"I sit with the weight of my life, the quiet realisation that I'm on my own, but not by my choice. There’s something about my looking back, having to trace the steps of my journey, that is both difficult and grounding. From an early age, I was forced into living a life of questions, of slow revelations, of learning to navigate the world in ways that, I never fully understood.

I didn’t know I had a disability. That fact alone has shaped much of who I am – before knowing, after knowing, and in the process of understanding what it all meant, there has been much work for me to do. There is a grief in discovering something about yourself that has always been there. The jigsaw pieces I've had to hold have finally found their place.

Being on my own is a continual challenge and without my twin. Isolation has become my teacher, not through choice. It's harsh, always unrelenting. Writing has become a refuge, a way of me making sense of the chaos, of finding structure through what I later learned was a disability. I have finally been able to unravel, to slowly piece together my relentless life, a life shroud in secrecy.

Some days, the weight of what I know settles heavily. Other days, there is a quiet strength in knowing what I should have known. It's an ongoing process. I write because I was given no choice – I didn't know I had a disability and living in the dark was chaos. But through my words, I am finally able to sit with the truth and to be honest. The WEIGHT of knowing is not mine to carry and is not on me."

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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