She May Have a Brain Injury

But Even With A TBI, She Can Still Make Me Laugh 

This article is Part II of a two-part article.  The first article, entitled "He may be blind, but he can still speak" was written by my wife about her concerns dating and then marrying a disabled person, me.  This article summarizes my attitude while we were dating, an attitude about dating or marrying a disabled person that changed from one of caution to one of absolute and unconditional love.

             Like Cynthia, I read Peter Finch's article in Ezine articles, in which he discusses society's attitude toward dating the disabled.  He mentioned a study, which separated people’s viewpoint about dating a disabled person into three groups.  After losing my sight at the age of 15, I squarely planted myself in the third group:  I made it very clear that dating someone with a disability was not for me.  This was partly because of the fact that I have attention deficit disorder or ADD and I need to be very mobile.  I felt that a disabled person would hold me back from accomplishing all I had set out to accomplish for myself.  I also felt that I didn't want to take on the added responsibility and stress that a disabled person might present in addition to the normal pressures inherent in a relationship.  I know that sounds terribly selfish, but that is how I felt. 

    However, having found my soulmate in Cynthia, I moved quickly to the second group.  I recognized that it would be one thing if we were both disabled by blindness, but since we each have different disabilities, together we make up one complete person.  And together, we have pushed the boundaries of what disabled people can accomplish.  Together, we established our own publishing firm, donating up to 20% of the proceeds to various charities, in an attempt to give back to those organizations, which helped us attain the goals we, as disabled persons, set out for ourselves.  In short, I decided that, while it made sense not to marry or get involved with a blind disabled person, most other disabilities did not concern me.   

    To read more about our publishing firm and how you might contribute to our mission to "give back," log on to www.newriverpublications.com.

Copyright 2008 by Stephen Robert Doroghazi