Despite the evolution happening throughout our world, striving to change the wrongdoings of the past, no problem has been completely erased from the large-scale picture. At the end of the day, this does not exclude modern views on individuals with disabilities. Whether I'm looking at online articles or interactions with my peers, I see firsthand the frustration and anxiety that accompany the lasting, harmful views of disabilities marking people as lesser than their nondisabled peers. As someone with a hidden disability, I have also experienced the small, seemingly innocent remarks that belittle this community. Even in the earlier stages of seeking a diagnosis to make accommodations possible, the hurdles faced to finding an answer discourage these individuals the longer obstacles persist. At a local level, I attempt to fight against the stereotypes that threaten to bring down the community, hoping that perhaps I will be able to spread my passion for equity to others. Above all else, my education provides me with a clear route toward supporting the community in bigger ways. Currently, I am majoring in intense interventions for special education. Through this degree, I will be able to continually work with students with any determined level of disability between kindergarten and twelfth grade. Although I am not yet in a permanent position, I visit several schools to assist in providing support for students with disabilities. My education provides me with a deeper understanding and opportunity for further learning by establishing clear connections with those who are targeted by discrimination. I see these issues even among my peers in the same specialization, and it is through discussion that we all learn how we don't know everything. We must be willing to listen to our students rather than believing we can save people who don't need to be saved. Instead, students must see our support and belief in their abilities so that they may strive with a helping hand along the way. To further extend my activism for the community, small acts of support and learning help end the normalization of belittling. Something as simple as listening to the discrimination my peers have faced helps me show that I am here to listen. I will listen to their frustrations, validate their struggles, and help them maintain a healthy mindset. No one should be afraid of sharing who they are and what their needs entail. I do not represent the whole of this community, and every individual's situation is different. I can only speak for myself, and I must listen to others as they speak about their own experiences. I learn from those around me and correct harmful attitudes that have been ingrained in me. Unfortunately, this world was never designed to meet everyone's needs. Although improvements have come about, we work every day to create a world that everyone can live in. Through local efforts, small actions can lead to big changes in the long run. Ableism is a long-lasting epidemic that haunts our world, but every individual can make attempts to break it down, piece by piece.

Like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon, ready to spread its newly formed wings as a beautiful butterfly, this little girl seemed to have the world in her hands. She was social, empathetic, and bright. She excelled in academics and immersed herself in the arts. However, behind the face of a social butterfly hid a little clip to her wings: anxiety. Little did she know that more was yet to come: more clips and more patches. With each patch, she would grow stronger. At 5 years old, I went from the kid who wanted to talk to everyone she passed to the one who wanted to avoid basically anyone. That's when my parents first noticed the signs of anxiety, but it was all I had ever known. I didn't recall a life without anxiety bleeding into the edges of everything I did, kept in rhythm by the bounce of my leg. Consistency remained until my freshman year of high school, when I experienced the first death in my family that I would be old enough to recall. New experiences provide new opportunities, but the only opportunity my mind seemed to grasp was a spiral into depression, dissociation, and disordered eating. In the midst of grief, it seemed as if the only way to go was down. Further down the rabbit hole I went, into a world where I saw love in abuse. Up to that point, anxiety had shaped me, telling me that someone who told me they loved me was safe. At the same time, anxiety told me that I had to please these people to prove that I was worthy of their love. Therefore, I carried a heavy weight every time a particular friend got upset with me and felt terrible every time they criticized me. Meanwhile, I had been made to believe that I was responsible for their mental health, taking damage every time they spoke of cutting or killing themselves. Under the blanket of empathy, it was as if I was responsible for keeping them alive, knowing I would otherwise be overwhelmed by guilt. The four letters of love were erased, painted over with a new acronym: PTSD. This served as the final straw. For years I avoided therapy not because my family was unwilling but because it felt as if asking for help was admitting defeat. I thought that needing therapy meant I was broken, but, through the help of the people who truly loved me, I found that it meant quite the opposite. Over the span of my life, mental illness whispered lies into my ear, convincing me that I would be better off dead. In the face of a mind that seemed to have everything against me, I pushed my way through, climbing the mountain that was my mental state. With every challenge I faced, I had survived. I had made it through, and although my mental illness would never leave, I knew I'd be fine. That was enough to prove that people like me are some of the strongest people. With everything life throws at us, we may falter, but we pick ourselves back up again. Those who resort to harmful measures aren't evil. They are trying what they know to ease the burden breaking their backs. For those who don't make it to the other sides of these attempts, there should be no blame. They sought the peace they couldn't find in life, and although we hate to see this as their solution, how can we blame those who are grasping for an escape in this world that can be very unkind? As I began to rediscover myself for who I really was, I reflected on my relationships. The abusive friendship I had endured had shown me that not everyone is going to be a good influence in your life. I started to see my relationships for what they were. I cut out the people who were hurting me. I strengthened the friendships that were healthy for both me and the other person involved. I mended the relationships I had stained in the midst of panic, finding meaningful friendships in places where I thought there was no going back. I found the people who had faith in me and showed them that I had faith in them as well. We were equals, and there was no reason for it to be any different. In these healthy relationships, I learned how to love my friends and how it felt to be loved in return. I had been loved before, but knowing its full potential was the most beautiful feeling in the world. When others know my story and the empathy and compassion I hold in my heart, people expect my next step to be becoming a therapist so I can help the people that struggle similarly to how I have. However, a different branch of this passion called to me. Currently, I am a special education major. I have always had a place in my heart for teaching, and it didn't surprise those close to me that I would choose this path. These children come from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences, and the sad reality reveals that there isn't much support for mental health in schools, including for these students who may be seen as lesser simply because they are different from what society has deemed as normal. I didn't get mental health support when I was being abused by my classmate, even when I tried to bring attention to it in the hopes that I would find some support. Even if I can't help every student and even if I can't make mental health a priority in schools, I hope that I can be part of my students' support system. I want every child I teach to thrive. They deserve the world, and they should never be looked down upon, whether that is because of their mental health, a disability, their gender, their race, or anything in between.