I’m disabled; it’s not something that I shy away from telling people anymore, but there was a time when I did everything I could to draw attention away from it. When I was really little, I took no notice of the leg brace on my right side, or that when I ran I looked like I was practicing hop steps for a ballet class, or that my right hand was uncooperative, that was just who I was. That feeling of naive bliss lasted until I was nine or ten, and then I started noticing just how different I was to every other girl my age. I noticed that I couldn’t paint my nails with out nail polish running all down my hand and looking like Jackson Pollock had used my hand for a canvas, and that wore on me. I started asking everyone in my life why I was the only person in my class who couldn’t use both her hands, or who ran differently, or who had to go to physical and occupational therapy once a week. No one could really answer that question, so I turned to friends who were also stroke survivors and asking them how they coped with these feelings, and talking to them boosted my self confidence and reminded me that I was not alone.

I’ve known many of these people since I was three years old, and I turn to them for questions about how they handle certain situations, and lately college life. They are some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, and they ban together to help anyone who needs it.

Now, as a new 18-year-old, I have more confidence in myself and my ability to figure out my own way of doing things, but there was a time where I had very little self confidence and I didn’t know how to handle a lot of things, but as I got older, I realized that I didn’t really care what everyone else thought, and I knew that as long as I loved myself and had confidence in what I was doing, then that should be the only thing that mattered. Growing up the way that I did helped me realize that too. Both of my parents were always in my corner, pushing me to be the best I could be, and at times when I didn’t believe in myself, reminded me to “channel my inner Boadecia” and show the world that I could do it.