Saint Anger and the Fight to Be Heard

Recently, I watched the 2024 film Out of My Mind about a young girl with Cerebral Palsy who couldn't speak or walk. There's definitely challenges there that I don't face because I can walk and speak, but the movie hit on some important points and invoked a lot of emotions. 

The battle to be heard when you have a disability, whether you can speak or you can't, is very real. Without spoiling too much of the film, which you can watch on Disney sources, there's a couple of scenes that I'm going to pay attention to here. 

First, in an early scene, Melody's goldfish jumps out of the tank, but she can't communicate that, and so it looks like she just made a big mess. She tried to communicate to the best of her abilities using the tools she had, but her dad didn't want to hear it. 

I found my blood boiling watching that scene. I could feel what it felt like to be misunderstood and unheard. And I think this was important because her parents were her biggest advocates throughout the whole film. But, sometimes it's the people closest to you who don't hear you the most. 

The same day I watched the movie, I was asked why it seems like I'm angry when I try to express my physical limitations to somebody I see everyday. I am frustrated by that. I have to communicate how my needs are different for literally everything. Do I confront every issue and everything that happens throughout each day? No. It's exhausting enough as it is to try and communicate what I do. I need people to consider my needs instead of assuming what they are or not thinking about them at all. 

When I saw this character experiencing the pain of being misunderstood, I felt it at my core. Even though our types of CP vary greatly, there was a lot of shared experience. People making assumptions about your experience, people making decisions for you and leaving you out of the conversation, people befriending you only to bully you or belittle you, people excluding you, people making fun of you, people feeling like you're going to bring them down, people treating you like you're less than they are, people upset because they think you get special privileges, and people that would just prefer that you're pleasant instead of frustrated over the way that they choose to treat you because of what they can't see or what they don't want to see. 

There were several times that I almost had to turn the movie off because I felt certain scenes so deeply to my core that they made me sad, they made me angry, and they made me face the painful parts of myself that I know people ignore. 

I have upset many people over the years with my tone or my emotional response to something. I'm unapologetic about that. You don't need to worry about that. If you don't want me to react to something, maybe take a few seconds, most of the time that's literally all it would take, and think how might this experience be different for them? 

One of the most profound tools I learned in interpretation of language is being able to put on a different lens and see things from different perspectives. I understand that most of the ableism that I experience by people that actually maybe care about me is through plain ignorance. I recognize that it's not the majority that intentionally want to exclude me or make my life even more fucking difficult. Well, maybe it is in 2025. Seeing as trashing the marginalized is en vogue these days. 

This movie does a profound job of highlighting the importance of autonomy, voice, and choice. My core values. It's a big deal to be a part of the conversation that defines your life. It's a big deal to express your opinion whether people agree with it or not. It's a big deal to be able to choose how you live. It's a big deal to have some form of Independence in spite of whatever visible or invisible limitations you may have. These are not just nice to have. They are human. They are as essential as air. 

If you've seen the film Out of My Mind, and you want to have a conversation about the relatable points, so that I don't spoil the movie for everyone else, feel free to send me a message and start a conversation. I definitely think the movie is worth watching. Remember, whether it's my experience or the experience portrayed in the film, one disabled person's experience is one disabled person's experience. While we may share different experiences and be able to relate on a lot of things, each of us responds and feels differently about well, probably everything.