Learning to celebrate: finding disability pride in my birthday

I’ve hated my birthday for as long as I can remember.

Partly, it’s because I dislike being the centre of attention, and feel I don’t deserve it.

Mostly, it’s because my birthday was usually a reminder of my disability, of all the things I couldn’t do and all the ways I’d failed as a person.

It felt incongruous to celebrate another year around the sun when I disliked the person we were meant to be celebrating.

Luckily, as I’ve grown older my relationship with my birthday, and myself, has changed, and disability pride was a big part of why.

When I learned that disability pride was a concept, something that other people had and that I might find too, I started to see so many things in a new light.

My emotional lability - which made my moods unpredictable on any given day, and which meant I could cycle from euphoria to despair and back again in just a few moments - was more intense than usual every April (the month I was born). But disability pride told me that those emotions, of which I’d so often felt ashamed, were part of what made me who I am. They weren’t something I had to hide or justify or deny. I could accept them and, remarkably, they became much more manageable when I did. It was my party, and I could cry if I wanted to. 

Sometimes, the intense emotions that accompanied my birthday meant greater pain and spasms, a more obvious limp. I remembered - or was reminded - that I struggled to run, couldn’t ride a bike or do any number of other physical activities. But disability pride asked, so what? I wasn’t a failure because of all the things I couldn’t do. I was exquisitely me because of all the things I could.   

It made sense that due to the COVID-times in which we live, I’d want to celebrate outdoors, or masked indoors. Disability pride reminded me that I was not a burden for wanting or needing those things, that they were, in fact, my right.

I was never a problem - but with disability pride, I could be my own solution. 

In 2025, for the second year in a row, I’ve celebrated my birthday. I’ve gathered with some of my favourite people, in one of my favourite (outdoor) places. I travelled there in my power wheelchair. I’ve spasmed quite visibly, and apologised profusely. I’ve laughed so loudly and long that my throat has started to hurt. I’ve cried, too. I’ve been anxious and lonely and sad, and disability pride reminds me that all those feelings are okay because they’re mine. 

I’ve learned to ask for what I need. I’ve learned not to fear the passing of another year as heralding a change in my function, or a more visible impairment, because I’ve embraced CP (and mental illness) as part of who I am. 

I don’t dread my birthdays quite so much any more. Perhaps one day I won’t dread them at all. If that day ever comes, I know I’ll have disability pride to thank. 

For more information about managing well-being and mental health for people with cerebral palsy, My CP Guide has curated resources on a variety of topics for all ages: Health and wellbeing