Quotation

Elegy for a Disease

a Personal and Cultural History of Polio
"... A 1990 survey of polio survivors revealed that a quarter of them had been diagnosed with clinical depression. ... nearly all people who had polio experienced traumatic separations from their families, along with the wounds - both physical and emotional - of subsequent surgeries, and the ongoing injury of finding themselves in severely constrained social roles. In addition the pressure ... to minimize the extent of their disability, to be cheerful overcomers, to fit themselves into the normal world, often resulted in a bifurcated self. Along with the self who was competent ... another, more shadowed self lived - sensitive to criticism, fearful of being unable to live up to ... expectations, and above all, lonely, for this was the part of ourselves we were supposed to keep well hidden." (p. 252)