Finding My Voice
People who know me, even people who've only met me briefly, would probably all agree on one thing... I like to talk, a lot! I can talk forever about almost anything. I've been called talkative, chatty, and on a few occasions when my little brother was trying to beef up his vocabulary, loquacious. I am a communications major and a former radio DJ. I've been told I could sell almost anyone the Brooklyn Bridge if I could get them to listen to me for long enough. Throughout my life, one thing has been certain, I love to talk to anyone, about anything...well almost.
You see, I could talk and talk, but it was only recently that I really started learning to use my voice. Here's how it always seemed to go: ask me about world religions? No problem. Pop-culture? Of course. Politics? Why not? History? We'd be here for hours! But ask me about my disability, something that has defined who I am as a person, and you'd rarely get a real answer. Now, that's not to say that I never ever ever talked about disability, I'm actually fairly certain I talked about it a lot, but the conversation was always framed in everyone else's terms .The conversation always seemed to end up being about how I "overcame" my disability, or how my experiences "inspired" others. I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't know how to tell the stories without becoming some sort of tragic figure for inspiration. I didn't think it meant anything really. I didn't really think anyone cared. I had learned never to talk about the stuff that made other people uncomfortable.
I had learned only to tell the raw, unfiltered stories within the safe boundaries of my growing disability community. It was only those people, I decided, who could know the whole truth, because they knew the struggle, and they wouldn't turn my stories into something they were not. I decided that only somebody who had lived their own disability experience deserved the story of mine, because everybody else saw it as something it wasn't. I didn't want my life to be melodrama, or inspiration, or tragedy, or anything of the sort, and I must admit I had learned to be ashamed of these experiences. I had learned to some degree to understand other people's prejudices as my fault, and to be embarrassed of the stories they produced.
Then, a few weeks ago when I arrived in DC and met all the awesome people who make up my disability community here, I started telling stories. After I told one specific story of ableism (which I will blog about later) to my group of fellow interns, my roommate told me I needed to write about it. Later, she said something to the effect of these things keep happening, because we don't talk about them (don't get mad if I misquoted you, Maddy!). Whatever the exact conversation was, I came away from it realizing she was right. I did have to write about it. I do have to talk about it.
I realized that if we live our lives being ashamed of our experiences, or sugarcoating them because we are afraid that people will not understand, nothing will ever change. Until people understand that disability is not something that needs to be fixed, but rather a valid life experience, nothing will ever change. Until people understand that ableism and injustice are real and happening every day, nothing will ever change. Until we learn to use our voices without shame in any way we can, nothing will ever change.
I believe things can change, and I want to be a part of it. I'm glad I found my voice.
