Blogging on my website The CP Diary, has allowed me to document my experiences with cerebral palsy, after finding out that is what I’d been struggling with up to the age of forty-six, when I received my diagnosis.

I also talk about the fact that it wasn’t a freak of nature that caused me to have cerebral palsy, but a mistake by the consultant and nursing staff, leaving my mother for too long in the delivery room.

The course my life has taken would never have been any different. If you believe things happen for a reason, my writing is the reason. The process where you grieve for the loss of something you don’t have, as a consequence of something that has happened to you, is what I feel I am doing.

I was born with physical, neurological, and emotional issues. Never being able to share my thoughts growing up is another loss. There are questions I may never have the answers for. The only answers I will have, are those I answer for myself in my head.

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.

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