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Growing up with Mum and her disability often made me feel defensive, the desire to protect her (and myself) when I was a teenager was overwhelming, I don't suppose I was very friendly as a result, people would only need to point out something very small in her behavior for me to feel that she was being attacked and for me to view that person in a most ungenerous way.

Of course this defense mechanism did not start in a vacuum, certain nasty incidents occurred for me to develop it, after all, one must be quite badly stung in order to recognize the potential for it to happen again.

As with most surprisingly hurtful incidents I did not see it coming, it happened only a few weeks into Mum's accident, while she was still in a coma.

I had called my best friend to chat. I very much needed to by this stage, but I felt rather uncomfortable reaching out to her as I noticed that she had been avoiding my calls, now I finally had got hold of her and an awkward conversation ensued, we spoke in a stilted way, until finally I asked the question that had been nagging me,

"Julia when are you coming to visit?"

The response I received made me cold on the spot, "I'm sorry but I'm not, it's just too much, I'd rather remember your Mum the way she was".

Really.

I was amazed, she spoke as if she were dead, and it was necessary to preserve her memory rather than accept reality, I felt furious and helpless, it wasn't even her mother and she was telling me she couldn't deal with it? and yet I ended up consoling her, I told her that I understood, that it was too much to ask, that she shouldn't feel guilty, that her reaction was natural.

While I was talking I almost succeeded in convincing myself that it may be true, it was a difficult situation, Mum was so altered now that I shouldn't expect people to be able to handle it, to be there, it may be too much to ask.

It was the first time I felt that we were now really different from normal people.
It was a truly horrible isolating feeling.

So now I knew that one of the people I always thought I could rely on wouldn't be there for me, it made me question everybody else.

It took a long time before I was able to see things differently, my tolerance towards people who did not accept Mum the way she was became zero, and I won't lie to you, it still is, but my reaction towards some peoples awkwardness around Mum changed, I saw that the more natural and open I was, the more it came out in others, and that when I didn't look for the sting that I had come to expect, I often didn't find it.