Today I thought I'd share my story in a bit more detail and I encourage those of you that are comfortable to do so too. I've had my disability literally all my life. It was caused by complications in labor. My disability is called a brachial plexus injury which can range in various levels of severity. For me, I can't fully straighten out my left arm, I have limited movement in my wrist and fingers and my arm is numb of feeling in a few places. Essentially what I have is nerve damage which is something that is harder to treat the more severe your case is so for me it's permanent. Growing up I was never really bullied and I had an amazing support group of friends and family, but for many years it was a big source of insecurity, sometimes it still is. I used to avoid things that I thought would make my disability more noticeable. I would always wear clothes that covered up my surgical scars, I'd cross my arms anytime I was walking around because I didn't want others to notice that when I walked my left arm was always bent and shorter than my right. Of course, people still would notice and ask questions about it. I remember the exact day that all my built-up insecurities finally came out during a science class in middle school where we learned about the nervous system and nerve damage. it was the last class of the day and after everyone had left I stayed behind and completely broke down. My friends came back to the classroom looking for me and gave me the world's greatest pep talk and made me realize that my disability wasn't this bad thing I had to hide and pretend wasn't there. Yes, it makes me different from others, but in a lot of ways, it's helped me become the person that I am today and has taught me things I would have never learned otherwise and is definitely not something that I should be ashamed of. Of course, there are times where I wonder what it would be like if I didn't have a disability and there are times I still worry about how it might affect my life in the future. What I remind myself about is how blessed my life is and what having my disability has allowed me to do, like making this website or writing my children's book about my experience, all to help others and the next generation that they are more than what they might belive and are capable of doing extraordinary things! Thank you for reading and hopefully ill get to read others stories as well 😊
