I Am Not My Disability or Difference

 A little while ago, I unintentionally got into a discussion on Facebook which went downhill almost immediately and in a way I hadn't expected.  I'm no stranger to arguments or difficult conversations, but this one really took me by surprise. It was my first introduction to what appears to be a subculture of neurodivergent folks, such as myself, who so identify with their neurodivergence that to suggest any kind of a treatment which might assist in normalizing the brain is considered horrendous and akin to being a Nazi (I myself was accused of advocating for the extermination of autistic people, something which anyone who knows me and my history knows is absurd).

     This came up in a conversation I was having with Phoenix earlier tonight, and what stuck in my mind is how one's difference or disability becomes such a part of their self-identity that they can't even consider parting with it. And this becomes true regardless of what thing you are self-identifying with.

     Here's the thing though, you are not your disability. You are not your thoughts. You are not your trauma. I tend to self-identify with being pretty proficient with Koine Greek, but I am not my proficiency with Greek. I tend to self-identify with being part native American as well as being thirteenth generation American, but I am not my ancestry. I am not even my own personal history or experiences. As much as I love and appreciate my relationships with the people around me, I am not those relationships. I am not my possessions either. I am not my personal likes or dislikes. I am not what I know or don't know. All of these things are acquired during this life in some way and at some time, but they will all leave once this life ends and all that will remain is this consciousness. The memories of each thing might continue, baked into the experiences of that consciousness, but they are not that consciousness.

     So what am I if I am none of these things? What are you if you are none of the things you self-identify with? At the very foundation, you are logos and a part of the Logos. You are being, and share in the existence of the Being. You are a member, a body part, of the Logos with Him as the head to which you are connected as a single body. Everything else you cling to, everything else I cling to as my self-identity will drop away once this brain stops functioning because, when all is said and done, I am none of those things.

     And to this I would add as well that you are not your error. You are not your malfunction. You are not your hamartia because you are not your body. You are not your brain. You inhabit a body. You have a hamartia disorder in this life because you inhabit a human body and possess a human brain. But you yourself are not inherently erroneous. You yourself are logos and part of the Logos. You yourself are the image of God.

      The conditions of discipleship which Jesus laid down were to let go of any relationships, any possessions, any self-identity to which you are clinging so that you could focus on remaining aware of and attached to the Head, which of course was Him as the Logos and the source of who you really are, that is, the image of God. As Jesus Himself said, speaking as the Logos, "Remain in Me and I in you ... without Me you can't do anything at all."