Finding the Meaning of Dystonia
by Terri Sterling, MA
Dystonia can be a difficult movement disorder to live with and often causes the victims to question its very purpose in our lives. Some of us redirected our lives as we took our anger and allowed it to create a positive force in our lives, which resulted in a college education, a career in the health field, or a career in the helping profession. However, some people who experience Dystonia become depressed, remain confused, and cannot find a purpose for having this health problem. We ask ourselves: “What is the meaning of Dystonia in our lives?”
In order to answer our life-affirming questions, we first need to acknowledge that behind depression is a “Meaning Crisis”. A Meaning Crisis is created by persistent uneasiness, irritation, anger, sadness about unfulfilled dreams, and a lack of meaning or purpose. Learning to think outside conventional wisdom can help you find a purpose and meaning for having Dystonia. Children dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, nurses, police officer, mothers and fathers. What role did you acted out as a child? Did you want to become an artist, writer, or scientist? Perhaps, the Dystonia has stopped you from fulfilling your dreams or dreaming at all or maybe it is the thoughts you have about it. Maybe a well-meaning adult told you it would be too hard to fill you dream and you would starve in the process, so you gave up the essence of your dreams and became compliant. Your inner child can help you become creative and find meaning in your life once again.
Our job is to find how meaning comes and goes, what keeps us going, and why meaning vanishes in out lives. You can force life to mean what you intend it to mean and you can choose to create meaning in your life by changing the way you think. Our inner dialog can lead us to an unfulfilled, limited life instead of one filled with happiness because we are the makers of our own dreams. You can decide to take life seriously and to make it matter or you hide behind closed doors in depression and loneliness. The meaning of your life is up to you and you must force meaning into your life. What do you want your life to stand for? What is important to you and how can you incorporate that into a personal creed to live by? Perhaps, your plan is to write deeply about your feelings and experience or maybe you can passionately paint about it and lead an authentic life. Maybe your Dystonia can motivate you to fill your dreams and live life to the fullest. You could take your anger, write about it, turn it into a book, and publish it. Maybe you have been blessed and the meaning of your life is closer than you think.
I needed Botox for my Dystonia and my insurance company would not pay for it at that time. The church in my town discovered my plight and anonymously raised the money to pay for the Botox, so I could continue to help children in foster care. I had the Botox shots in my neck because of their help but I received a much larger gift and unforgettable gift. I would walk around down town, looking into the face of each stranger, and silently cry because I realized that people really did care and I was important to them. I learned that strangers could bring hope, unconditional love, and that I no longer needed to live in fear of them. I may not have learned this valuable lesson any other way but through this experience. I stopped being so afraid of the world and learned that unconditional love really did exist and that my Dystonia really had a purpose.
I can chose to become depressed over jobs I have lost due to people’s fear or prejudice acts or I can realize its higher purpose. When I lost my job due to a lack of accommodations, I learned to take risks by telling my dream and to make meaning in my life again. I began to realize that if I reached out, in an authentic way, that people would want to help me fill my dream. My recent crisis lead me to open my business, Inspiration, where I am a Creativity Coach that works with artist, writers, creative souls, and people with movement disorders. I work with people who want to increase their creativity, become unblocked, and find the purpose or meaning in life through authentic creativity. I can be reached at terricreativity@yahoo.com . I have a masters in psychology, 14 years of experience, and I am a trained Creativity Coach.
This article first appeared in the Tremmor Action Network, Inc. Newsletter and can be found on their site. The Tremor Action Network helps people who have movement disorders. This writer and artists in a board member for this organization.
Articles, poetry, and images on this site are copyrighted.
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Creative Job Hunting Tips For people who have Physical Disabilities
By Terri Sterling, MA
During the last year, I have been job hunting. I have emailed endless applications on Career Builder, Monster, and other web sites. If you use these job sites, be aware that the way your resume looks to you may not be the way it is received. If you have been using different style type and size type it may look disorganized by the time it reaches the intend person. When I have received my resume back, attached with a response, I noticed how disorganized and how hard it was to read. The solution for up loading a resume on Career Builder or other job bulletins is to use the same type style and size and to left justify everything. It is important to use a cover letter, which can be quickly made on Microsoft Word and pasted into the application site. I have found the most useful job site to be Indeed.com, which pulls employment opportunities from other sites.
