I’m Celebrating Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month For the First Time … – TeenVogue.com

Who doesnt love a good celebration? The excuse to get dressed up, go somewhere nice, and celebrate someone for doing something great, being born, or having something great happen to them. I am the friend in my friend groups who loves everyone elses birthday as much as my own and is always willing and eager to surprise my friends, whether that be a surprise trip to visit them in Pittsburgh or concert tickets to see our favorite artists. I love a celebration, but I have always struggled with celebrating one thing: Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month.

I have cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy comes in many forms and has varying types; it's known as CP for short. CP is essentially a neurological disorder that is often caused by a malformation while a childs brain is developing. My case of CP is a milder one that allows me to walk without a mobility aid but still requires rest and the gifts of aching joints, hips, knees, and heels. It takes a while to get dressed in the morning, and I cant walk long distances; arch support is my best friend, and so is tiger balm on particularly bad days. Think of my left side as an Olympian and the right side as the uncoordinated but lovable sibling. I say the words cerebral palsy so often it is like second nature. I say it now before people ask its a question to get out of the way before they spend the rest of my time with them trying to figure out what it is by staring at my hand when they think no one is looking. I am always looking. CP is a physical disability, and while for some people the other aches of disability hurt more than CP itself, for me the aches and pains are directly correlated with my cerebral palsy. In part, Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month is a way to celebrate these aches and pains for all that they are, a way to say, "Hey, we are still killing the game regardless." Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month takes place in March with a specific day on March 25. We share a month with a whole host of other things, but it is still ours nonetheless.

When I first learned about the monthlong celebration in high school, I scoffed at the idea. Who would want to celebrate being stuck like this, in this body, with all the problems that come with disability? There are many restrictions disability puts on a body. I thought, Why celebrate the thing you pray to wake up without every night only to be disappointed every morning when it is still there? I spent all four years of high school a very angry teenager simply because disability wasnt something I could pray or wish away. This feeling was intensified by the fact that I saw it happening for disabled people on TV magical cures and sips of holy water delivering them from Satans grasp. I wondered what I was doing wrong to escape the luck I thought the people on TV had. When you grow up seeing disability as a thing to rid yourself of or a thing exploited by telethons, you tend to have an unhealthy view of it and the fact that you have it.

The real work toward tolerating my body began in college, after I realized that wishes and prayers were moot and decided God had bigger things to worry about than healing my body. I would later realize that the idea of healing a disabled body was a problematic and harmful one and that the constant media portrayal of fixing disability did more harm than good. Still, despite the promise to myself to really try to accept my body as it is, I would sometimes post sarcastically at the beginning of March and wish everyone a happy Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month as if there were a big joke that I was in on while other disabled people with cerebral palsy were the butt of the joke. This tactic was used as a desperate attempt to separate myself from other disabled people. This continued every March until 2014, a year after college, when I began meeting other disabled people online and realizing there was nothing to be ashamed of. I did not need to distance myself from other disabled people, but should befriend them and confide in them about the things only they would understand. So instead of making a mockery of the celebration, I stopped posting about it altogether.

Due to these new and wonderful friendships, I became comfortable with other peoples disabilities but not my own. I believed that despite sharing the same disability with some of these people, what I thought was my lackluster and exhausting personality, kept me from being a worthwhile human being. I understood that they were more than their disabilities and had so much to offer the world in tandem with being disabled, but I questioned whether I did. I listened to their stories and watched in amazement as they navigated the world and their chosen spaces without apology. I envied their desire and execution of activism within the disability community and outside of it. I was still afraid to tell my own stories, convinced that they were inconsequential, boring, and might upset other members of the disability community. They reassured me that my stories were worth telling and welcomed me into the community with open arms. I only learned then that there was no use in trying to please everyone, because it was an impossible task.

The confidence and power that these women have felt impossible to achieve, but for the first time in my life, I wanted to try. I started trying in 2016, the year that was a general mess but wonderful, magical, and all good things for me both professionally and personally. I spent that year getting to know myself in a way that I never had before, publishing in dream publications like Teen Vogue, and receiving kind words of encouragement from my favorite writers along the way. At the end of the year, in December, I realized that I liked the person looking in the mirror back at me. I reflected on the hard work we had done to get to this place. This newfound confidence carried me into the new year that has already surpassed my expectations. I created a viral hashtag in February to celebrate my newly confident self. Since then I have had a few exciting speaking opportunities arise, plus a few secret projects I cant talk about publicly yet.

I came into March the happiest I have ever been, and I realized that for the first time I didnt need to hide behind sarcasm and anger. So on Wednesday, March 1, I opened up Facebook and wrote the following: Happy Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month! For the first time since I became aware of the fact that we had our own month ages ago, I am genuinely proud to celebrate it. I meant and mean every word of that status. For 24 and a half years, I hated everything about my disability and myself. Now I will spend the remainder of 25 and the years that follow unlearning problematic ableism and apologizing to myself for those years spent on opposite teams. Now I feel myself getting closer and closer to becoming one of the women, both disabled and able-bodied, who live their lives unapologetically and navigate the world as if it were made just for them. The women who love themselves, each other, and me. I am discovering who I am and all that I am, and who we are and who we will become is beautiful. This year I will not only proudly celebrate Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, but I will turn that celebration into a year-long one because my disability and I deserve to be celebrated every single day.

Related: People With Disabilities Are Making History At the Womens March This Weekend

Read this article:

I'm Celebrating Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month For the First Time ... - TeenVogue.com