Able and Disabled

Hey All! We all appreciate the odd compliment and like to think that those around us notice or appreciate the things that we do. It is our nature to wish to inspire and be inspired? However, is the impact of this very word weakened when a disabled person is told that they are 'inspirational' simply for not being sad about being disabled? Recently I have been reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Francesca Martinez's book "What the **** is Normal?!" and it has reminded me of this topic's constant relevance and importance. Throughout my life I have come into contact with people who have aimed to congratulate me but have rather patronised me. Sure, compliment my stubborn nature or the things I create or the things I know, but not my ability to simply exist with disability. It is my belief that more often than not being inspirational is not about who you are but rather what you do with who you are, it is an action. This is why today I am constructing you a list of p...

Hey All! If you have been on Facebook, Instagram or maybe even Snapchat this week you will have noticed that the 14th to the 20th of May is Mental Health Awareness Week. Of course I absolutely love the idea of Mental Health Awareness Week! I'm more than happy to be an advocate for anything that encourages people to talk about their mental wellbeing and maybe even seek help. However, this year I've been struggling with what to post online, hence I have procrastinated this very blog post until Sunday evening. The reason I've been struggling to know what to say that my annual social media post sometimes heavily contrasts my approach to discussing my own mental health in person. Every year I post something on social media, this year my blog, about my own struggles with mental health issues (especially anxiety) and of course I talk about you need not struggle alone, how if you reach out there will be someone in this world who wants to listen and hopefully help make things a ...

DISCLAIMER: I AM ONLY ONE PERSON WITH CEREBRAL PALSY AND I AM NOT A DOCTOR. THOUGH MANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS ARE COMMON SYMPTOMS OF AGEING WITH CP, MY EXPLANATIONS MAY NOT BE MEDICALLY PERFECT AND I WILL MOST LIKELY EXPERIENCE THESE ELEMENTS OF CP DIFFERENT TO SOME OTHERS WITH THE SAME DISABILITY. Hey All! Anyone who knows me in person will know that I often joke about feeling old for my age, whether that be due to my taste in tv shows or my taste in music or my general personally. Indeed, I am an outspoken Golden Girls fan. However, the presence of Cerebral Palsy in my life does have the ability to take this feeling to a whole other level. I feel as though despite the increasing presence of both children and adults with CP in the media, discussion around the symptoms and impact of the condition focus far more upon the perspective of the child experience. Of course, many of the symptoms we experience never fully go away and the extent to which they effect you will depend upon the seve...

Hey All! It is officially exam season, yay (not)! As a first year this is my first ever assessment period as a university student and I am half way through my exams for this year, an achievement that has required a lot of rewards and a heavy dependance upon the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack. What is also new is that around 6 months or so ago I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. Of course Dyslexia isn't something new, in the sense that it doesn't only become a problem post diagnosis. However, I think that the difficulties that lead to my diagnosis definitely became more obvious during A-Levels and the beginning of university, most likely because of the shift in how I was expected to learn. I had always benefit from teacher-led and multi-sensory education, as well as class-based reading, so what felt like a sudden turn towards independent study was a lot to adjust to. I had never benefited from read and learn type of methods, I had always need tasks and activities, a way of using the in...

When you tell someone that you wear Hearing Aids the assumption often is that you are deaf or severely hard of hearing, and that you have been so since birth or early childhood. This is not always the case. For many hearing loss can be a more mild but still noticeable challenge, and can also be developed over time or due to circumstance. For me, my hearing loss was caused by a Gromit falling out from my left eardrum years after the treatment of tonsillitis. Due to the more circumstantial nature of my hearing loss it took time to worsen to a point that warranted the use of Hearing Aids, meaning that I didn't actually receive my Hearing Aids until my Summer exams in 2016. Next month I will have been using my Hearing Aids for just about 2 years. Of course, the causes and severity of my own hearing loss impacts the issues put forward by my disability. Because of the hole in my eardrum my ears are a bit like a dodgy speaker, the more noise you put through them the worse the sound qual...