The Tragic Reality of How Disability Affects Relationships

📌Category: Books, Disabilities, Health, Interpersonal relationship, Sociology
📌Words: 558
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 15 September 2021

Disability is something that often tests families. The difficulty of the situation and the stress surrounding it all can break families up. It is not uncommon for parents to get divorced after receiving a diagnosis for their child or to start disagreeing more often than not because of the pressure that builds up. Oftentimes, parents will reach the question “was there anything I could have done to have prevented it?” There is a lot of guilt that surrounds disability whether it is “did I give them a gene mutation that caused this?” or “could I have changed something to change this outcome?” For Alma Rivera, in The Book of Unknown Americans, the question was “did I cause the accident that left my daughter disabled?” In her situation, there is no doubt in her mind that she is the reason that her daughter, Maribel, is now disabled. She was put into a situation where her actions could have directly affected her daughter, so she automatically feels guilty for it. Many mothers go through these same feelings every day. Finally, guilt eats them up until they are left unable to function or cope. Everyone processes things differently, however, mothers tend to process guilt more personally than other people would. Some mothers process guilt on their own while others go to group therapies and try to get counseling.  In Alma’s case, she solely relied on herself to process her grief and did not consol with anyone about it. In the end, this left an enormous amount of pressure and feelings she was unable to help. 

From the beginning of the book, Alma made it very clear that she did not want to share her troubles with Arturo. She said that because he had not wanted to go to the United States in the first place, that she did not want to put any more stress on him. However, she needed to. Alma made it clear multiple times that she did not want to tell Arturo things that happened, such as the incident where Garrett had Maribel pushed up against a wall and her shirt up. At first, Alma felt that she had “failed Maribel again” (p. 122). She felt guilty that she had “let” something happen to Maribel because Maribel was so vulnerable and Alma thought she could protect her from everything. Instead of being open with Arturo, Alma decided to keep all of this to herself. Ultimately, Arturo felt hurt; when Alma had to tell him, he responded by saying “You lied to me,” (p. 245). The pain in his tone is exceptional. This is just an example of how hiding grief can affect relationships with others. Another is how Alma hid her feelings toward the accident. Alma felt like she had caused the accident while Arturo simply knew it was nothing more than an accident. All along Alma had thought that Arturo blamed her, but did not find out that he did not until the day of his accident (p.245).  It was a tragic reality of how guilt can ultimately end relationships.

Alma and Arturo completely put their relationship on the back burner after Maribel’s accident. They put all of their time and energy into helping Maribel get better, that they became more of roommates and less of husband and wife. This was simply how they chose to process their grief, however, it was, in the end, the biggest mistake of the book. If they were to focus on their relationship, they would have probably been more open about everything they went through, which could have prevented Arturo from being murdered.

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