July Disability Pride Month

July is National Disability Pride Month. I don’t know what it means to other people and until recently, I didn’t know what it meant to me. A few months ago, I needed to come to terms with the fact that I’m a person who has several disabilities that affect my daily health and life.  I was so busy saying that “I’m okay, I’m fine,” and that my disability didn’t really affect me that much. I had to come to terms with the fact that my disabilities really do affect my life and my ability to function.

Having a disability for me means that I need to acknowledge that I need some help in some areas. I stayed with my oldest sister for a while in order to get some more support. I had gotten into some non-productive habits and needed to do a “reboot” regarding my daily routine.

I’m currently working on accepting help from others. I’m also working on learning how to know the difference between things I can do independently and things that I need support from others with. This is very difficult for me since it’s easy to give up too quickly and not do it myself. On the other hand, I can be stubborn about not wanting to ask other people for help, especially if I’m embarrassed about needing the help.

For me, National Disability Pride Month is about acknowledging a part of myself and not being embarrassed about this part of my identity. I feel that I should take pride in this part of my identity because of the long rich history of advocacy of disabled people. In high school, I did a paper on the disability rights movement.

I have been very impressed by the actions that made possible the privileges that I now enjoy today. There are so many things that I take for granted that others fought for from the American Disabilities Act down to the special education that I received in the public school system. There have been countless people throughout my life that I am thankful to for supporting me. I want to thank all the advocates that help put disability pride in National Disability Pride Month.