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Sunday, April 21, 2024
This morning, while I was walking along Corso Italia and going to mass, I had an unpleasant opportunity to meet a person I have known for several years, of medium-high culture and social class, and I was able to perceive the stigma on his part towards of my person.
The stigma, this label, the prejudice that is exercised in relationships by people due to the frailties or disabilities we experience.
I meet this person, I stop for a moment to say hello, I greet him, conveying, I believe, my joy at having met him. I am very pleased to meet people on the street and when I am happy with the meeting I transmit joy. I therefore greet you, happy to have met you. She barely greets me, in a very low voice, her body language, in particular her posture, convey static, rigidity and immobility. She seems disinterested, she seems to have an almost indignant attitude at having met me. Her rigid and immobile posture is accompanied by a certain distance and an expression of the gaze that conveys a certain severity. I believe that with all people, it is always a good thing for me to be polite and kind, as my family of origin taught me. A trail of happiness remains in me at having met a person I have known for several years. I politely ask “how are you?” thinking of being kind and nice to her. She replies “fine” with an almost indignant tone of voice, as if it were obvious to her that everything is fine with her and as if the fact that she is fine should be obvious to me too, and it is as if she were almost amazed by this question of mine for the obviousness that in your opinion should be clear, that is, that everything is fine with you.
I make another attempt, making a brief comment on the bad weather and the temperature which is still cold despite the spring season. I’m talking to her but her face, always still like the rest of her body, is as if she isn’t at all interested in the words I speak. I perceive a sensation of distance, as if the person, despite being half a meter away from me, was light years away from me. She is completely silent, but with her gaze turned towards me for a few moments and it is as if she was waiting for nothing more than to move away from me. She doesn’t say any words. The absence of his facial expressions and his rigidity and immobility transmit unnecessary tension to me. He doesn’t react to my words, nor does he show any desire to establish contact with me. She observes me for a few moments, building an invisible but dividing wall between me and her, it is as if she wanted to mark a hierarchical division between her and me. I therefore understand that there is no point in continuing to encourage the conversation on my part. It doesn’t really make sense. I greet her, wish her a good day and leave.
For some time I carried within me the humiliating sensation of having felt inadequate, stigmatized. I think about it for a moment and process the thought that the problem is his and not mine.
In church I listen to the priest who celebrates mass and I pray for all the people who unjustly stigmatize others for one reason or another, so that they can change their attitude towards others, fragile or disabled, welcoming them as a person with dignity and rights like any other citizen.