For over four and a half decades, I carried a conversation inside my head. I didn’t have answers – I only had survival. Growing up with undiagnosed cerebral palsy left me confused, frustrated, and full of questions about myself and the world around me. I spent years trying to understand my experiences, and now, with my cerebral palsy diagnosis, much of that silence finally makes sense.
As a child, I was angry all the time. I didn’t know I had cerebral palsy, and that lack of understanding caused deep childhood trauma. The more I was met with silence, the more it carved and shaped my identity and resilience.
The hard part is that it was discreet, but the knowing was there, even if I didn’t know it.
For me, living with undiagnosed cerebral palsy meant navigating a world that didn’t understand me. That silence became my constant companion, as I learned to carry it quietly, building my own strength along the way.
It wasn’t a diagnosis that first changed my thinking – I didn't have a diagnosis at that point, it was a comment from my mum:
"If you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all."
Her comment brought me back to myself and that was crucial: I could no longer let anger define me. I had a choice. When mum died I began to do some digging – to understand what I had been living with for all those years.
Even if the anger wasn’t my fault, letting it go was a choice. It was a step towards healing from trauma and growing as a person.
When I finally received my cerebral palsy diagnosis, I felt a mix of emotions: exhaustion, relief, but the anger was still there because it was the answer I should have had decades earlier. Learning about autism later helped me understand why I struggled academically in school.
And the questions remain: How do you simply watch your child struggle and do nothing about it? How do you stand by as they fall repeatedly without support? As a parent myself, these are questions I shall never understand.
I survived the silence, and pretending everything was fine. I have experienced childhood trauma. My story is messy, and painful, but it's mine. After decades of not knowing, I no longer wait for permission to tell my truth.
By embracing my cerebral palsy diagnosis, I’ve found resilience, personal growth, and hope. Living with a disability is challenging, but it does not define my worth, or my voice.
If you are living in silence or carrying unanswered questions, it's time for answers. Even if you were taught not to, give yourself permission to talk about what concerns you. You don’t have to “get over it” or forgive. It's okay if you don't feel you can. Your healing isn't relying on forgiveness. Just remember to bring understanding into the equation. But you need to own your story. If no one wanted to understand before, it won't come now, but you still deserve understanding.
It’s never too late to begin again. This is how my life began, and it is how healing starts – this blog is for anyone navigating the challenges of childhood trauma.
Yes, we grew up in a world where a lot of things weren't talked about even when they were glaringly obvious. I wasn't officially diagnosed with ADD until recently, which would have explained so much when I was a kid.
It made me feel incredibly stupid at times when I knew I wasn't. It would have been great for both of us to have been able to get the help we needed when we actually needed it as children!
Thanks Randy. Yes, I hear you! Back then, many of the things we wrestled with got brushed aside or misread as character flaws, when they were signals we needed support. Carrying that kind of invisible weight as a child, shapes how you see yourself, especially when the outside world keeps telling you you’re “lazy” or “not trying hard enough.” In school those were my experiences. I tried.
You weren’t stupid Randy. You were navigating a world without the language or tools for what you were experiencing, and that’s a heavy thing for any child to carry. I'm with you. Wishing we had been seen and understood sooner, and given what we needed instead of being pushed into masks.
But I also see the strength in us now, even if it came through struggle. We’ve had to grow into our own self-understanding the long way around, and there’s something quietly powerful in that.