Bethany

“There is so much that able-bodied people could learn from the wisdom that often comes with disability. But space needs to be made. Hands need to reach out. People need to be lifted up.

The story of disabled success has never been a story about one solitary disabled person overcoming limitations—despite the fact that’s the narrative we so often read in the media. The narrative trajectory of a disabled person’s life is necessarily webbed. We are often only as strong as our friends and family make us, only as strong as our community, only as strong as the resources and privileges we have.”
― Alice Wong, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

“And the deal with so many chronic illnesses is that most people won't want to believe you. They will tell you that you look great, that it might be in your head only, that it is likely stress, that everything is okay. None of these are the right things to say to someone whose entire existence is a fairly consistent torture of the body and mind. They say it because they are well-intentioned usually, because they wish you the best, but they also say it because you make them uncomfortable. Your existence is evidence of death. . . .”
― Porochista Khakpour, Sick: A Memoir

“The medical uncertainty compounds patients' own uncertainty. Because my unwellness did not take the form of a disease I understood, with a clear-cut list of symptoms and a course of treatment, even I at times interpreted it as a series of signs about my very existence. Initially, the illness seemed to be a condition that signified something deeply wrong with me⁠—illness as a kind of semaphore. Without answers, at my most desperate, I came to feel (in some unarticulated way) that if I could just tell the right story about what was happening, I could make myself better. If only I could figure out what the story was, like the child in a fantasy novel who must discover her secret name, I could become myself again.

It took years before I realized that the illness was not just my own; the silence around suffering was our society's pathology.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

“Brothers and sisters in Christ frequently point to the lament psalms for those grieving. It’s often said they always end in hope. But not all do. Some end in unanswered pleas (Ps. 44, 74, 80, 88). In the whirlwind, God displayed power to Job, not answers (Job 38–41). When Lazarus died, Jesus didn’t offer Mary a sermon or remind her that he wasn’t in pain anymore. Jesus wept (John 11:32–35). Similarly, the pieces in this volume don’t always neatly resolve. They don’t always end in hopeful exhortations. Many end in silence. Silence is the sound of God listening.”
― Riley Bounds, Solum Journal Volume IV