REVIEW OF DISABILITY STUDIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Volume 15, Issue 3

Disability and Shame
Special Issue Forum: Creative Works

Out from the Halls
Lisa Boskovich, MS
Chapman University
California, United States

Abstract: The shame surrounding the construct of disability strikes at the very context of an 
individual's soul. The healing of shame associated with a learning disability diagnosis is a 
journey. To be free requires the inner looking into the core of self, once viewed and 
acknowledged healing enters. In this journey the individual is held by hands greater than their 
own. The path of healing is an individual passage and choice.

Out from the Halls

My voice rises.
Years have passed since,
I heard,
 "You have a LD in Perceptual Organization."
My well-meaning
Community College,
DSPS advisor stated.
My re-entry into education,
After a 12-year absence.
One graph determined,
and too many Tests.
Placed a blanket of Shame around my Soul.
Carried like Chain Mail,
Intertwined,
This new sense of self.
Who I was, prior was Slammed.
Stuck in-between 2 bookends,
  Of
Shame and Resolution.
Resolution took another decade,
To heal the brokenness,
I thought I was.
My entrance into:
the rites and rituals,
Of the Academy,
Offered me,
Community,
A sense of belonging.

---PAGE 1---

Hundreds of hours spent with my Mentor,
Over the course of now 7 years,
and continuing.
So many pages of narrative written.
I emerged,
Like the Phoenix,
A Doctoral Candidate.
All My Shame,
  IS
GONE

Lisa Boskovich, M.S., is a Doctoral Candidate in the Donna Ford Attallah College of 
Educational Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California with an emphasis in 
Disability Studies. Her research interests include, fathers who have a child on the autism 
spectrum, and the phenomenological master narratives of individuals with learning 
disabilities. Lisa is currently working as a Research Assistant at the Thompson Policy Institute 
on Disability and Autism.

Out from the Halls by Lisa Boskovich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 
International License. Based on a work at https://rdsjournal.org. Permissions beyond the scope 
of this license may be available at https://www.rds.hawaii.edu.
      
---PAGE 2---