July is disability pride month 💖♿️
July is disability pride month 💖♿️
In 2017 I was diagnosed with Limb Girdle muscular dystrophy which is a neuromuscular disease that causes weakness and atrophy in the muscles. It took me close to three years to truly be comfortable with using the term but also to simply BE comfortable with the reality that I am disabled.
I can’t say that I’m proud to be disabled because unfortunately, the ways in which society is set up makes it so incredibly hard to see anything positive in it. The way that people like me are constantly seen as an afterthought, if we are thought about at all, is a difficult thing to navigate. But I’m proud of what I have accomplished with my body and that includes the things I’ve done for my community. But I’m also learning how to simply be proud of my body, to love it. This body got me through so much, it has felt pain, pleasure, fun and hardships, and it will help me go through so much more. The limits that my body has sometimes make me sad, angry and undesirable. I feel like my body isn’t pretty because it can’t do certain things or that my personality and my heart are less valuable because of my body’s limitations. But that is the journey. Learning to be proud of the body that I have, finding beauty and sex-appeal in the body that I have and ultimately, loving this body that I was given. There is nothing wrong with my body, there is just something wrong with the way the world is set up. But until it fixes itself, I will learn to love my body the way that it was given to me.
Here are some creators who, like me, have a neuromuscular disease that I think you should follow💞: @wheelchair_rapunzel , @lettereleven , @diana_unfiltered , @amber_kohaku_chan , @shaneburcaw , @girlschronically_rock