"I Am. . .So Much More Than You See!"

Shaking hands, pounding heart and breathless speech. This is how I have felt in the past before and during public speaking and it is NOT a good feeling. I struggled through presentations in college and graduate school and eventually just conceded to write every word that I was going to say down in order to calm my nerves. This made my life easier because I could simply read from the paper. However, by the time I got to graduate school a professor told me that I should try to present without reading from the paper because it shows confidence and will sound more natural. For the remainder of graduate school, I tried to speak naturally during presentations. Sometimes it went well and other times it did not go as well. On the eve of completing my master's degree, I produced a presentation that unfortunately I will never forget. This was about a 30 minute presentation and we were being chosen at random to present. I also had been up until 4am the night before preparing for this pr...

"Imagine being surrounded by people who have similar challenges to you and who are fighting for the same outcome." This is what I experienced last week as I attended the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) conference in Washington, D.C. for work. I felt an energy in the room that was unexplainable as we all cheered for rights for people with disabilities. In one of the sessions, someone said that people with disabilities are not a group that is often thought to be discriminated against but people with disabilities do still face discrimination and we need to fight to end this inequality. As a person with a disability and an advocate for others, I totally agree with this statement as I feel I have faced discrimination in areas of my life and have heard stories of others with disabilities facing the same.  My favorite part of the conference was connecting with people with all different types of disabilities and seeing and hearing about the tools they use to l...

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people speak for those with disabilities because they feel they can't speak for themselves or understand what others are saying. I believe that every person should have the ability to express their wants and needs, whether that be through speech, a communication device or even eye or body movements.  I recently encountered a situation where a family told me that the person I would be working with can't understand. This threw my whole intake off because I am not used to talking to the family of a person without talking to the person I will be helping. I ended up asking the person with the disability the majority of the questions and I believe she understood what I was asking her. While I understand that her family is trying to help her by speaking for her, I believe that it is teaching her to not communicate her wants and needs and one day she will have to live without them.  Additionally, I recently attended a conference and liste...

While I don't want people to bend over backwards for me, sometimes an offer to help would be nice. I was recently going to teach at a local school and as I was walking into the building, some papers fell out of my folder and onto the ground.  I went to bend over and pick them up but I was really struggling to lean down that far. As I was struggling, two people walked by me without offering to help. One was a student and the other was an adult. I feel the adult should have had the manners and common courtesy to stop and at least ask me if I needed help. I was kind of shocked because I know if I saw someone struggling to do something I would at least offer to help them. On a positive note, recently a cashier in a convenience store gladly helped me when I was struggling to see the credit card machine in order to check out. I kept apologizing because I felt like I was holding up the line. He said to me,"You are a customer like everybody else and they can wait." I actu...

What if somebody asked you, "what's wrong with you?" How would that make you feel? I saw this happen to a student in a classroom recently and it made me sad and angry. The situation occurred when we were doing role-plays on self-advocacy. This student is extremely shy and his teacher was trying to role-play with him what he would do if a customer asked him a question when he was working at a retail store. When the teacher did the role-play, the student got uncomfortable when he had to answer the question. This is when the girl said, "what's wrong with you?" The shy student then left the classroom.  I responded to the girl by saying, "don't say that."  However, now I wish I would have said more. . . I should have said that nothing is wrong with him. I should have said that everybody has strengths and areas that may need improvement.  I should have said that everybody is different.  I should have said that "normal...

When was the last time you felt really uncomfortable in your own skin? For me, it was just this week when I decided to quickly stop for dinner on the way home from work. I stopped at "Chick-Fil-A" and honestly wanted to get in and out as fast as possible because I was hungry, tired and had a Lyft driver waiting for me. Instead, when I walked in I was greeted by two kids hard core staring at me and especially my braces. I could feel their eyes on me as I walked into the restaurant, waited in line and proceeded to order my food. It didn't help that my speech was giving me a difficult time while I was ordering. When I was paying, a quarter fell out of my wallet. I didn't see it fall but one of the little girls picked it up and handed it to me. I said to her, "thank you so much, you really helped me." I wanted her to know that she helped me and that everybody needs help sometimes.  I know these kids were not trying to make me feel uncomfortable by look...

When someone tells me I can't do something, it empowers me to prove them wrong. I was lucky enough to have teachers who empowered me in school to reach for the stars and accomplish all of my goals. However, there was one teacher who told me that she didn't think I would be successful in college because of the pace I complete my work. While this was very upsetting to me at first, it inspired me to go to college and prove this teacher wrong. When you tell someone they can't do something, all you are doing is ruining their confidence. One time I asked a speech therapist if I would ever be able to pace my speech without tapping my finger and she said probably not. This really bothered me because one day I would like to talk at a "normal" pace without thinking about it. I asked the same question to the speech therapist I am currently working with and she said the opposite answer. This showed me that the other speech therapist really did not know the answer to the q...