A long time ago when I was diagnosed to be paraplegic I hid myself away from everyone, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.
I would look at everyone walking, dancing, playing games that uses their feet and legs and felt a combination of sad, anger, envy, and emptiness.
I didn't want to be around anyone, I'd rather stay inside where no one could see me, I felt useless.
Even while locked away indoors I still felt the need to communicate with another person, so i went online on some social media sites.
When I created my profile on these websites they would ask me to add my profile picture so I would usually use pictures of myself from the waist up, not showing that I'm in a wheelchair.
I would meet a lot of nice people on these websites some showed interest in meeting up with me for coffee, and others would invite me to come and take part in some outdoor activities, but none of them knew that I couldn't walk.
I would make up excuses why I can't attend these events, eventually these people would lose interest and get fed up of my excuses.
I was living a lie, to be honest, it was quite pathetic.
I decided I would tell one of these people I was chatting with that I'm unable to walk, I did. And nothing bad happened, that person and I still talk up to this very day.
I changed all my profile pictures showing all of me and not half, i realise that's what I've been doing wrong.
I tried to hide a part of me and acted as if it didn't exist, but the reality is that it did, my disability is part of me and will always be till the day I die, so there's no point pretending that our disability doesn't exist. We all should embrace our disabilities because it's apart of our life. And it can be beautiful combined together.