To the judgemental

This is something that I wrote back in August after an incident at my local shopping center....

To the judgemental, dirty look giving people that I encounter daily in parking lots:

I know to you that I look "normal". I'm young, attractive, I wear nice clothes, I do not walk with a cane on most days nor do I need a wheelchair to get around. I do happen to have a slight limp but that's ok. I also happen to have 2 small children. I might look "normal" and have all the "normal" things that someone my age might have but I also happen to be disabled. I try not to park in the handicap parking spots but if I'm unable to find a spot close enough, I have no choice. Please stop giving me the dirty looks and the eye rolls. I'm not stealing my grandmother's handicap sticker, that is mine. My doctor gave it to me b/c I need it. Little do you know I have an extremely rare birth defect. I could drop dead right now and I'm slowly going paralized from a neurological disease that it has caused. Little do you know, I have a metal plate in my neck and a cadavar bone graph b/c I also suffer horrible, debilitating bone abnormalities. Little do you know that in 6 days, I will celebrate the 5 year anniversary of surviving major brain surgery. Little do you know that I'm missing parts of my skull that are still OPEN. Little do you know they also opened the outer layer of my brain and replaced with a piece taken from the top of my head. Little do you know that they had to shave off the back of my neck bones. Little do you know that I need hip surgery NOW but keep putting it off b/c of yet another rare problem that I seem to have.

So I may look "normal" with my long blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail hiding a foot long scar that once held 27 staples. I still bear the scar from the neck surgery in the front of my neck. Yep, that is what that 3 inch scar is that children so innocently point out to me.

I'm waiting for you to say something to me one day rather then judge a book by it's cover. I would love to tell you all of this and maybe you could see the error in your ways. Please don't assume that b/c someone looks "normal", they are. I'm strong, I'm a fighter and I refuse to let these diseases rule my life. I shouldn't lift my kids, really anything over 8 lbs is dangerous but I'm a mother first and when I have things to do and no one to help, I gotta do what I gotta do.

Sincerely,
The disabled mom that just tries to live my life like everyone else