Annabelle Unbroken

Sometimes in public I feel invisible, and I feel like people don’t care or want to say hey. Luckily, I have amazing people in my life that make me feel seen, cared about, and loved. It’s almost like people think I am a shadow; sometimes people will bump into me and not even say “I’m sorry” or look back. People with special needs, we matter too; we are just like you. Even though we were made differently, we still exist in the world. What do we struggle with the most? I struggle with physical barriers, which means I need help with doing certain tasks. When you park in the ramp lines, think about me and my friends who use a wheelchair 24/7 because those are designed for us and our caregivers to safely exit our vans with our caregivers right there helping us. Think about us when you decide to run the stop sign and what that could do to us wheelchair users if we didn’t have our caregivers guiding us to cross the streets. The Bible tells us that Jesus gave people with special needs a voice to use. People like me and my friends with specials were called to demonstrate grace, love, and joy, which are the fruits of the Spirit. We are precious in His eyes, and I am going to throw out a personal thought on the table that I have been taught all my life, and I know this opinion is true because I have lived it out for 22 years and 365 days and seen it in my own life and own story. So here goes the personal opinion: people with special needs have a deeper, closer friendship with Jesus. I know some will disagree with me, but you don’t have to agree with everything I tell you because I have special needs. If you feel like you need to agree with everything a person with special needs says, I am the girl you don’t have to agree with everything I say. It won’t hurt my feelings if you disagree with me; I will still sleep like a baby whether you agree or disagree because I do not care what people think. I AM A survivor, and I am not lost; I am just exploring my life in a different way, in my own beautiful ways. And yes, I feel like a burden all the time with asking for help with different things in my life that I have a hard time doing or need extra help with, and yes, it comes with mood swings like an up and down roller coaster. One minute I can be so happy, and the next minute I can be losing my mind because I have a hard time processing things. Another way my brain works like a car that has no control, and then all of a sudden, once I find myself again, it’s like the brakes park and I am happy again and I can regulate myself.