Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities.
She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges.
In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines.
Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.
Food for thought: "I never write to disappear and escape. The truth is exactly the opposite. Most people strike me as escaping and disappearing in one way or another - into their jobs, their daily routines, their delusions about ...
Something inspirational: “Anyone can learn to fight. Hardly anyone learns to think.” TAMSYN MUIR, Gideon the Ninth Muir's quote reminds us that fighting is not just about physical strength; it can mean arguing, resisting ...
Food for thought: “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you.” OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, Parable of the Sower This quote reminds us that everything we do has an impact, and every experience changes ...
My life has been spent being a chameleon with trying to fit in because of the way I was raised, so I haven't really had the had chance to be an individual.
From a small age, my Mother brainwashed me into being codependent and enmeshed with her, which explains why I kept getting into the same type of relationships with different women.
It has only been in the past couple of years that I have been able to do my own thing and it has been fantastic. I'm starting to enjoy my life and I don't want to go back to the way my life used to be.
Thanks Randy. Yes, they say, the sins of the parents fall on the children... and whilst that isn't something you could change whilst your parents (your mom) was alive, from your words, I'm reading you have changed that.
I absolutely love that you have got your life back on track and I couldn't be happier for you. I love that you are starting to enjoy your life.
There's probably a little bit of a chameleon in some of us. I have learnt if people can't take you for who you are then they are the wrong people for you.
When I look back, I certainly spent far to long trying to fit in and be the person someone else wanted me to be, and don't meet their expectations.
It's a shame I didn't realise that at that time, but I don't think you do when you're young. I can't turn back the clock.
I have also learnt if people can't take you for who you are then they are the wrong people for you.
Agree, agree, agree. You didn't need to be, you just needed to be you.
I think because of my disability, I learned over the years, to be accepting of who I was. The difficult part was I didn't know what any of that really meant.
Although I didn't know about my disability, my spiritual beliefs kept me grounded in the way you describe.
Your last paragraph sums up your response. We should all be accepting of each other, no matter what we deal with or what our beliefs are.
My life has been spent being a chameleon with trying to fit in because of the way I was raised, so I haven't really had the had chance to be an individual.
From a small age, my Mother brainwashed me into being codependent and enmeshed with her, which explains why I kept getting into the same type of relationships with different women.
It has only been in the past couple of years that I have been able to do my own thing and it has been fantastic. I'm starting to enjoy my life and I don't want to go back to the way my life used to be.
Thanks Randy. Yes, they say, the sins of the parents fall on the children... and whilst that isn't something you could change whilst your parents (your mom) was alive, from your words, I'm reading you have changed that.
I absolutely love that you have got your life back on track and I couldn't be happier for you. I love that you are starting to enjoy your life.
There's probably a little bit of a chameleon in some of us. I have learnt if people can't take you for who you are then they are the wrong people for you.
When I look back, I certainly spent far to long trying to fit in and be the person someone else wanted me to be, and don't meet their expectations.
It's a shame I didn't realise that at that time, but I don't think you do when you're young. I can't turn back the clock.
I have also learnt if people can't take you for who you are then they are the wrong people for you.
Agree, agree, agree. You didn't need to be, you just needed to be you.
I think because of my disability, I learned over the years, to be accepting of who I was. The difficult part was I didn't know what any of that really meant.
Although I didn't know about my disability, my spiritual beliefs kept me grounded in the way you describe.
Your last paragraph sums up your response. We should all be accepting of each other, no matter what we deal with or what our beliefs are.