Being Understood: Growing Up with a Disability

Date 31 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Childhood Experiences and Their Lasting Impact A child's experience of growing up is shaped by more than the care they receive. It is also shaped by how well the people around them understand their needs, recognise their ...
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Autism and the Hidden Challenges of Living Independently

Date 29 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
When the familiar world changes, leaving you to navigate life and the overwhelm of autism on your own Thank goodness for this blog – a place to make sense of my experiences. It's been a challenging life. Growing up ...
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Healing Earth Side: Putting Mental Health First

Date 26 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Learning to Live Well With What I Cannot Change. I have come to understand that healing is not always about fixing what is wrong. As my experience shows, some things are beyond our control, and therefore healing ...
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Do You Have To Forgive?

Date 22 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Finding closure by letting go of guilt and responsibility that were never yours to carry Every child has a right to know who they are and what they are living with. This is part of my healing journey. I spent much of my ...
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The Understanding I Didn't Have

Date 19 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Living With Cerebral Palsy and Autism Six decades of living with cerebral palsy and autism without the understanding that might have helped me make sense of myself. What happens when you go through life with ...
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Healing Without All The Answers

Date 17 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Living With Unanswered Questions There comes a time when trying to understand your past means accepting that not everything will be explained. You can spend years finding information, piecing together your experiences ...
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Tears in Heaven: Reflecting on Childhood, Loss and Grief

Date 14 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
How music connects childhood experiences, personal loss and emotional wellbeing Music has a way of connecting us to emotions that words cannot always express. A song can bring back memories, experiences and ...
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When There Is No Apology

Date 11 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Living With What Remains Unspoken There are experiences in life that you may come to understand differently. For me, it's gaining a greater understanding of my disabilities and how they have shaped my years ...
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When Understanding Comes Too Late

Date 9 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Learning to live with the questions that remain There are questions in life that only our parents can answer. Questions about our childhood, the decisions they made, the things they overlooked and the things they chose not ...
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Living With the Impact

Date 7 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Understanding How Childhood Experiences Affect Us in Adulthood “My whole life I trusted and I was lied to.” – Everwood I heard that line in an episode of Everwood. It was spoken by a woman who had offered to give her father ...
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The Long Road Back to Healing

Date 5 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Where Responsibility Ends and Healing Begins I often think about the difference between understanding trauma and healing from it, primarily because it's something I continue to have to do. For years I was sure that ...
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The Conversation I Didn't Know Was Missing

Date 1 October 2026
Author Ilana Estelle
Growing up with Cerebral Palsy before I Knew it was Part of My Story There are conversations that take place that continue to shape our lives. Then there are conversations that never happen, and their absence shapes us ...
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