I don’t know if it’s a common experience or if it just happened to me, but growing up – say ‘til about the age of 12 – I wasn’t really aware of being referred to or described by my condition.
I’m not saying that I wasn’t aware that I had CP, I was, but being described as a person with cerebral palsy, a person with special needs or that good old chestnut a ‘spastic’, was foreign to me. It still is. I have cerebral palsy. But in my head, almost innately I don’t make the connection between having cerebral palsy and being either of the latter phrases. And yes, I realise the contradiction that exists.
Freya
That creeping feeling …
Do you ever get that creeping feeling, perhaps fear, that no matter what you do, some of those around you – although in the nicest of ways and with the best of intentions – define you, first and foremost, as a person with cerebral palsy?
It’s not that I can’t accept the fact that I have it. I have cerebral palsy. Moving is hard. There are some things I will never be able to do without help and some things I’ll never be able to do at all. I get that. I’m mostly okay with it. My life is pretty much in sync with these limitations.
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