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This post contains affiliate links from Amazon.ca, Shein Canada, Temu, and Butterfly Dreams on Wheels. If you purchase through one of my links, I may earn a small commission — at absolutely no extra cost to you. I only ever share things I genuinely love and use myself. Thank you so much for supporting my little corner of the internet. 💜 |
July Feels Different Now
There is something about July that settles into my chest differently than it used to. The light is longer, the days feel wide open, and somewhere in the middle of all that warmth, there is a month that was built — on purpose — for people like me. Disability Pride Month. Even typing those words still gives me a little flutter, because there was a time, not so long ago, when I would have scrolled right past them.
Hi, I’m Becca, and I’m writing to you from London, Ontario, where the summer is in full swing and my heart is fuller than it has ever been. I have cerebral palsy and multiple chronic illnesses, and for most of my life, the word “pride” was the furthest thing from what I felt about any of that. This post is about the long, winding, sometimes painful road that brought me here — to a July where I actually feel it. It’s about the years I spent asking God to change my body, the slow turning point that changed everything, and the things — both big and small — that now make my daily life not just manageable, but genuinely joyful.
If you’ve ever felt ashamed of your body, or like your disability was something to be hidden or overcome, this one is for you.
The Years Before Acceptance
I want to be honest with you, the way I wish someone had been honest with me when I was younger. For a long, long time, I did not accept my disability. I did not even come close. I prayed — genuinely, fervently, on my knees in the dark — for a miracle. I would go to sleep at night asking God to please, please let me wake up walking normally. I believed, with everything in me, that if I had enough faith, enough patience, enough goodness, the healing would come. I was waiting to be fixed.
I remember being in primary school, watching the other kids tear across the playground at recess. There was this one girl who could run so fast her hair would stream straight out behind her like a flag. I used to stand at the edge of the field and watch her and feel something I didn’t have a name for yet — not quite envy, not quite grief, but something right in between. I wanted to be in that body so desperately. Not because there was anything wrong with mine, though I didn’t know that then. I just wanted to move through the world without it being a whole thing every single time.
There were hard medical appointments — the kind where you leave with a new diagnosis or a heavier treatment plan and you sit in the car in the parking lot and cry before you can even start the drive home. There were well-meaning people who told me I was “so brave” and “such an inspiration” in ways that never quite felt like compliments. There were days when I looked in the mirror and saw only limitations, only the gap between who I was and who I thought I was supposed to be.
I didn’t accept my disability until I was 26 years old. And even then, it wasn’t a single dramatic moment. It was slow. It crept in quietly, the way the best things usually do.
The Turn: Learning to Ask for Different Things
What shifted, I think, was that I stopped seeing myself as doing life wrong — and started seeing that I was doing life differently. There is an enormous difference between those two things, and I wish someone had handed me that sentence much earlier.
My faith is still very much a part of who I am, but my prayers changed. I stopped asking God to change my body. I started asking for strength to live fully in the one I have. I started asking for creativity — for the ingenuity that comes from figuring out how to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. I started asking for community, for people who understood. And slowly, beautifully, those prayers were answered.
“I stopped asking God to change my body. I started asking for strength to live fully in the one I have.”
I realized something else, too. I had been through enough — enough appointments, enough adaptations, enough hard-won knowledge about what actually helps and what doesn’t — that I could genuinely help other people. I could share my story. I could show up online as a disabled woman who is also joyful, also stylish, also curious and creative and very much alive. That realization lit something up in me that has not gone out since.
Things That Have Genuinely Helped Me
I want to share some of the things that make my daily life easier, more comfortable, and more me — because practical joy matters just as much as emotional healing, and nobody should have to figure all of this out alone.
I spend a fair amount of time on Amazon.ca, and I want to be real with you: some of the most useful things I’ve found there have been the unglamorous ones. A good pair of compression socks for circulation and spasticity support has been genuinely life-changing for me on high-symptom days. I also swear by a microwavable heating pad wrap — the kind you can drape around your neck or across your hips — for those evenings when my muscles are done and I just need warmth to settle back into my body. And if you struggle with grip like I do, look into ergonomic jar openers and grip aid tools. They sound small, but they give back a little piece of independence that matters more than I can say.
