Em's story

This is something I’ve been meaning to write for a long time and is something that I’ll always be able to add to, something that will never be finished….

This is my story…

My name is Em and as I write this I am 19 years old. Anyone that knows me could tell you that I suffer from the disability cerebral palsy (cp), however I would not say this. I have had cp from birth so I wouldn’t say I suffer from it, I would say that I am affected by cp. To suffer is defined as: ” to show or suffer the effects of something bad” and I believe that as I have never known not having cp and I’ve never known what its like to be able to do the things I can’t do, I can’t say I suffer. Sure, cp can be a bitch but its not the cp and the inability to do stuff that gets me down it’s the insensitive people in the world and the challenges that get thrown at me that sometimes get me down. When I get down I try to remember that having cp is part of what makes me Em and that I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t have it – and I like who I am!

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t jump at the chance of having a cure if it was offered to me tomorrow – I’d like to think I wouldn’t but I think the truths slightly closer to I’d be tempted and it would be something I’d have to think long and hard about. What I do know though is that if someone offered me the chance to never have been disabled I would say no – yeah I may have missed out on things because of my disability but I have had experiences because of my disability that able-bodied people haven’t and seen the world in a way not many people get to.

You might be wondering how I can be so calm and so sure that I would do this… thinking “she’s in a wheelchair, how can she be so happy?” let me go back to the beginning and then maybe you will see.

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