Living Life on 'My' Terms, Setting Boundaries and Finding Peace

“No matter what was thrown at me, I never saw myself as a casualty of others' non-healing. I knew who I was from an early age, I was okay with me. Truthfully, dealing with something I didn’t know I had has been long and laborious.

My story and how I got to know about ‘my story’ still isn’t sitting comfortably. With no closure, I doubt it ever will. It’s also something that still affects how I move through the world, and how I relate to the world. How others relate to me with a disability is 'another story'. Throughout my life I've had expectations placed on me, with my parents expecting me to be the same as my siblings when they knew I never could. Being expected to keep up and with what I later learned was a disability, and the assumptions and misunderstandings I was made to carry, to deal with, that were never mine.

It’s a lesson I learned to my cost, one that took years to fully understand. The reel I’m looking at isn’t a reel I’m choosing to own, but it is one that I am left with. I am ‘me’ with mild physical and mental disabilities — I live with cerebral palsy and autism. I am disabled, not broken.

For anyone with disabilities, it’s not for us to ‘fit in’ — it’s for others to fit in with us. We don’t need to fix anything, or let others with unhealed wounds shape our journey. We have enough trouble shaping our own.

My journey is about finding a place that is my own. It’s at a slower pace. For me, healing isn’t about the destination, it’s allowing myself space to create an inner peace.”