Life in 2D and Redirecting Challenges
In my first post, I laid down an introduction to my life with Cerebral Palsy and the other parts of my lived experience that intersect with the CP. The wider context is important to me because I want to honor the role CP plays in my life every day, I also want to honor my other life shaping experiences, and I want to bring awareness to the whole human being living with a disability.
I was born with Cerebral Palsy. To the best of my knowledge, I have Spastic Diplegia CP. I put it that way because I'm piecing parts of my story together with missing data. I no longer have access to my earliest medical records, which is part of the story, but I've been doing lots of homework over the past few years.
How it started – I had other conditions along with the CP, which is not uncommon. I had amblyopia (AKA Lazy Eye) and I've never had depth perception (driving and 3D movies are the biggest casualties of that). I also had surgery twice for Craniosynostosis (my skull didn't develop properly).
Where it went – I decided to go to art school for high school primarily because I didn't want to endure gym class anymore and I was hopeful that it would reduce the amount of time I was made fun of at school. I was right, but something interesting happened along the way, people around me, including myself, stopped acknowledging the CP all together. I recall one person I spent a lot of time around saying that they didn't even see that part of me.
How it's going – I've attained more professional success than was ever in the plans for me. I work in spaces intended for everyone and I've begun to use my experience living with Cerebral Palsy to advocate for and create awareness for myself and others living with disabilities. I'm a librarian and stories matter to me.
I once had a lengthy conversation that I'll never forget about “what it's like to see in 2D.” It's both coincidence and not, that my love of arts and going to art school and my defunct passion for ministry were both born out of tailoring my life around my CP. Until I started talking about life with Cerebral Palsy and more, my not driving due to no depth perception was the most CP esque thing to come up in my library career.
In my stories to come, childhood wasn't only about CP, high school wasn't always kind to my conditions, and adulthood has had its own mix of challenges. Stay tuned.
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