Growing Up With a Disability

Welcome back to Brains on Wheels. Today I would like to talk about my experience with growing up with Cerebral Palsy. I went to a pre-school that was geared up for disabled children, and I was the only physically disabled child in the class, until another boy started, and then we became inseparable... From what I can remember, he had an electric wheelchair right from the start, he used to push me around in my manual chair, whilst moving his chair with his other hand. Apparently, we caused havoc together.

Sadly, we lost touch with each other for years. The good thing is that he came to my senior school when I was in year nine, that was great! We're still best friends, even though he can be a pain, it looks like we're stuck with each other. He would probably say the same kind of thing about me.

Sorry, I've gone off topic. I didn't really know I was different until I started school because I wasn't treated differently by my parents. I don't think I knew why I was different, I just knew I couldn't do everything that the other children could.

As I grew older I became more and more aware of my differences. It was only when I entered my college years that I really noticed my differences. When I started college, I realised that I was different to a lot of people there, and in the big wide world. The differences I felt at college were major because they were trying to prepare me for adulthood and I just wasn't ready for it. It hit me like a ton of bricks!

Also, I didn't settle in well because I felt like I wasn't part of the group as such. This was because I was one of two people who had a physical disability, and the rest of the students had some kind of learning impairment. No one listened to me when I said that I felt like I didn't fit in. College have realised this now, and I was much happier with the group I was with this year.

I don't have as much life experience as an able-bodied person would because I only really started going out and about a year or so ago. I went out with family, but that didn't give me life experience because I didn't handle my own money, and my mum or dad paid for my things. I only discovered how to shop on line last year. Now, I'm buying my own things. I haven't quite mastered on line banking yet, but I'll get there.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post. See you next time.