Since My injury, I have been desperate to feel like I belong somewhere. Brain Injury is isolating. Disability in general is isolating. People don’t know how to act around you. Are they offending you? maybe Will they say the wrong thing? probably. Can you even have fun anymore? duh.Try me. Do they help? just ask. Are they supposed to help? just. ask. Are they supposed to watch me struggle and figure it out eventually? yes, please. what’s up with the no eye contact thing? welp. It’s almost like the people you’ve known for years are tip toeing around, unable to be themselves around you. It feels awkward.

I lost a lot of friends in the last three years. Some of which I lost due to circumstances outside of my control , outside of my accident- it’s just life I guess, it sucks and what can you do? Some I lost very quickly after the accident and it was quite obvious to me who my real friends in the trenches were and who the “just for show” friends were. It’s painful to go through, and as I write this, I know I’m not alone. Everyone in the disability community has had to trim the fat, so to speak, and find the people who really matter, and who you can call at 9:30pm when the Grocery delivery person drops your groceries on the wrong floor and you’re exhausted, stressed, and don’t want to ask your neighbors for help because People-ing is just too much to handle and fuck, you just want some food, wherever it is in this stupid building.

Most of the time, that friend, those friends… the ones you lean on the most, are the ones who get you, the ones who have been though, maybe not the same hell, but a similar hell, as you. Enter, my disability community. Year 1 after the accident was intensely depressing. I was so lost. I was told I’d be sitting in a wheelchair for a strong majority of my life, (i don’t do this sitting thing well.) and I’d never see return or movement back in my arm (I’m sorry, never? I don’t like that word, doc. i respectfully decline.) My best friends in the trenches stayed close by, visited often, drove me to my appointments, treated me like my old self, joked around with my like the old days, almost as if nothing had happened. It felt pretty good, but we were still just brushing the accident and disability thing away…it’s easy for you all to pretend it didn’t happen, but my brain and my body is still broken and I have to live with it every single day.

I was extremely lost. This was all so new, I had knots in my stomach. How was I going to move forward in life like this? How do I continue my design career as a person with a disability? My friend from high school who, several years prior, had been in a life altering accident of his own, had reached out, checking in, providing me with community resources, offering to be a friend in the disability community, acknowledging and empathizing with me about  how scary and lonely the first year and months can be. I don’t know if he realizes how much of an impact this simple gesture made on me and how it brought me to eventually see and realize the power of friendship and community. Through that same friend, I found myself involved in multiple Disability advocacy events, meeting other groups of people with different types of disabilities, opening my eyes to the big and beautiful and supportive community that we have here.

I had a TBI, then a stroke, yes, and because of that, I am experiencing paralysis on the left side of my body. One of my favorite friends has a Spinal Cord Injury and we both love biking, so we decided… power (and SAFETY) in numbers, so, hey! Let’s create an Adaptive Ladies Biker Gang!! I met some friends who are deaf and they both offered to teach me to sign one handed so I could better communicate with them. A blind climber talked me out of having a fear of heights and into trying climbing and ended being my belay. This is how we in the disability community support one another. Rather than harping on each others limitations, like Abled-folk love to do oh so much, we support one another’s strengths and celebrate them, together. 

i love this community and am so proud to be a part of it. Thank you for accepting me.

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