disability

Treatments worked well enough for us to get by. Most people lived into old age, but the medication, like everything else, has never been free. Life was a privilege, not a right, apparently. Something you had to struggle for when you were unlucky enough to be born at the intersection of poverty and bad genes.

Your mental problem becomes a solution when it can be used to solve problems.

If you have never did a mistake, then death is impossibe, but then, death is a possible mistake.

And suddenly, lying in bed, I became aware of every inch of my body and I apologised to it, quietly. I apologised for bring so ungrateful for so long. Then I thanked my arms, hands and fingers for always trying so hard. I thanked my legs and feet for holding me up all the time. I thanked my brain for working so amazingly well and conjuring up thoughts and dreams and sentences and images and crazy poems. And I thanked all my organs for working together and giving me life. It had taken four and a half billion years for me to be here. Right now. In this universe. And in that moment, I felt totally overwhelmed at being alive. There could be nothing but there was everything. I didn't want to waste a single second more worrying about trivialities. Worrying that I'd never match up to an ideal that didn't even exist. Nobody is normal. We are all different. I had to make sure that every moment I had left on this planet counted.

Choosing to accept yourself is a political act. An act of liberation.

Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life__ shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way_Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, __here is joy is self-forgetfulness._ So I try to make the light in others_ eyes my sun, the music in others; ears my symphony, the smile on others_ lips my happiness.

A troubled life beats having no life at all

I pulled on the restraints, frustrated, hurting, and completely devastated. I could feel tears sliding down my skin, into my ears, and back over my scalp. Which told me that they__ cut off my hair, too. For some reason, that little bit of vanity was what it took to undo me completely.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.

The world isn't built with a ramp.

It seemed unfair that despite the fact he could not use them, or feel them, his extremities should cause him so much discomfort.

Beware trying to iron out all your quirks, perceived flaws and doubts. It's often these things that help you find strength, compassion, empathy for others and heart.

I Have a Dream... someday my son, Zyon and ALL individuals with disabilities will be seen as HUMAN beings. I Have a Dream... someday the human & civil rights of individuals with disabilities are honored and they are treated as equals. I Have a Dream... someday ALL parents who have children with disabilities see their child as a blessing and not a burden. I Have a Dream... someday there will be more jobs and opportunities for individuals with disabilities. I Have a Dream... someday there will be UNITY "within" the disabled community.I HAVE A DREAM!!!

Stage fright is very common and could be overcomed through step by step processes, but stuttering is a fright that takes time to conquer.

Here is the voice of my main Character in my Talon book series, I__l let her introduce herself to you:My name is Matica and I am a special needs child with a growth disability. I am stuck in the body of a two year old, even though I am ten years old when my story begins in the first book of the Talon series, TALON, COME FLY WITH ME. Because of that disability, (I am saying __hat_ disability, not __y_ disability because it__ a thing that happens to me, nothing more and because I am not accepting it as something bad. I can say that now after I learned to cope with it.) I was rejected by the local Indians as they couldn__ understand that that condition is not a sickness and so it can__ be really cured. It__ just a disorder of my body. But I never gave up on life and so I had lots of adventures roaming around the plateau where we live in Peru, South America, with my mother__ blessings. But after I made friends with my condors I named Tamo and Tima, everything changed. It changed for the good. I was finally loved. And I am the hero and I embrace my problem. In better words: I had embraced my problem before I made friends with my condors Tamo and Tima. I held onto it and I felt sorry for myself and cried a lot, wanting to run away or something worse. But did it help me? Did it become better? Did I grow taller? No, nothing of that helped me. I didn__ have those questions when I was still in my sorrow, but all these questions came to me later, after I was loved and was cherished. One day I looked up into the sky and saw the majestic condors flying in the air. Here and now, I made up my mind. I wanted to become friends with them. I believed if I could achieve that, all my sorrow and rejection would be over. And true enough, it was over. I was loved. I even became famous. And so, if you are in a situation, with whatever your problem is, find something you could rely on and stick to it, love that and do with that what you were meant to do. And I never run from conflicts.

The books my mother read and reread provided a broader, more adventurous world, and escape from the confines of her chronic illness. Her interior life was enriched even as her physical life contracted. If she couldn't change the reality of her situation, she could change her perception of it. She could enter into the lives of the characters in her books, sharing their journeys while she remained seated in her chair.

Suffering is so real & I walk amongst so many who have no idea how much my soul is aching to be healed.

Strange how knowing our story had no happy ending had freed us to live in the moment. We weren__ guy and girl. We weren__ damaged and terminal. We were just now.