Destined for the lives we have?

“The world is afflicted by suffering, but one should not lose heart.” — Majjhima Nikāya 131

OK - I’m a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to disability communities, especially here, as purely physical impairment is less common in the west. At the age of five I was totally paralysed from polio – tube-fed, ventilated, unable to move or do anything for myself. It took nearly three years to get home and begin again as a severely disabled child.

Did that change everything? Of course it did. You become different. You learn early how much work it takes to fit into a world not built for you. It’s not just the physical barriers – it’s navigating school, work, friendship, intimacy, and sexuality. Disability touches everything.

But different doesn’t necessarily mean worse, and it’s never as simple or predictable as people think. The real trap is clinging to a fixed idea of who you were “before” illness or disability – as if that identity was the real you and everything after is loss. Life doesn’t work like that. We are who we are now, and for many of us with fluctuating or progressive conditions, that changes month to month, sometimes day to day.

Nothing is fixed. Nothing permanent, as Buddhist pstwoyld tell you. Everyone alive eventually discovers this, but as disabled and chronically ill people we get the opportunity to learn it earlier – and we live closer to that truth. There is both pain and clarity and truth in that. 

But the world around us still sells the fantasy that life should be an endless story if, or search for health, youth, happiness and success. Most people live like they secretly expect to avoid ageing, illness, or death until one day sooner for some, late for others, reality proves otherwise. So when we face pain, depression, exhaustion, fear, and uncertainty, we’re pushed to long for the past, or to fantasise about some future where we’re “fixed” and “normal.” That mindset is a magnet for despair.

I think it helps to separate three things that often get bundled together:

•Impairment – the physical or cognitive limitations we have.

•Disability – the social and structural barriers that exclude us.

•Illness – the medical aspects, pain, fatigue, instability.

They overlap, but they aren’t the same. Having impairments isn’t inherently negative – it simply is. The real harm often comes from external ableism, lack of access, and the quiet prejudices that shape how others treat us.

I won’t pretend I’ve sailed through it. I had five years of childhood before polio. My memories are full of cycling, swimming, running wild around my grandparents’ farm. Then suddenly, overnight, it all changed. When I returned home aged 7, I couldn’t walk, write, or even read. I had lost friends. Even after returning to school abd trying to catch up, I left school again at 15 for yet more treatment. And still – life went on. I went to art school became an artist and designer, then life upended and I went back to study and became a psychologist. I have 

married, had children, traveled a bit. And as I’ve aged, I’ve needed more and more support again – ventilator, power chair, then cancer etc etc – the full circle of illness, impairment and disability. And everyone has their own unique individual fascinating story.

Some days it’s hard. Some months are brutal. But life is still life – textured, complicated, surprising. Joy doesn’t vanish; it just moves into smaller places. The colour of old brick wall on a London street. My small dog wanting a lift on my wheelchair. Quiere sitting with my wife. A stranger smiling as they pass without pity. Those things matter. Possibly more than the big things. Being a disabled person can also if you let it releas you from external social pressures and expectations. 

I don’t romanticise suffering. I don’t think pain is a gift, it’s  not. And I’d never tell anyone to “stay positive.” But I do think part of surviving this life is refusing to let ableism define it for us. Yes – fight injustice wherever it shows up. But don’t forget there is more to us than what we think we’ve lost. There’s still meaning to be found, even if – especially if – life didn’t go to plan.

“We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”

— Epictetus (c. 50 – 135 CE)