Just One of the Crowd
Most of the time when I go places, I stand out. People notice me. Not by choice, just by circumstance. Because my situation is different than most, accommodations are required routinely in my day to day life. I have to find the elevator. Or a curb cut. Or the...
My Cloud
The question usually comes from good friends, at a time when I am struggling. They want to know how to help me the most. What is it like to have a psychiatric diagnosis? It's like there is a dark cloud following me all the time. It isn't always directly overhead, and...
I’ll Never Run…
It was a beautiful and crisp October day a couple of years ago when I met Chris. As Director of Community Health at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, he, like me, wasn’t officially one of a team of people spearheading the effort to renovate East Ninth...
Give Me Dignity…
In one of my college classes, someone shared his opinion that when Patrick Henry said "give me liberty or give me death," he meant that if he could not be in control of his life, then he didn't want to live. On March 27th, Mark Smith, a businessman with cerebral palsy...
I’m Not “Special”
Special. The word warms my heart in many ways. Except when it is used in the context of my disability. Then it kind of drives me crazy. Maybe it's the label. When I was in school, I was mainstreamed. It was decided very early that it would not be appropriate for me to...
Nevertheless…
Nobody could have predicted it. In the last few weeks, the phrase has become nothing short of common. "She was warned, nevertheless, she persisted." It was a quote from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when he was asked about shutting down Elizabeth Warren on...
More the Same than Different
In her poem "Human Families," one of Maya Angelou's lines is "We are more alike my friends than we are unalike." __________________________________ The trip was more than thirty years ago, but because the lesson I learned was so profound, in many ways it feels like it...
“Pop Quizzes”
On this blog, I have always tried to be pretty transparent about the fact that I have a psychiatric diagnosis as well as my physical one. And in the same way that my cerebral palsy affects me in a million little ways every day, my psychiatric diagnosis affects me more...
The Morphine Made Me
If I had to come up with the main thing my disability has taught me, I would have to say it is how to be resourceful. A mirror is tilted above my stove so I can see if a pot of water is boiling without having to stand up and lean on a hot surface. There are...
Not the Sidelines
It is a lesson I learned when I was about fourteen years old. About halfway through my freshman year in high school, I started going to the varsity basketball games. Some friends of mine were on the team and I liked to attend so that I could cheer them on. Up until...