I Was Born With Cerebral Palsy, But Acceptance Changed as I Got Older

I was born with cerebral palsy.

For most of my childhood, I accepted it because it was simply the life I knew. I didn’t know another body or another way of living.

But as I got older, something inside me started to change.

Growing Up in a Small Town

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone.

I was also the only person I knew growing up who had cerebral palsy.

When you’re little, you don’t necessarily think about all the ways you’re different. You play. You go to school. You grow up with the same kids around you.

But as I got older, I became much more aware of those differences.

I started looking at the other kids my age and thinking about how badly I wanted to be like them.

I didn’t want to be known as the girl with cerebral palsy.

I didn’t want my disability to be the first thing people noticed about me.

I just wanted the opportunity to be Marie.

And in a small town where everyone already knew me and knew my story, it was difficult to escape the identity I thought everyone had already given me.

Then I Went to College

College gave me something I had never really experienced before.

A fresh start.

I was surrounded by people who didn’t grow up with me.

They didn’t know my family.

They didn’t know my childhood.

They didn’t know everything I had gone through because of cerebral palsy.

For the first time, I felt like I had the opportunity to become someone different.

And I took it.

At the time, it felt good.

I could try to be more like everyone else. I could create a version of myself that wasn’t centered around cerebral palsy.

But somewhere inside me, I knew something wasn’t right.

I Was Trying to Become Someone I Wasn’t

The person I was trying to get away from was still me.

I couldn’t separate Marie from cerebral palsy because cerebral palsy had been part of my life from the beginning.

That didn’t mean cerebral palsy was all of me.

But pretending it wasn’t part of me wasn’t helping me discover who I really was either.

And inside, I hated myself for what I was doing.

I hated feeling like I needed to become someone else in order to have the experiences other young people were having.

I wanted friendships.

I wanted college experiences.

I wanted relationships.

I wanted fun.

I wanted people to see me as a young woman instead of immediately seeing a disability.

There was nothing wrong with wanting any of those things.

What hurt me was believing that I had to leave part of myself behind to have them.

Acceptance Isn’t Something That Happens Once

It took me years to understand something I know now:

Accepting cerebral palsy isn’t something I did once as a child and never had to think about again.

My relationship with my disability has changed as I’ve changed.

There have been times when I’ve accepted it.

Times when I’ve fought it.

Times when I’ve hated it.

Times when I’ve wished I could separate myself from it.

And times when I’ve finally been able to look at myself and say:

This is part of me, but it is not all of me.

At 48, I don’t need to pretend cerebral palsy isn’t there in order to prove that I’m a whole person.

I can be Marie.

I can be a woman.

I can be a partner.

I can be a writer.

I can be an advocate.

I can be independent.

I can have dreams, relationships, interests, strengths, flaws, and a personality that have nothing to do with cerebral palsy.

And I can also be a woman with cerebral palsy.

Those things don’t have to compete with each other.

I Didn’t Need to Become Someone Else

When I think about that younger version of myself now, I understand what she was searching for.

She wanted the chance to find out who she was.

She just didn’t understand yet that she didn’t have to reject part of herself to do that.

I spent years trying not to be known only for my disability. Now I understand that I never had to hide it to be seen as a whole person.

That understanding didn’t come automatically because I was born with cerebral palsy.

It came through growing up.

Making mistakes.

Learning.

Changing.

And eventually realizing that accepting my disability didn’t mean letting cerebral palsy define my entire life.

It meant finally allowing every part of me to belong to the same person.

And that person is me.

💚 Seeing the beauty between the challenges.

— Marie W.O.W.C.P.