many people. Rather than take the risk to evolve a new concept of life, many choose to keep up the barriers between me and them, if not in the physical world, then very much in the hidden world of their minds.
Hopefully, this story will help people to have a better understanding of those who are different from themselves It may not change the shape of the world but it may just give a bit more understanding in one "SMALL" part of the world.
I hope to one day, write about the years that followed . . . some fairytales, as I had with Paul, do not always end "and they lived happily ever-after". Till then, peace and happiness be to all who have passed upon these pages and read my tale. I welcome an email to update you about how my story is unfolding.
