‘I Love and Hate It’: Contemplating My Complex Relationship with My Disability

By Broni Coles

I was born with one hand. My right arm stops just past my elbow, and I have only my left hand to do everything with. 

The relationship I have with my disability – my ‘little hand’ as it’s always been affectionately referred to – is complex and emotional. I’ve come to learn that it’s ever shifting; even throughout a day my feelings and moods about it fluctuate, my physicality with it shifts. 

As a child I wasn’t particularly phased by my small arm, wasn’t self-conscious about it. Didn’t really give it much thought. It was my little hand, and I was born with it, and that was that. Some children could be mean, but I found that most weren’t that phased either. They’d ask me about it, I’d tell them, then we’d just continue playing. My mum was told by the doctor when I was little that I was really well adjusted to my disability, and I think I was.

Then things began to shift during my early teens. My feelings towards my little arm became conflicted. I began to feel anger, shame, resentment and, worst of all, I became acutely self-conscious. 

I wanted to hide my disability, painfully aware of it at all times in social settings. Could people tell? Could people notice my small arm? Were they looking? A simple walk from my table to the toilet in a bar or restaurant filled me with dread. I was always very exposed in this situation; I had no jacket on or bag over my shoulder that I could tuck my arm slightly behind. 

I’m often thinking like this, deconstructing a social scenario and my surroundings and how best I can keep my arm out of sight. If affects how I dress, how I move. How I live. It’s an ever-constant thing for me. As is the thought, imagine if I had two hands. That thought sits in my mind a lot. 

I imagine the person that I would be if I had two hands, the things I could do – even the small day-to-day things that could be done with ease. But the main aspect of this two-handed me is that she’s free of the ever-constant self-consciousness and all the conflicting thoughts and emotions of her disability. It’s kind of like mourning, I guess. I find myself mourning two-handed me. 

My therapist said that I’m suffering from a kind of PTSD surrounding my arm. During my early teens, new feelings grew that coincided with my growing independence, and I began to realise more fully the physical drawbacks of my small arm. How there are actually a countless number of tasks, most so ridiculously simple with two hands, that are a challenge or just not possible with one. 

As I grew, so did the difference in reach between my left arm and right arm, meaning that I had to contort my physicality to get things done and completely overuse my left hand. All of this, along with feelings that my arm is not aesthetically pleasing, triggered frustrations, resentments and fed further into my feelings of inadequacy and the want of two hands. 

It’s a draining cycle. As well as the overwhelming urge to hide myself away, there are also huge feelings of guilt and a different kind of shame presenting itself. There’s a constant battle in my head between wanting to reject my small arm and wanting to embrace it, between wanting to be empowered and fully visible, to champion my small arm – my disability. 

I think today’s society expects disabled people to be almost fully comfortable in themselves and their disability, which I’m sure many are, and I hope I am too one day! However, that can be hard. Some days, I just want to hide away and I’m actually pretty angry about my disability. 

My natural instinct at this time in my life is often to hide it away, and that is where the guilt lives. My relationship with my arm is complex. I love and hate it, I feel restricted and resentful, but I also have felt huge empowerment when talking about it and when writing about it as I am here. 

In the past year, I have found myself being much more open with my arm and the relationship I have with it. I am learning to accept that it is ok to have these conflicts of emotions about my disability. It’s a relationship I have with it and that I am exploring. It’s going to shift – that’s natural. And actually, I’m doing pretty great.