#livingwithadisability

I have spent my life living with a disability I didn’t know I had, trying to normalise things and most days failing. As a child growing up with a mental, emotional and physical disability, I struggled to cope in my every day.

Just trying to function every day was a mental and emotional battle. As I continually struggled with bad thoughts at night, during the day I would spend my days trying to normalise how I felt, living with a mental disorder I didn't know I had. As I think about it now, it's staggering to think this was my life.

Away from my mental and emotional struggles, my writing normalises everything. I am comfortable here. It is the only place I am normal. In that moment I come alive, I am not confined to my mental and emotional disability. I am normal, my head is normal, my life is normal, everything feels normal, it feels good.

My words flow, my thinking is normal. I can put sentences together without going round the houses trying to explain what I mean, or someone else giving me the words I need to help me finish my sentences.

Yes, I spend my time normalising my every day. How I feel around what I deal with and working on how I see the outcome, so situations don't feel big and scary. With autism, in Covid-19, every day is a struggle, even more so, because it’s something I continually had to live with, whilst being judged and misunderstood.

Finding out at 56 is bad enough, it makes it even more irritating, knowing those close to me watched me mentally struggle for years and continued to let it happen. Now In Covid-19 and dealing with a mental illness, every day is one big struggle.