{"id":3138,"date":"2014-09-11T21:36:11","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T02:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/?p=3138"},"modified":"2014-09-11T21:41:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T02:41:12","slug":"incontinence-ejaculation-and-learning-to-hang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2014\/09\/incontinence-ejaculation-and-learning-to-hang.html","title":{"rendered":"Incontinence, Ejaculation, and Learning to Hang"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was raised in a family that never discussed bodily functions. In fact, my mom still won\u2019t acknowledge the fact that anyone pees except in the quietest whisper. Not even babies. It makes me laugh to watch her face as she walks across the room, newborn in her arms, to whisper to his\/her mom, \u201cI think the baby might be\u2026<\/p>\n

(whispers)wet.\"<\/pre>\n
She always whispers it, because heaven forbid anyone knows that babies might be wet or stinky. It\u2019s the way that she was raised, and the way that she raised her own children. There are lines of decorum that we simply don\u2019t cross, and things we never<\/em> discuss in public. I learned at a very young age that people who talked about peeing and pooping, and heaven forbid they should call them peeing and pooping, were just plain vulgar. Heck, I\u2019ve given birth eight times, and am still made squeamish by birth stories.<\/a> I\u2019m not a fan of over sharing.<\/p>\n
I can remember one date in high school where I had to pee so badly I was almost in tears, but I couldn\u2019t bring myself to say so. So I came up with a story of how I wanted to walk around the amusement park we were at while he stood in line, just so I could \u201clook around.\u201d That poor guy. I don\u2019t know what he thought I was really doing, but he never asked me out again.Too bad, because he was cute and nice, and I\u2019m pretty sure that we could still be friends if I wasn\u2019t such a weirdo back in the day.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s <\/em>how much I was taught to not discuss these things. Seriously.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s become the hardest part for me of adjusting to be a part of the wheelchair\/adaptive community. They discuss everything<\/em>, y\u2019all. People think that I don\u2019t have a filter, but they raise my eyebrows and make me blush every time I\u2019m around them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s become predictable that the second or third question after we meet a new person and discuss \u201cwhy is Ella in a chair\u201d is going to be \u201cIs she Incontinent?\u201d (She isn\u2019t, thank goodness.) It\u2019s asked in the same tone of voice as the kid at the grocery asks me if I want paper or plastic, and yet it throws me off balance every time.<\/p>\n
Because who asks that of a stranger? I have friends who\u2019ve had tribes of children and only admit to leaking \u201ca little when I laugh\u201d to their closest friends. If your bits don\u2019t work right, that\u2019s private. Unless you\u2019re in a wheelchair and then it\u2019s as common as asking what you do for a living.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi. What\u2019s your name? What\u2019s your daughter\u2019s name? Why is she in a chair? Does she pee on herself?\u201d Okay\u2026they say incontinent, but that\u2019s what they mean. It\u2019s just so foreign to me.<\/p>\n
A couple of nights ago, we went out to dinner with some new friends of ours, some of whom are disabled. It wasn\u2019t very long into the conversation about how their lives are different before one of the men volunteered \u201cmy biggest issue at the moment is my hormone levels because I don\u2019t ever fully ejaculate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I blushed brilliantly red, and my eyes got huge. Who says that? Apparently everyone, because the guy across the table piped up with \u201cYeah, I struggle with that too. Here\u2019s how I handle that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
As this discussion went on, my friend at the end of the table started laughing, \u201cDude, look at Rebecca\u2019s face. We shocked the walker.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a lot of good-natured ribbing before the guy next to me patted my hand and reassured me, \u201cYou\u2019re still new. You\u2019ll get used to us before too long.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I hear a lot, \u201cIt\u2019s okay. You\u2019re still new.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I am. I\u2019m so very new in a whole world that doesn\u2019t follow any social rules that I know. It\u2019s a world populated by the kindest souls and most generous people I\u2019ve ever met, and I\u2019m trying hard to be comfortable with a frankness that they take for granted. Because, as one of the guys told me on Wednesday night \u2013\u00a0 if I\u2019m going to hang with the crips, then I\u2019m first\u00a0 going to have to learn how to hang.<\/p>\n
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I was raised in a family that never discussed bodily functions. In fact, my mom still won\u2019t acknowledge the fact that anyone pees except in the quietest whisper. Not even babies. It makes me laugh to watch her face as she walks across the room, newborn in her arms, to whisper to his\/her mom, \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIncontinence, Ejaculation, and Learning to Hang<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was raised in a family that never discussed bodily functions. 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