Seven months with the “intellectual (dis)ability”

Now the months in Spain are seven, or I can start to say that there are five months left until the end of the project and my return to Italy, although I do not exclude a possible return to Spain in the future.
1, 2,3,4,5,6,7(-5),8(-4),9(-3),10(-2),11(-1),12 (0). The first half has been crossed, now it’s time to start thinking about the future. The passing time no longer only has the smell of novelty and adventure, of experimentation and improvisation, now there is a growing need to start asking ourselves: “what do I want to do?”.
This is the question that, certainly some more and others less, myself included, usually we try in every way to avoid asking ourself, often wasting time being passionate about other people’s problems or others ideological big problems that don’t include ourself.
I see it every day when I leave the center where I am volunteering with these lives labeled as “intellectually disabled.”
People are always ready to stand up in a bus/train to let them sit, their parents prepare sandwich for them every day, they choose for them how they should dress, where they should go, what they should do, they choose for them what they should want, they help them, they treat them well because they think that they cannot do it alone, the world seems too dangerous for them in the eyes of these people.
Seen from the outside it always seems positive, it seems obvious what is done for them, we help them, we protect them, we take loving care of them like a mother does with her children.
But if there is something I have learned in recent months, especially working with my colleagues at the Tola Center, it is to see all this from another perspective, with another look. Seeing these practices no longer from the outside, but from the inside, made me understand that these lives are imprisoned in a bubble that keeps them slaves in a system that passes itself off as the good guy who helps them. Maybe the real help is to start helping them less, leaving them space so that they can start living more independently.
Maybe it would be nice to see them try to escape from the center, see them break the rules, see them argue with their parents, see them rebel against this system that helps them the most and deceives them the most. Seeing that they begin to ask themselves no longer: “what does the Other want from me?”, but finally: “what do I want? Where is my desire?”.
I thank all those who work in the Tol’s Centre, the volunteers, the workers and above all the users who are giving me so much, every day I realize how many things I don’t know, how much I have to learn, how many mistakes I have made and which I will continue to make, hoping slowly being able to improve.
Thanks also to Amics and Spain for how they welcomed me and how they continue to welcome me.