My reaction to this question always makes me wants to be sarcastic and say 'no, its really fun. I love it, you should try' but I know people are very curious and interested to find out so here are some of my thoughts:
I spent many of my teenage years finding it hard to process, wondering how can I live like this? Who would I be without my disability? and often getting upset and having very raw emotions about wishing I could walk. Its extremely difficult having problems that noone can solve and having to feel things that noone can stop you feeling. It's difficult not being fully independent like my friends are and not having total control over my life. Feeling all of these things whilst going through puberty and teenage hormones was definitely not easy but I have always been very determined to do what I wanted to do with my life and reach my potential. I have never allowed people to place their expectations on me or affect my choices. I can remember going to a university open day and the disability adviser saying to me 'you know, teaching is a very intensive course are you sure you can cope' and even though that comment affected my choice of university it didn't in any way stop me from doing my chosen degree.
When I went to university and started having full-time help I experienced a new found freedom. I moved to a fully accessible ground floor flat was living out of my family home and I discovered that I could do more for myself than I ever thought was possible. I could choose the help that I wanted which meant that I gained autonomy over my life and it changed the perameters of what I thought I was able to do for myself.
Since turning 21, I feel a lot more comfortable with my disability than I ever have before and that although it will always make life harder and create frustrations,I have realised that having Cerebral Palsy makes me who I am and that because of that I wouldn't swap it for the world. It has kept me humble, given me resillence and put my stubbornness to good use!
No comments:
Post a Comment