Life...with a little added difficulty...

I decided to try and write about one of the few things that I actually feel I have enough background on to write about properly. (This may be because it's something that is experienced differently by every person who is affected by it!)
I have a physical disability called Cerebral Palsy. It affects both my legs and my left arm slightly.




CHILDHOOD.
Where my disability is concerned during my childhood, I spent an awful lot of time angry and upset about the fact that it was me that had to have this. Why was I the weird one? Why do I walk like this when no one else does?
I dreaded the suggestion of certain playground games by my friends - anything that required a lot of running or involved pushing eachother around was clearly out of the question as I would fall over and hurt myself on a weekly basis even without being helped to do so. I remember often throwing myself down on a nearby bench, trying to blink back the inevitable tears as I watched my friends play around without me. There was also the typical girl's game skipping rope...I would repeatedly try and try again, willing myself to jump over what I then saw as my pathetic record of just around 10 jumps. As I stood and watched my friends jump over 100 times with such apparent ease, I became even more frustrated with myself. I distinctly remember the time that I finally achieved a whole 30 jumps, my friends ran over and congratulated me energetically and I was so happy. As time passed, I had the small little victories to which the people around me would show such overwhelming happiness for. I began to get slightly annoyed at their patronising behaviour whenever I did something that any able-bodied person could do in a heartbeat. However, over time I have learnt it is important to try and look underneath the patronising overtones because, often what it conceals is a genuine happiness for me and my ability.

INSULTS.
Something that I feel every single person with any kind of disability must try and learn to cope with is being insulted by others.
It's not that I think a person who is insulted in any way should let it happen, quite to the contrary. It's rather that I think it is an unfortunate part of any person's life (especially of a disabled person's) that they will be insulted by someone for the traits that they had no control over getting.
I can remember many times a person, for some reason all males, has mimicked the way I walk and move around. Also, there have been many names I have been called that sometimes, weren't even an accurate description of my condition.
I have got upset many times and wasted many tears over what these people did or said. The thing is, the way they would often do it would be as though it was just a passing comment or a quick impression - as if it was some sort of game. I think this implies that they have clearly not given themselves time to consider what my feelings would have been as a result of it...and I think this is what always upsets me the most.

TREATMENT.
There were many years of physical therapy whilst I was growing up, and the requirement to wear special, extra clunky and ugly boots called "Pedros" which I detested with a passion. I wore them constantly until I was about 14 or so, I can tell you that the day they told me I could start wearing trainers instead was one of the happiest days of that time. There was also the "Gaiters" which were strapped to my legs while I sat in order to stretch the muscles and countless exercise regimes that I consistently ignored out of sheer laziness.
The threat of corrective surgery on my legs was an idea that was often thrown around and it was one that would scare and upset me enough to get me to exercise for the next 2 or so days...then my fear was, again, replaced by my laziness.

A lot of physio therapy, expensive acupuncture sessions and two lots of botox injections later and there I still was - only slightly stronger but just about old enough to make my own decisions regarding my treatment. I quickly refused any more visits to the surgeon and now have not had a physical therapy session in many years. In the words of my mother I am "left to get on with it now".

NOW.
Believe it or not, I could ramble on a lot more than even this! But I feel that I want to start to wrap this entry up now.
During my A-levels, we were required to read Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs. After I got over my initial apathy towards reading about what I thought would be a bunch of radical feminists moaning about how life isn't fair, I did get quite into a few of the articles.
One of which was a woman's documentation of her eventual loss of mobility due to slow-setting osteoporosis...this particular quotation is one of my favourites:

"Each disabled person has a story, often including pain, impairment, disorientation and
loss of control. Each disabled person lives always on the threshold
of separation, exile and involuntary otherness."
- Andrea Dworkin - "Through the Pain Barrier" (23rd April 2005, Guardian).

Even though every single disability in this world is different for every single person. For me, what Andrea Dworkin wrote really managed to strike a chord. It made me think about the subject that I often avoid thinking about, through both how used to it I have become among other reasons - my Cerebral Palsy.

I have spent a lot of my life regarding my disability as something alien, something that was given to me by a sheer stroke of, quite frankly, crappy luck. Now however, thanks to many different factors: from the perspective that my parents have raised me with all the way to articles like Dworkin's - I can now say that my Cerebral Palsy IS me. It has made me who I am.
For all the bad experiences I have had, many good ones have come along for the ride. I have made many strong friendships with people who are also disabled and those who aren't, simply because my disability has pushed me onto the same path as them.
I can tell who is worth having in my life simply by those who will drop back and adjust to my slow walking pace, or those who will extend their arm out as support on a staircase with no banister. I have people who I know are judging me for how I am and not for my level of ability, these people even treat me so normally that I find myself almost forgetting it all completely.

Most of all though, it has forced me to realise how very lucky I am. Sadly, I'm much more able than a lot of people on this earth.

I wish so much that everyone could be physically equal, but it is easy to see that it is our differences really do enrich us.
Of course, like everyone, I still have my rough days; days when I complain, get upset and generally feel sorry for myself when I fall etc.
But I hope that I can make anyone else who has a disability feel as the way I do about it...if I can do that, then I would be so happy.