Take The Time

March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. This month allows me to celebrate who I am as someone living with CP. Most importantly, it is a time to educate people about what CP is and how it affects people differently.

There is a lot of stigma surrounding people with CP. When I am out, people do not address me directly assuming that I am unable to speak for myself. I would like to see a world where people’s first assumption is that I can speak. I would like to the biases surrounding people with CP to fade away. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover is an old saying, but still very relevant today.

I became a motivational speaker so I could share my story as a CP warrior. I want people to see that CP is a NOT a universal diagnosis. There are different levels of CP with various differences from person to person. In my case, I can walk with support, but I also use a wheelchair. I am verbal, but I also use assistive technology so I can be understood clearly. This does not mean that I cannot speak to people and have a conversation. It just means that people need to take the time to get to know me and understand how to interact with me. I think we will find out that we have so much more in common than what makes us different.

I was sitting watching a workshop and heard something that stayed within me, “We don’t have special needs, we have individual needs.” If you think about it that way, everyone has individual needs. Despite our differences, we can do things to the best of our abilities.