Is Change Really Change for the Better?

The dangerous idea of change is a focus too much on words, and not on people’s well being. When experts believe they have a right to limit every part of how a “Special Needs Person” can make decisions and not think of them as a human being, then words dress up oppression. They hurt and they damage- They think not of who we are, but what our medical bodies have become to them in science. The humiliation comes when a person with Cerebral Palsy can’t stand up for themselves and say… “I am me! I am not my disability, nor should I be labeled in that way! Each person living with Cerebral Palsy has every right to grow up without being stigmatized or labeled from the medical society and losing that part of them that was lost due to change. The idea of making choices and changing is too often submerged in a misguided, misinformed attempt to “protect”.

Changing Terminology- Changing Ideas

Where did it all begin? Who knows? But the effects it has left on the special needs community goes much deeper than any of us know.

How many times have you been called developmentally delayed instead of just plain Cerebral Palsy? The first term can represent almost any part of your physical and mental living. But the second has far more direct characteristics and impact on one’s life. The idea is that a new way of interacting is now required. Still, this word is misused to imply limitation instead of alternate methods.

We, as a global society, have progressed beyond the “Cerebral Palsy” name to being linked with the “R” word, and now are known as “Global Developmental Delayed”. The phrasing still holds a dangerous idea and scars people for life!

Reaching For The Moon

While stretching out your arm to grasp the good things in life one desires and dreams of, have you as a person with Cerebral Palsy become aware of what actions you must take in your life to accomplish want you want to become? The more often we decide for ourselves, organize our though and idea, take steps towards those actions, and continue to believe in touching the moon; the less we will compromise and permitted negatives to happen to us. With each rising of the bar, we take a new stand to allow only the characteristics that will permit us to touch our goals. That is way it is so important for the special needs individual to surround themselves with positive light, positive people and positive situations who believe that anything is possible.

A Fabrication of Our Feelings

It seems as though Cerebral Palsy individuals and their parents have a figment of their imagination. Have you or your special needs child ever sat in on an IPP or IEP meeting where the hearts of The Child Study Team (IEP) and the minds of The Social Guidance Group (IPP) is conveniently contradicting what you and your child know they need.

What the special needs, child, REALLY needs is often labeled a fabrication of their minds. But is it really? Who knows there child best? And who knows themselves even better!

Ask yourself.

Is it so

Have you ever sat-in on your own meeting being disabled and having Cerebral Palsy, or sat beside your child trying to figure out how you can help them? These meetings often seem to be well intentioned, but in reality, are isolated from our daily truth. Every person involved is aware of what they need far more so than any of those experts who have made a career out of it.

With this comes many a thought and question to mind:

I do not believe the experts because you abused me and my child’s trust. You didn’t listen to me and my needs and disrespected my knowledge of myself and my own child. You didn’t value me or my judgment to even take it under consideration.

People are not always reasonable. They don’t always want to hear what we have to say. They get defensive, insulted, cover up truths and rule over us. But, that does not mean we have to sit back and take it.

What can you do to change this?

Two Things Needed to Solve a Problem

Have you ever been in a situation where two minds clash? Often there is something not visible that determines our will and thoughts. Something is triggered within that makes us stand-up to attention and balk.

Our attitudes about what we are capable of, can lead to conflict and confusion unless we can see the picture in the same light. For instance: Standing in the Smithsonian museum looking at a beautiful Modigliani.

Are we on the same page?

Do we want the same results?

Are we willing to have open minds and be willing to be flexible to work with others?

Are we willing to be on the right path, do the right thing, and move forward?

Stuck On It?

Is it the way you speak, or the way you share?

Is it the way you carry yourself and share with others?

Is it the intensity you put on life’s issues?

Everything we do requires an energy that comes from within. Why is it so difficult for people to fully understand us and the meaning we’re trying to get across? Can you figure it out?

Wholeness

When you look from within out, what do you see? How do you feel? And what do you sense? Is it an accepting, loving energy which nurtures you and makes you feel full and complete inside, like the warm rays of the sun soothing and healing your wounds?

