STORY SPACE

As a teen girl with ADHD and anxiety I have experienced many things in my time. One of the ones that stuck with me though is an experience I had with my LRC teacher (at my school the Learning Resource Center (LRC) is basically the center for people with learning differences to get help, and you have an LRC plan which is an equivalent of a 504 or IEP at a public school). Anyways I am what is described as "high functioning" (though that term is terrible), so on the outside I look like any ordinary student with good grades. Because of that my teachers don't always help me. Most of the things on my Learning Plan are to ease my anxiety. For example: getting to school early, or meeting with teachers to go over a lesson again, or extra time on a test, and being able to take a test in a different room (those two are really helpful when I cant focus too). Anyways my LRC teacher always looked over my needs for someone else's because they were failing their class and I wasn't. I understand that those kids needed help more than me but somehow I never seemed to get a turn. This lead to the understanding that I wasn't a priority, and as a 6th grader at a new school that was pretty hard. The anxiety to ask a teacher for help with a class was so large, and when she ended up not helping me the anxiety just grew and grew. This instilled a mentality in me that I still haven't been able to shake to this day, that I was a burden, and too irrelevant to get help. So some advice to everyone out there your friends with learning differences could be struggling behind closed doors. And just because someone looks ok and has good grades does not mean that they are in fact ok, make sure to check in on them once in a while and remind them of all the good they have in the world." -Alyssa Kauffman, Colorado

"Growing up with a sibling with autism is challenging, but that doesn't change the fact that I love my brother to pieces. I have a 15 year old younger brother named Henry with autism and epilepsy. Every aspect of my family's everyday life is changed: How we get up in the morning, how we go about our day, and how we sleep every night. Henry, my brother, is still a unique individual with a unique personality, and I wish more people saw that side of him rather than seeing him as another special needs student. He loves basketball, watching movies, biking, and meeting new friends; hobbies that a lot of us enjoy ourselves. Even though he may be different than me in some ways, in the end, he's still my brother and that's what matters most to me." - Zeke Flint, Harrisonburg VA

"My brother has autism, and when people ask me what it's like it's hard for me to explain because he's my brother and this is a normal part of our lives. I think people forget that people with autism or any disablity are just people who take in the world differently, and I can only imagine how frustrating it is for my brother or anyone else when it comes to navigating this world. It's important to teach people who are unfamiliar with communicating with those who are neurodiverse how to because being understood is such a valuable thing." - Tiana Clemons, Maryland

"At the school I went to, a lot of people used to use 'autistic', 'r*tard', and other ableist language on their friends to degrade them and it made me really uncomfortable and angry." - Anonymous, Illinois "

"What to say about myself and my disability? According to the doctors and my parents, I have what is commonly known as spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. This is the result of a complication at birth. This injury was sustained right in the middle of my cortex which controls my motor functions. I have been told by physical therapist in the past that the way my disability works is every single one of my signals in my brain are all jockeying for my attention. This means that when I talk my mouth moves as well as my hands, on a related note to open my eyes I have to open my mouth. But in all seriousness, I always had a hard time accepting my disability simply because I didn't feel disabled inside. There's been a lot of talk in recent years about identity that there are only two genders male and female or gender on the spectrum. This is what I believe about disability as well. In general medical professionals and laypersons alike are moving away from the medical model of disability to a societal model of disability. which is the belief that society itself has to remove barriers social prejudices to people with disabilities. It has taken me years to admit to myself that I had a disability because I was ashamed of myself and of my limitations. I've been thinking a lot about my legacy and for some people my legacy might be that I graduated high school. Or it might be that I graduated college with a degree in congregation in youth ministry and all those achivements are great but it's not my legacy. My real legacy is that I'm a son to supportive parents, brother to the most amazing man that a person can meet in this life, who is on track to become a pilot. So if you have a disability, or even if you don't and maybe you're struggling to know exactly what to do. Let me be a resource to you because I'm living proof that just because you have a disability it doesn't mean life stops. It just means that a person might have to get creative if they have a disability. They say necessity is the mother of invention and there is no truer statement then this. Lastly to close this bio I recently did a podcast with Dr. JoAnne Gabbins who founded the first African American poetry center, in the interview she said to me that she would get nowhere without the mentors in her life, so let me be your mentor. I've been called many things but my friends call me Daniel. You can reach me at daniel.barnhart1999@gmail.com." - Daniel Barnhart, Virginia