(Dis)abled

I have recently been thinking about Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto about our post-WW2 reality. She argues that in our technological age we have become ‘cyborgs’ and that this term is helpful in generating an intersectional view of politics. Haraway abstracts the body into a cyborg entity, presenting a refiguration of human identity. While she uses this lens to explore the intersection of a multitude of identities, people with disabilities are a noticeable absence. She mentions people with disabilities just once, saying how they are the closest to the cyborg reality in a physical sense, and that’s it. The use of the term ‘cyborg’ to discuss our modern relationship with technology is an abstract metaphor which speaks over the voices of those who have an actual reality as a ‘cyborg’.

Last year, I developed a hellish tooth abscess which ruined my December and in late January, after what felt like hundreds of appointments, my dentist placed a dainty silver crown on top of my molar to protect it. She let me hold it before it went in and I marvelled at the intricate replica of my tooth, a sort-of sculpture of myself. After the appointment was over, I would rather not recount the insertion of the crown, and the fiery pain had subsided, I was left with a cold, hard lump of metal in my mouth. It was novel to begin with: I felt like a cliche pirate and was glad the silver matched the rest of my jewellery. Soon after, It became a point of startle, when my tongue slid across the smooth surface and paused, tasting copper as if my gums were bleeding. It was a sudden, recurring awareness that I had a foreign object –something non-human– lodged into my body and I wondered if it was now a part of myself or not.

It’s funny that I was so hung up on this tiny piece of silver when I have thousands of pounds worth of titanium and chrome screwed into my spine, holding it neatly in place. I remember the amount of screws and how much they cost, thinking about the jokes of them being sold for scraps after my death. Yet, I often forget that they are actually inside of me and have been for the past 5 years.

My engineer brother would tell me how titanium is used in planes due to its strength and heat resistance, and I thought this was funny, thinking of myself as part plane. I recalled myself as the end product in a production line, all the pieces being forged and cut that would come to make up my whole. While I didn’t think of it often, this feeling of being machine-related stuck with me. Now, I often wonder what I am: What is my human-to-plane ratio? How man-made am I?

Most of the time I don’t even think about my metal exoskeleton. I suppose it has been so long now that the structure has become a part of me, it has been with my longer than the finally grown out roots of my hair. I only ever think about it when showing my x-rays to people, the flashes of white reminding me just how much of me is metallic. I also think about it about it when I run my hand down my back, tracing hard bumps that bulge against my skin as if trying to break free from their fleshy confines.

I have slowly regained the feeling in my back, but in the first couple of years, a poke or jab, even the slightest touch felt akin to a static TV, all fuzzy, no pinpointed feeling. That is when I felt the most alienated from myself. Behind me, this mass stuck out and didn’t feel the way the rest of me did. It felt divorced from me and yet it dictated my whole life.

I hated that feeling. It was only then when I could feel the foreignness of it that I wanted to tear the metal out of me. It felt alien, invading and taking over my body, slowly spreading from spine to tooth. I wanted it gone: to melt it down and send it back to the supplier, turn it into a plane for all I care. Now, though those feelings have dissipated with time, when I stretch and feel skin over screws I remember what I am.

To be honest, I don’t remember what it felt like to be all-natural, homegrown. At the same time, I don’t feel unnatural now but entirely like myself. The line between human and machine is somewhat blurred for me now. My back has been so integral to my identity for the past five years and it will continue to be: it has made me, me.

I watch films about AI and robot apocalypses and wonder how it is we view the relationship between humans and machines. For me, my metal has allowed me to have a high standard of life and stopped the slow crushing of my lungs and other organs. There are so many more people who rely on biomechanic machines to keep them alive. So many of us have metallic parts already and the fear of the ‘cyborg’ makes my stomach twist a bit. How come it is always people with disabilities, or those who rely on machines to keep them alive, that suffer further in being left out of or demonised by such narratives? 

For me, I do not fear what I am, nor do I see myself as any less human. I am no longer grossed out by myself. Recently I was told I was weird and endured various other insults about how my back looked, and it hurt. It hurt knowing that while I feel strong with my exoskeleton protecting and supporting me, I was viewed as some kind of spectacle: non-human and seemingly less than them. All of my confidence in how cool I thought it was got shattered. Reading these manifestos and hearing these insults feels like whiplash, but the prickling feeling that runs up and down my back reminds me that I am not a spectacle, nor a concept or political manifesto. I am a person. My new spine (five years  old or young?) reminds me of my humanity, and I am always aware that this metal is a part of me that  allows me to continue living. I am not a metaphor for modernity or dystopia, I am the reality of our modern medicine, and I am ever grateful and thankful for it.