I am a part of EmpowHer Camp, a yearlong leadership program for disabled young women and it starts with a week of camping in the Adirondacks, followed by a yearlong community impact project that I will complete with the help of my mentor. Camp was a long week, but amazing. It started with my first airplane ride EVER which was extremely nerve wracking but turned out great. Once I arrived at camp it was refreshing to meet so many amazing people. I got to experience the wilderness for the very first time. I lived in a lean-to, which was a very humbling experience. I used an outhouse and I learned how to build a fire (mine was the longest lasting fire of the week). Most of all, I learned the importance of advocacy, not only for myself, but in the Disability Community.
Everyone keeps asking: “What did you learn?” Initially, I answered with the obvious, “I learned how to build a fire and live in a lean-to.” It took me really thinking to understand the bigger answer. What did I learn? Out of the eight years I’ve been disabled, it took me seven days to learn: I’m disabled, and it matters.
Prior to my injury, I never experienced disability, nor did I know anyone with disabilities, so I had a lot of stereotypical views about disabled people. A lot of my views were based on beliefs that a person with a disability was not able to have a full and successful life which is something I struggle with even now eight years after my injury. I often felt alone and confused because I didn’t have people around me that understood physically and mentally what it meant to be disabled. This caused me to have a negative view about my disability. I had to surround myself with like-minded people, and people like me physically, to be able to be comfortable in my own skin again.
I never thought of myself as part of the Disability Community. Although I use a wheelchair, I used to take pride when my peers would say “I forget you’re disabled.” Up until camp, it never occurred to me that my disability identity matters!