They Said I Wouldn’t

Being born different without answers is confusing. Living with a disability no one can explain is even harder.

People start telling you what you can’t do before you even know who you are.

I didn’t talk the way other kids did. I learned differently. But because I didn’t fit into a box, people didn’t know what to call it.

So they called it a “general learning disability” and no one really expected much from me.

They said I wouldn’t talk normally.
Wouldn’t read.
Wouldn’t make it very far in school.
Wouldn’t ever be independent.
Wouldn’t be understood by more than 5% of people.
Wouldn’t have a “real” life.

What they never said out loud, but what I always felt,
was that I wouldn’t matter.

It’s hard to have hope when everything seems hopeless.

But my parents always believed in me.

They didn’t just hope I’d be okay, they expected me to keep going. They believed I could figure out my way forward.

Even when the world told them not to.

I’ve been proving people wrong since I was a kid.
Not by doing things the way everyone else does. I don’t.
Not by being perfect. I’m not.
But by showing up.
By trying again.
By doing things differently, in a way that works for me.

I didn’t get a real diagnosis until I was 16. That’s when we found out I have ARHGEF9, a rare genetic condition that affects how I learn and how I process things.

Most people haven’t heard of it. But I live with it every day. It’s not something I can turn off, and it’s not something I can pretend doesn’t exist. I’m learning how to work with it.

And I’m still trying hard to keep moving forward

There were a lot of people that didn’t believe in me. That made me feel like I was a waste of their time.

Today, I run to remind myself that I was always more than the limits they put on me.

I was never the problem. The world just didn’t understand me yet. I want to help change that.

They said I wouldn’t.
But I did.
And I’m just getting started.