You always knew you were different.
Physically, visibly, undeniably different.
With a leg length discrepancy, walking toe to heel,
dragging a leg that wouldn't follow properly.
You had muscles that didn’t respond —
on one whole side.
Getting tired quicker,
tripping more often than not.
Foot drop, they call it.
A neurological difference.
Mentally, it was harder to pin down.
Slow processing, learning difficulties,
always caught somewhere in your thoughts.
You weren’t just clumsy.
You weren’t just distracted.
These were not, not things.
Others noticed.
But no one helped.
They just continued with their lives.
You tried to do normal.
Tried to fold into the same shape as everyone else.
But your shape was never that.
You pushed through your mind,
because no one told you otherwise.
You hid behind yourself –
and called it fitting in.
But how could you?
Your disability diagnoses didn’t change your past –
they just lit it up.
Made sense of the struggle.
They’re not excuses.
They’re truths.
You are not broken.
You are working with hidden disability.
You are living with difference.
Now you carry your past gently,
not as blame to you, but as understanding.
You know what it costs you
to keep going every day.
You take up space now –
in the shape you’ve always been.
You give back, through your diary.
Kind. Quietly strong.
Helping, because you know what it feels like
to be unheard.
The shape of difference?
Yes, it was always there.
– Ilana Estelle