Employers are now receiving hounders of job applications or resumes for each job they post on job bulletins or in the newspaper; therefore, each of us needs to be creative and stand out among the applications. The perspective applicant needs to market and sell their talents and abilities. I decided to engage in a marketing experiment because it is an employers market and I needed to find a unique way to grab an employer’s attention. I took my brief resume format and created a brochure with the information in it. I also discovered that in office supply stores you could find magnetic sheets to print a business card on. Most people will take the magnet and put it on their filing cabinet in their office. This gives the job hunter the advantage of being notice in the future even if they do not have the right job for you now. You can come up with a special slogan and use bright colors to make it stand out. The brochure and magnetic business card can be created using publisher or Microsoft word. I placed my brochure, magnetic business card, a regular business card, a cover letter, and a three page resume in an envelope. I also created a thank you card and then added Magic Cards. Magic Cards are a deck of trick playing cards. For my slogan, I wrote “Hire Terri and watch the magic begin.” I then suggested they take a break from their stressful job and have some fun with their team using the Magic Cards.
Another creative job hunting technique, which is presently being used, is to create a web site about yourself, your talents or abilities, and your resume. You can even add a picture of yourself. Some employers are looking for web sites for perspective talent employees. There are several free web sites and I have used freewebs.com, which does not cost anything and is easy to use if you follow their directions. All you need to do is create two to three pages about yourself and then you can up load your website free on to search engines by following the directions. If you are afraid of computers or creating web sites then ask your teenager to create it for you.
Employers are reluctant to hire the disabled if they need to provide the disabled person with accommodations. One way to avoid this issue is to ask the Vocational Rehabilitation Office to have a technology assessment done, which would provide you with a clear idea of what you will need in order to be successful at work. They may even provide you with all the necessary technology, which offsets the cost of accommodations for perspective employers. Another issues is that employers are not allow to ask if you are disabled but you can volunteer, which you may feel is necessary if you have an obvious disability. I usually educated the person who is interviewing me by telling them what I have Dystonia because otherwise they may think I am nervous and not confident. However, I recommend you think hard about the pluses and minus of engaging in this act. The plus is that both parties have a clear idea of what you can offer the company and what you will need from them. The negative side of telling is that they may not hire you. Each person needs to weigh the effects of disclosure for themselves. I would recommend using a sense of humor and using your disability to connect with others in a positive way. One example is that I am a psychotherapist and I notice that clients will open up to me sometimes when they will not open up to another therapist. Part of the response from clients or prospective employees is they decide that I can relate to them on a personal level. Each of us has difficulties in our lives whether we are able bodied or disabled, so people believe that I can relate because I too have problems. I once worked at a printing place where the on going joke was that we should start a baseball team because I could fool the other team into believing that I could not hit the ball. I had developed a sense of humor about my condition and really thought that was funny at the time. I think we each need to be able to laugh at ourselves and we need to be able to help people relax around us. If this is not your style then communicate to them just how smart you are by using your intellectual abilities and knowledge to knock them off their feet and distract them from your disability. After you have known someone for a few months or even just a few weeks, they will forget that you are disabled and begin to treat you like anyone else.
Remember that your job is to market yourself to prospective employers, that your first line of action is a cover letter highlighting what you can do for the employer, and then create a professional resume. If you want to be creative, try a brochure, magnetic business cards, or even a web site. Think about how you can stand out from the crowd and do not expect an employer to know how to react to your disability. I think it is the job of every disabled person to help able-bodied people feel comfortable around us. It will help if you can laugh at yourself. If you have tried everything else and still do not find a job then try to increase your experience by volunteering a free hours a week, which will help you network with people and find a job. In addition, if you have a dream and want to fill it then try writing a grant and create the job you want. I wish you the best of luck trying to find your dream job. You can forward any questions or comments to terricreativity@yahoo.com. Terri is the owner of Inspiration, which is a private creativity coaching and counseling business.
