Why I hide my arm – An adult perspective

I’d like to introduce you to Christine. I’m lucky to have met Christine during this summer’s Nubability Athletics camp. (I snagged her for a selfie – she’s notorious about avoiding photography.) She attended the summer camp as an adult mentor. Before meeting her in person, she has offered fantastic insight on the Born Just Right Facebook page and right here in this website’s comments section. We had some really great conversations this summer and I asked her to offer some insight on growing up with a limb difference. I know as a parent, I’ve instinctively felt the need to prevent Jordan from hiding her little arm in public. I worried it was because she felt bad about herself. Christine offers insight that helps me (and hopefully you) better understand. -Jen

I can remember my first day at summer camp as clearly as if it were only a few weeks ago (rather than over two and a half decades ago!). From the excitement of finally being old enough to attend a week long overnight summer camp to the prospect of sleeping in a cabin to the thrill of being with my best friend, Heather, I was on cloud nine… All except for the fear of what the girls in my cabin would say when they noticed my hand, my heart anticipating a slew of seemingly endless questions.

As vividly as if it were yesterday, I remember putting my hand in my pocket and managing to keep anyone from noticing it until after dinner when one of the girls saw my hand as I opened my ice cream sandwich and the questions began. While the questions didn’t do anything to hinder my love for summer camp (I attended and later worked at least one camp every summer for more than a decade) and the friends that I made there, they are still a poignant memory from my childhood, a reminder of the attention that my hand draws.

To most two handed people, my hand is an oddity, an obscurity and a limitation. For me, it’s just part of who I am.

I was born missing the majority of my left hand. My hand consists of a small palm and a surgically created, non-opposable thumb (my whole hand fits in a toddler mitten).  Much of my childhood was spent at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Plastic Surgery Hand Clinic where my hand and my story were on display for every medical student and resident as six hand surgeries molded and shaped my hand for more functionality.

Somewhere between being a teaching tool for up and coming surgeons and hearing the questions and teasing of my peers, I began hiding my hand to avoid attention. I grew tired of explaining that I was born that way, hated the teasing and started to detest being a living medical example (sorry to the medical professionals out there!). I just wanted to be a kid.

I wanted to be noticed for normal kid stuff, like my grades or my talents. I didn’t want to be singled out or special and, most of all, didn’t want the pity that so often followed the questions. I just wanted to be myself and, in my mind as a child, that was best accomplished when I hid my hand.  Even now, my “little” hand is often in my pocket (though that is partly because it gets cold more easily than my other hand), under my arm, behind an object that I’m carrying, etc. After several decades, it’s an ingrained coping mechanism, a subconscious habit.

I don’t want my hand to define me, but it has definitely shaped me. It’s not my whole story, but it is a running theme throughout the chapters of my life. For me, it is a badge of honor, my greatest struggle and one of the things that makes me who I am. It’s taught me much about perseverance when those around you think you can’t do something, accepting those with differences and the joy that can be found in simple victories (finding a vegetable peeler that I can actually hold, finally learning to open my office door while holding a cup of coffee, etc.). I’m not ashamed of my hand or of its mark on my life because I don’t know who I would be without it. I simply don’t always want to share it with strangers (kind of an ironic statement considering this is a post on the internet!) because it seems like a personal thing to me.

To some, my response of hiding my hand may seem to be a sign that I’m ashamed of it or have a lack of confidence. I’m not sure that anything I say will sway their opinion on the matter, but my hand has never stopped me from attempting anything. I’m not ashamed of my hand. If I was, I wouldn’t use it every day, I wouldn’t talk about it with my friends and family and I certainly wouldn’t take jobs where I constantly interact with people, but these things are all true about me. I may do what I can to minimize the stares, but I haven’t avoided life and I would never recommend that anyone else do so either.

I want to be known for more than my hand, to be noticed for more than merely my missing digits, the one characteristic that, at times in my life, has overshadowed everything else about me. I’m all grown up now, but I still just want to be normal.