My Biggest Insecurity Is...

Hello my beautiful people!

We all have that one thing(s) that no matter how hard we try, we cannot get ourselves to love that thing about ourselves. Whether it's our hair, tummies, nails, nose, toes, eyebrows, etc., the list is unfortunately endless. Now being who I am, I'm always going to tell you that you are beautiful no matter what and your flaws are what makes you, YOU. I'll say to embrace your flaws and be proud of them. I will show off how I'm disabled and proud. In a conversation shit talking about boys, you will hear me say that I don't need men to tell me that I'm beautiful because I already know I'm a goddess. I will hype you up and tell you to continue to slay. If people are staring at you, I will tell you to look the other way and continue to move forward. I will tell you all this because I BELIEVE it for myself so I know if I learned to accept and love my flaws you can too.

But I'm being a bit of a hypocrite… because I can't fully love my biggest insecurity even though I've been working on it for years. You might be thinking it's my wheelchair or how my body looks. But no, my biggest insecurity is my speech. It's my voice. For people who know me, you might be thinking that it doesn't make sense because I love to talk and that's right I love to talk but it's only when I'm comfortable. It's only when I know a person is going to take the time out of their day to understand each word that I'm saying. It's when I know that a person is going to stop me and admit that they didn't understand what I said and to repeat myself. My speech impairment affects me in almost everything. It affected me while I dated, it affected me in college, it affects me trying to make friends, it affects me day to day.

You can't imagine how many awkward conversations I have endured with people. I absolutely hate when I'm talking to a relatively new person and I noticed mid-way into my sentence that I have lost them because they have no idea what I'm saying but are still smiling and nodding and I'm just thinking that you are dumb. Not dumb in an intellectual way but in a "you're trying to be a nice person but you can still be nice and say I didn't understand you can you repeat yourself" type of way. There was this one time when, I was in a conversation about college with someone new and I noticed I lost them so I randomly said "I think I'm going to drop out of college and be a stripper" and they legitimately said "keep up the good work!". It was so hard to not burst out laughing in their face. I wish people would not judge me before speaking to me. Like I have said a million times before, my wheelchair doesn't define me and never will. But people will be people and they will unknowingly put together an stereotype of me and confine themselves to it, leaving me with the job of having to deal with people and their blank stares when all I want to do is talk about random age-appropriate conversations. You don't need to talk to me like a baby and you don't need to watch your language. My friends, family, and fiancé will tell you that cussing is like my third language. I'm not proud of it but my point is I'm just a regular 22 year old. You don't need to be nervous around me or be scared to offend me, if I can sense your nervousness then you are just going to make me feel awkward. You don't need to be too nice to me either, because honey I can see right through you. You will become fake. I'm not desperate for friends. I believe that when people wholeheartedly want to get to know me, they will and I'll be there with all the patience because I understand that it is not easy but I thank you for trying without fail. Another situation that I'm just like "really?" is when I'm talking to two or more people and I say something and one person looks at the other person and gives them the look of "did you understand what she said?". OMG that drives me absolute nuts! I'm right there just ask me to repeat myself! But no, you have give a weird look and make the conversation awkward. I understand that people don't want to appear rude but I've been in this condition my whole life, there is almost nothing you can say do to offend me. Sometimes people don't make sense because I feel like I look like a well put together 22 year old, I'm nice, I'm engaged, and I went to college, so obviously if you talk to me I will have something appropriate to say. I understand if people thought I was intellectually delayed but I would imagine 100% that after people see how I handle myself, there's no part of me that shows that I'm intellectually delayed. So people might be scared or uneducated? But that doesn't make me feel better either.

I'm scared of strangers, I mean from the obvious stranger danger part, I dread the nice strangers who start a conversation with me. I mean, God bless their hearts for STARTING the conversation with me but the MOST dreaded questions that strangers ask me when I'm alone is "What's your name?" because people can't understand the way I say my name. So if I know I'm not going to see a person again, I legitimately say that my name is Ana and continue the conversation because Ana is a name I can say clearly. So there's about 100 people out there who thinks that my name is Ana and I'm okay with that because it saves me from having to see that weird look on their faces and then me thinking if I wouldn't have this dumb speech impairment my life would be so much easier and then feel bad about myself.

When I started dating, it was something else. Texting was my new favorite thing. You know how some girls fantasize about their guy who they have been talking to, calling them? Well that was my nightmare. I would tell them straight away that I had a speech impairment and I was not comfortable talking in any way to them other than in person. That how you know I hated talking and not receiving the attentiveness that I want to feel comfortable. By no means, am I shy. Most people think that I am because I chose to not waste my breath and invite awkwardness. I kid you not, the first time I skyped with my fiancé I muted my microphone. I refuse to let him hear my voice even though he repeatedly said that it didn't matter to him. I felt like I was already disabled, I couldn't let him hear another thing "wrong" with me and add to my baggage. But somewhere along out 6-7 hour long skype call, I accidently click the unmute button while laughing and I said well, fuck it. And here we are 3 years later, and every night he says babe, I love you but please stop talking and let's go to sleep. I don't stop talking but God bless him. He is the prime example of how a stranger can go from understanding me 5% of the time to 95% of the time if they care about what I have to say.

Now when I'm frustrated or extremely angry, it's difficult for anyone to understand me clearly because I become too frustrated with myself that I can't communicate clearly. But that's on me. I'm still learning how calm myself even though I feel pure rage in my body. It's not easy, you can ask my fiancé when we get to arguments, haha, and it's not pretty but hey it's me and I do accept that. But it do

So even though my speech impairment is my biggest insecurity, I still love myself despite of it. And I think with time that is the way, I will grow to not care about it so much. I do think that I'm the way I am for a reason. Someone up in the universe thought that I would have it too easy without my speech impairment and I honestly can see that. I just wish sometimes to have it easy and that isn't a sin in my books. That's why I think it's ironic that my favorite quote is "I don't need easy, I need possible". I know I'm a hardworking, hard-headed, independent, out-spoken ironically, badass type of woman. I know that I had to be this, in order to be this successful in my life. There is no amount of money in the world to find a "cure" for my speech impairment and I'm okay with that. I think that is also why I have this "just do you" way about life because money isn't happiness. It can't be. If it was I would have paid all the money in the world for a chance to have a "normal" voice but it doesn't work that way. Even if it did, I probably still wouldn't be happy because happiness will always come within for anything.

In conclusion, what I'm trying to communicate to you is that no I'm not saying to talk to everyone who has a speech impairment, what I'm saying is that if someone interest you and they happen to have a speech impairment, have some patience and don't make quick decisions about someone who can end up being your best friend.

My mouth may be close, but when I do speak it is beautiful.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions or comments, write them down below or on my fb page!

XO Ashley