After sixteen years of writing I often think about why I still continue.
When I started writing, I was trying to make sense of my life. I had spent decades without knowing about what I had, about myself. Learning about cerebral palsy in my forties and an autism diagnosis in my fifties added another layer of meaning to experiences I had carried with me since childhood.
Writing has given me somewhere to put my thoughts, and to offer insight into a life I knew nothing about. I would have got ill without it. You cannot live with something day to day and not know what it is.
Sixteen years later, I still need that.
Understanding more about myself hasn't made everything fall neatly into place. It hasn't changed the past or stopped difficult things from happening. There are still experiences I have to work through and things I am still trying to understand.
Writing shifts my life into perspective. When I put something into words, I begin to see it differently. What feels overwhelming in my head becomes clearer in front of me. It allows me to question what I am feeling, why I am feeling it and what I want to do with those feelings.
It gives me hope. Not because writing changes how I am or my circumstances, but because it reminds me that even when I cannot change what is happening around me, I can continue to understand myself within it.
Writing keeps me safe. It helps me to think about how I can respond to the person I want to be and to the values I want to hold onto.
For the first time, it gives me a voice. For the life I didn't have the answers for or the language to explain, I can now put those experiences into words.
Those words over time have moved beyond my disabilities. I write about mental health, identity, loss, grief, resilience, acceptance and change because disability has never existed separately from the rest of my life.
My experiences are my own, but the feelings behind them aren't only mine.
We may all have lived very different lives, but we all know something about mental health, uncertainty, resilience, loss, disappointment, and grief. We all know what it is to want to be understood, or simply to understand ourselves.
That is why The CP Diary is no longer only about me making sense of life. It gives me a place to continue talking about what matters in the wider world.
The online world has changed since I started writing. It's faster and louder, with information, opinions and arguments competing for our attention.
Sixteen years ago, I began writing because I was looking for answers.
Today, I still write for the same reason: to understand my experiences, to reflect on my journey with cerebral palsy and autism, to find hope in difficult times and to keep my voice alive.
