Accept The Hand We're Dealt

Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Jul 13, 2012

Tisha, who visits our rehab centre everyday, is suffering from a kind of cerebral palsy, which causes her body to shake. The best of medical care has failed to control the shaking. She has this disease since birth. Her condition is a fact about which she can do little. Occupational therapy and sensory integration exercises help, but they do not eliminate the trouble. At times she becomes full of anger about her situation. She then blames herself, and everybody who has a role in her life ­ including those who assist her. Blaming herself and others makes her more tense; and then she  shakes more, sometimes exhausting herself fully. Tisha has a good deal to feel angry about, but the disease is only aggravated by the anger she feels. What she needs is understanding from others, and acceptance from herself. The disease is not going to go away.

Another girl, Simran, who suffers from mild mental retardation, also visits our centre. One day Simran collapsed, due to a seizure. Tisha took charge of the situation, and rang up the attending team doctor, with efficiency and calm. Even though Tisha spends much time brooding on her own failings and lack of confidence, when action was required she proved quite capable.   

When suffering strikes, our first desire is for the situation to be different. When we suffer a loss, the first thing we are inclined to do is to deny that it has happened. We tell ourselves that ‘this cannot be real’. Then we feel angry. We try to escape, by blaming others; but the blaming generally makes the situation worse. We may blame the people we live with, our neighbours, our parents, our job, our seniors, our society, the government, our administrative authorities – or even ourselves. These days it has become a fashion amongst the younger generation to blame the parents. It is very easy to lay all our troubles at their door. However much we blame them, and however true the complaints we assail them with, blaming keeps us hooked, and comes in the way of constructive and positive living. We have to reach reconciliation. If we do not, we will go on tearing ourselves apart.  When we blame, we actually crave to become something else or someone else. We wish that our lives were different. We wish that we were not exposed to pain and obstacles; and we falsely believe that if we had a different life—in a different time and place—where we were not associated with this spouse or children or parents or this job/boss/house, then trouble would not reach us. Of course this is not true. The form of pain and obstacles may be different, but difficulties there would be. Blame, like greed, gives us temporary respite. But it does not improve our life. Blame can burn down everything that is capable of giving us happiness and peace. Where greedy behaviour damages us slowly, blame can do great damage in a short time.   υ

Dr. Rajesh Bhola is President of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause of children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities
for more than 20 years.