When we're brought up to live, and think a certain way, life isn't easy. It's a life with little emotion. With no freedom to make our own choices on life or through our experiences. There may also be times when we’re not sure how to get through, we just know we need to.

It's only when we come to lose that loved one that we see how our life changes, but it's not the way we would have chosen to live our life. Now when I look back I struggle to comprehend my life in the absence of a life. It wasn't my life.

I have clarity and understanding, but growing older means we can never get those years back. Perhaps those years, weren't mine to have and that’s what I need to come to terms with.

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.

Most people who read this blog

went on to read these blogs next
Date 26 July 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

Living with Difference

Seen, Misjudged, Rarely Understood For most of my life, I lived in the dark. Not because I didn't know I was different, but because I didn't yet have the understanding to explain why life always felt harder than it seemed to be ...
Read more
Date 24 July 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

The Hidden Effects of Loss

Some consequences aren't immediate, they're cumulative It's five months into four years through twin loss, and I've split another tooth. On its own, it's an ordinary event. But it's an event that made me stop and look back ...
Read more
Date 19 July 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

What Writing Taught Me About Self-Understanding

How writing became more than a creative outlet When I started writing, I had no idea where it would lead. I simply needed somewhere to put my thoughts – a place to make sense of experiences I struggled to understand ...
Read more
1 2 3 681

4 comments on “Leaving a life behind”

  1. I think your attitude is the right one to have. For reasons unknown, your life was mapped out for you as all of ours are and it didn't include the milestones that other people may have achieved, but it armed you with experiences that shaped and moulded you into the person you are today.

    That equipped you to go on to other achievements which would not have been possible had your life been different. In that way I can see some positivity in what you had to go through and as you say, a different life wasn't yours to have.

    1. Thank you. You're right and I agree. Although it's not the way we sometimes envisage our lives, sometimes we have to find the silver lining. For me it's finding out I had CP and writing for and running The CP Diary.

      Had I have known and met all of my milestones The CP Diary wouldn't exist. That is my life now.

  2. Having always been told how to live my life, what I can and can't do I know what you mean. It was suffocating, not being able to express myself because my parents had this idea of how a person with a disability should act and be treated.

    When I decided to gain some independence, it wasn't without some resistance and a bit of sarcasm. Sometimes I still wish that my life during my younger years was different, but there's no sense in focusing on the past.

    I am happy with how my life has turned out, even though it hasn't been easy.

    1. Thanks Maria. Your life sounds like mine, I feel for both of us, but you're right there's no sense in focusing on the past. In some respects it will only serve to make us more frustrated.

      Perhaps me writing my blog is for me to finally turn my back on it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to receive regular updates

Enter your details below to be the first to receive updates on new articles on my blog.