Clothing is something a lot of disabled people don’t talk about enough. Getting dressed can be a whole event when your body doesn’t cooperate the way you’d like it to. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by Shein Canada for affordable, comfortable, and genuinely cute pieces that work with my body rather than against it. Wide-leg trousers, stretchy waistbands, flowy tops — they make the whole getting-dressed experience so much less fraught, and doing it on a budget means I’m not adding financial stress on top of everything else. Disability is expensive enough without fashion having to be, too.
On a similar note, Temu has become one of my unexpected favourite spots for daily living aids and home comfort finds. I’ve picked up sensory-friendly items, lap desk cushions, little organisers that keep my space manageable on the days when executive function is nowhere to be found, and a few small things that just make my home feel softer and easier. It takes a bit of browsing, but the prices mean you can try things without the risk feeling too high.
And then there is Butterfly Dreams on Wheels, which holds a very special place in my heart. This is a disability-owned business built by and for wheelchair users and people with mobility challenges. It is more than a shop — it is a community, a resource, a reminder that there are people out there who truly get it because they are living it too. I love supporting businesses like this one, because every purchase is a way of saying: our lives are worth designing for. Please go check them out and show them some love.
On Community, Visibility, and Why This Month Matters
Disability Pride Month is not just about individual pride — though that matters enormously. It is about visibility. It is about the radical act of showing up and saying, I am here, I am whole, and I am not going to make myself smaller so you are more comfortable. It is about advocacy, about pushing for a world that is actually designed for all of us, not just some of us.
When I started sharing my life online as a disabled content creator, I was nervous. I worried about being judged, about being reduced to my diagnosis, about people only seeing the wheelchair or the cane or the hard days. What I found instead was connection — people reaching out to say “me too” and “thank you” and “I thought I was the only one.” That connection is sacred to me. It is why I keep showing up.
If you are reading this and you are disabled, or chronically ill, or caring for someone who is: your story matters. Your body is not a problem to be solved. You deserve joy, and community, and a July that feels like it was made for you — because it was.
Come Find Your People
If anything in this post resonated with you, I would love for you to hang around. My blog is full of more posts like this one — honest reflections, product recommendations that come from real lived experience, and a community of people who are figuring it all out together. Bookmark it, come back often, and bring a friend if you know someone who needs to read these words today.
And please — share this post. You never know whose heart it might reach. Maybe it’s the 24-year-old who is still in the praying-for-a-miracle stage. Maybe it’s someone who just got a new diagnosis and doesn’t know how to hold it yet. Maybe it’s someone who has been proud for years and just needs to feel that reflected back. Whoever it is, pass it on.
Resources
| Product | Why I like it | Retailer / Link |
|---|---|---|
| Button Hook & Zipper Pull (Fanwer) | Makes dressing easier when fingers are stiff; simple and portable. | https://www.amazon.ca/Fanwer-Dressing-Adaptive-Equipment-Arthritis/dp/B07LBHCVPM |
| Carex Uplift Seat Assist | Helps stand from chairs/couches with less strain; portable and gentle. | https://relaxacare.ca/products/carex-uplift-seat-assist-standard?variant=40636512141487¤cy=CAD |
| Weighted Utensils Set | Stabilizes hand tremors and makes eating less frustrating. | https://www.amazon.ca/Weighted-Parkinson-Silverware-Arthritis-Pediatrics/dp/B0CJYCQZPB |
| Adaptive Open‑Back Tops (Ovidis / Lorilida) | Easier dressing for caregivers and for independent dressing with snaps. | https://www.amazon.ca/Ovidis-Adaptive-Clothes-Senior-Women/dp/B0H4NSZ6LC |
Keep going, keep shining — the world needs exactly you.
With love, Becca 💜