Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

Some­times I watch peo­ple’s cal­lous­ness and un­car­ing at­ti­tude be­cause their sit­u­a­tion is warm and the plight of oth­ers does not mat­ter to them; a lack of em­pa­thy, hu­mil­i­ty or con­scious­ness, even when they err or have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do right, and I ju­di­cious­ly ad­mit: “To­mor­row is an­oth­er day,” sip tea, and suck salt.

Suck­ing salt is a san­i­ty-pro­mot­ing habit of those of us who live with dis­abil­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly dis­abil­i­ties of the mind. We un­der­stand that once we re­main lu­cid and self-reg­u­lat­ed, our needs are ig­nored or eas­i­ly for­got­ten. Peo­ple drift in­to their “reg­u­lar pro­gram­ming,” where there is no con­sid­er­a­tion for what we bear. In fact, most peo­ple I know would not like to be both­ered with what­ev­er it is we suf­fer.

If sit­u­a­tions im­pact our lu­cid­i­ty and we weath­er open­ly, we ex­pose our­selves to the stig­ma­tis­ing at­ti­tude of those who on­ly see us as the in­con­ve­nience of pass­ing mad­ness, to be spurned or scan­dalised. If we re­act to peo­ple’s mis­treat­ment or lack of em­pa­thy, we are la­belled ir­ra­tional; if we re­spond, we are antsy and dif­fi­cult.

So, this year, I re­called with poignant learn­ing the first line of Desider­a­ta. I learned this po­em in the 1970s and, with time, grew to ap­pre­ci­ate its pro­fun­di­ty. Now, noth­ing beats the val­ue of the mantra in my mind: “Re­mem­ber what peace there may be in si­lence.”

Amid 2025’s “noise and haste” came the in­tense re­al­i­sa­tion that it is dif­fi­cult to “be on good terms with all per­sons.” But, I find com­fort in the au­thor’s pre­cur­sor: “As far as pos­si­ble.” I hide in the shad­ow of that phrase know­ing that the dis­tance of “as far as” is a sub­jec­tive mea­sure­ment. I now use that breadth to de­fine bound­aries as I im­prove at ris­ing above chal­leng­ing ex­pe­ri­ences and puni­tive “peo­ple-ing.”

As a per­son liv­ing with an in­vis­i­ble con­di­tion and func­tion­ing ap­par­ent­ly well in so­ci­ety, I do not get much con­sid­er­a­tion from peo­ple. I do not be­lieve any­one thinks, “If I say this to Car­o­line, she may be­come anx­ious” or “If I do this to her, it may af­fect her sta­bil­i­ty.” Peo­ple hard­ly care. Peo­ple al­so have more is­sues than we recog­nise. So, for my san­i­ty, I am con­stant­ly cu­rat­ing re­spons­es that help me choose si­lence over the use­less­ness of at­tempt­ing to ap­peal to peo­ple who know my his­to­ry and choose to prac­tice will­ful ig­no­rance or de­vi­ous sab­o­tage.

And even though I speak here from my own angst, these sen­ti­ments rep­re­sent the hun­dreds of peo­ple with whom I have in­ter­act­ed or coun­selled over the years. This is an ac­cu­mu­la­tive ex­ha­la­tion of frus­tra­tions, and a re­ac­tion to the lac­er­a­tions on the psy­che of those who are al­ways made to feel they do not be­long (here).

To­day is In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (ID­PD), a day which be­gan in 1992, when the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly des­ig­nat­ed De­cem­ber 3 as an an­nu­al “In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Dis­abled Per­sons.” In 2008, the name was changed to “In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties” to re­flect a broad­er, more mod­ern un­der­stand­ing of dis­abil­i­ty, pro­mot­ing rights and rais­ing aware­ness on dis­abil­i­ties.

When men­tal ill­ness­es were of­fi­cial­ly deemed dis­abil­i­ties un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (UN­CR­PD), I was hope­ful for a bet­ter fu­ture, even in T&T. De­cem­ber 3 be­came the sec­ond most mean­ing­ful ad­vo­ca­cy day in the cal­en­dar of peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties of the mind, es­pe­cial­ly those which are hid­den and tot­ed along in­vis­i­bly.

For peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, the UN­CR­PD is the first legal­ly bind­ing in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights treaty specif­i­cal­ly ad­dress­ing rights. The hope was/is that these rights could en­sure peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties en­joyed the same rights as every­one else. It was a dream of change that could be re­alised but, wher­ev­er treaties go, this went.

To­day is al­so Choose Women Wednes­day, start­ed in 2014 by a US-based non-prof­it (as Women on Wednes­day) and cel­e­brat­ed on the first Wednes­day in De­cem­ber, which recog­nis­es the sig­nif­i­cance of women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment.

I start­ed out want­i­ng to do an in­stall­ment of grat­i­tude to a few of the many women who choose women be­yond the is­sue of eco­nom­ics and chose to sup­port me and oth­ers like me, re­gard­less of what they know or ex­pe­ri­ence. Some are long­stand­ing, some are long gone, and some re­main long-suf­fer­ing. Noth­ing beats grat­i­tude in chang­ing angst or anx­i­ety in­to pos­i­tive emo­tions.

It is al­so the first Wednes­day in De­cem­ber, when I like to ap­peal to adults, par­ents and guardians to not lose sight of the pro­tec­tion and care our chil­dren need in this sea­son of “spir­its,” like high booze, low morals, height­ened do­mes­tic abus­es, and more abun­dant sex­u­al in­frac­tions in­side the “mer­ri­ment.” But, I di­gress.

And in the midst of an un­set­tling time for many peo­ple in T&T, I could have used this space to speak of how to stay men­tal­ly well, cu­rat­ing calm­ness, lis­ten­ing to our own con­sciences and con­scious­ness and avoid­ing some of the com­pelling con­spir­a­cies and machi­na­tions of war (to which I am con­stant­ly drawn) by less­en­ing use of so­cial me­dia. But it will wait.

Be­cause here we are, on ID­PD, fight­ing angst and antsy­ness.