Life is normal, and everything is great, until that one day when everything changes. Life isn't so normal anymore. You're in the words that read something along the lines of, millions of people have a disability in the world. Depending on your age, you don't know how to feel about this. Maybe you have a physical disability that you've lived with since the day you were born. Your disability might've come later in life. You might have a learning disability. You may wish you didn't have to deal with all that comes with a disability.
There's always that one person who loves to poke fun at disabilities because they think it's funny. Unknowingly, that person continues to dig under the skin. They seem to create a fury inside that makes you want to sit them down, and tell them how it really is. You want to tell them your disability isn't what the media makes it out to be. As you go throughout your daily life, you're either at peace because you don't have to put up with the words of ignorant people, or there's one person who decides to say something. As you try to inform them, they continue to belittle you. You refuse to listen to what you have to say. This is what can make living with a disability suck.
As your life goes on, you may have come to "learn" how to live with your disability. In some cases, a disability isn't awful. In some cases, you can see the world in a different way. You see the world from the point of view where you have been in the deepest moments of pain from words that you hear and can do nothing about. You've been in the deepest moments of pain from being mocked for the disability that you probably wish you didn't have.
This world is filled with people who enjoy poking fun at people who are disabled. Some of those people don't realize that there are more disabilities than the ones you can see. Those lovely people are the ones you place in our minds trying to think of ways to tell them the life of a person with a disability. You try to think of ways to kindly tell them the life of someone with a physical, learning, or behavioral disability. You are sometimes unable to find those words resulting in frustration.
There might be days when you wish you didn't have to live life with a disability. There might be days when you wish you could be like everyone else. But, you shouldn't feel that way.
In the opinion of someone who lives with a disability, it's a weird blessing to have one. In the opinion of someone who goes through life every day hoping to not hear the mockery, it doesn't get easier. In the opinion of someone sees the world differently now, you are not defined by your disability.
I see you. You are important. You are loved.
Thank you for being you.