Or is it an intense, powerful, kinetic motion within, which prevents your sores from ever truly healing? Do you struggle on all levels to prevent that process from beginning?

How do you effectively reach for that calm?

It takes a bold, brave person to look oneself in the mirror and exam themselves. It takes an even more courageous heart to take careful and deliberate account of one’s life to bring peace and harmony to one’s body, mind, and soul. So be gentle. Do it easy, and wrap your arms around yourself; finding that healthy, sound, state of being; which is the beginning of the healing process.

Incremental Changes

Incremental Change

How many of my readers have tip toed through the hot sand, until you reach the shore line. Once there, the child within comes alive. You play tag with the ebb and flow, and gallop in pure gaiety and delight. All your troubles and worries seem to slip away with the warmth of the summer sun glowing down upon your solar plexus, while the capri water washes them away.

Or did they? It’s effortless to think this may be so. But in all actuality you have temporarily suppressed the thing you ought to have faced the most. It’s easy to wish, and hope your most burdensome problem away. If for only a moment or a day-

Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen until something within tips the scale. You reach that point, and suddenly everything is clear. You know instinctively what to do. You know how to stop doing or acting on what didn’t work. You know what your next step and action will be. It is significant. You then know within yourself how to move forward, get the help you need, and what action you ought to take.

In retrospect, have you given any thought to where you would be today if you hadn’t fallen, picked yourself up and tried, tried again? Where would you be emotionally or spiritually if you never failed in your prior attempts? How has your character changed, and what have you learned in the process? It almost always is a reoccurring, repetitive, rhythmic, cycle of a person’s growth process to finally succeed.

Are you grateful for what you have gone through? And acquired the knowledge you experienced? It is a difficult process for all, even me! Where would we be if we hadn’t endured or tried?

How Does the Disability Community Fit In?

For the last few day’s I have been thinking, mulling over, and contemplating ideas about what I should write next for the issue of this magazine. Then I talked with one of my disabled colleagues and discussed the kind of active activity programs going on in our community. We deliberated, and truly came up with nothing.

Sad to say, but when I did an on-line search, in Torrance, California, nothing came up at all. All the daily activity programs and schedules, I found in the greater Los Angeles area, and South Bay, are designed specifically for people without disabilities. This idea is distressing because a large number of our population gets unnoticed and forgotten. It’s as if we did not get recognized at all.

Hence, then, let me ask you; what kind of visible, direct, public notifications do you receive about group programs, daily activity plans, or special events going on in your community that are geared especially for the disabled? Do you get a written notice of sort informing and notifying you of new or on-going activities online or through your local newspapers? Could you tell me at the drop of a hat? Could you go online, find some kind of activity you wanted to do with a friend, and do it?

Sorrowfully, that often is not possible. Because we are not recognized and acknowledge the way the politicians and law makers say that we are. Activities are usually designed for sub-groups within the community, mainly and primarily for the mentally challenged, but nothing for the Cerebral Palsy person. We are a people, nation, all unto ourselves.

That is why it is so vitally important to speak up and out in the community you live in, so that your voice, wishes, and issues should be heard. Otherwise, they go hidden, ignored, and unnoticed. It also provides a forum for the development of our individual talents.

I ask you in all honesty, because twelve years ago I went to my local community center wanting to teach adaptive aerobics. I had not only the experience and qualifications, but talents in developing recreation programs and dance and could bring creative programs to the city. However, my offer was passed-over, and patronized by not truthfully being considered. I was denied in the subtlest of ways.

The lack of these programs, or the awareness of these such programs; bring little solace, relief, or comfort from the community to help build and create, and tell us about quality programs that would benefit us all.

What a waste this is for both us, and the larger community. Having such visible programs would help build stronger lives. Having these visible programs would give us more to do. And, having such visibility would give us a greater stake in our community and being productive citizens.

Follow Us

A Voice of Hope - Speaking to and for People with Disabilities