Multiply Disabled, Fully Confident: Rejecting the Myth of Perfection

Confidence, in many popular self-help spheres, is often thought of as an unchanging quality. A black-and-white asset that you either have in full or lack entirely. This is how we undo ourselves before we even start. Part of being confident is embracing your insecurity. The way that I’ve built my own confidence is by better understanding myself and where my insecurities lie. You can build security where it may not have been when you show up nonjudgmentally for yourself consistently. Being insecure is natural. Being insecure doesn’t negate confidence.

I have a memory of myself as consistently outwardly confident, appearing self-assured and unafraid of public speaking. I didn’t always feel the internal confidence, however, because I’ve struggled with my self-esteem, my opinion of myself. Confidence is a sense of belief in yourself. It is an assuredness that is nurtured through a healthy appreciation for who you are. To build a positive relationship with yourself, and therefore improve your self-esteem, you have to get to know yourself. And it certainly helps if, while you get to know yourself, you also learn to love yourself. You can cultivate confidence as you struggle with building a healthier opinion of yourself. 

When we talk about confidence culturally, it’s difficult to avoid platitudes. I want to refrain from sharing blanket statements about how we can nurture our own self-confidence but it’s truthfully challenging because confidence is so experiential and most of the work of it happens internally. So, I’ll tell you now, dear reader, that confidence is a practice. It’s a messy, challenging practice that requires refuting your own voices of self doubt wherever and whenever you can. To get to a place of self-love, you’ll have to undo deep-seated beliefs about yourself and possibly (probably) about the world at large. 

My own personal journey of improving my relationship with myself began when I was thirteen. I didn’t like myself, and I didn’t want to dislike myself any longer. I went to therapy and I got to know myself. I realized that I had begun to compare myself against an imagined perfectly-abled person who has never once dealt with any of the obstacles I’ve faced with my own disabilities. I had actually likely been doing this my entire life thus far. Worse still, I had a habit of imagining myself as this perfectly-abled person only to later become inconsolably disappointed that I would not ever be this person. 

At thirteen, I did not yet have a concept of myself as the multiply disabled person that I am. It was easy for me to believe that I could potentially be this perfect version of myself. This imaginary version of myself didn’t struggle with emotional regulation, with executive functioning, with motivation, with focus, or with any of the other problems that I, at the time, didn’t know could be sourced to my disabilities. I believed that all the problems I had could be worked out through a sheer force of will. My symptoms were just obstacles to overcome. If only I could overcome the challenges of my chronic illnesses, my neurodivergence, my mental illness, then I would become this best version of myself. Then, in my mind, I would be deserving of love from myself and others. I had internalized ableism and I was weaponizing it against myself, using it as a tool for self-sabotage. 

I had a number of issues in how I thought about myself. Perhaps the most glaring fallacy was the belief that I had to be perfect to be loved. Actually, maybe bigger than that, was that I believed in some nebulous “perfect” existence as being possible whatsoever. Not only is perfection not required for love, but it is impossible to achieve. So, I stopped trying to embody some invented ideal and I practiced letting myself be enough. Everybody is imperfect, everybody has insecurities, and everybody is making it up as they go. Being imperfect, insecure, and generally not quite knowing what you’re doing is human and doesn’t negate your inherent worth. 

Before I was even diagnosed with any definite disabilities, I worked on changing my view of the symptoms I experienced. Instead of allowing my struggles to serve as evidence of my own lesser value, I practiced viewing my struggles compassionately. Instead of condemning myself for the litany of things I struggled with or could not do whatsoever, I shifted my energy into appreciating and exploring what I was already capable of. I’ve been interested in making art and performance my entire life. Dedicating time to my creativity, and whichever mode of performance called to me at the time, increased my self worth. I was showing up for myself, and I could feel my confidence improve as I kept creating.

Shifting my concept of myself as not hinging on any singular element of my personhood improved my self-esteem, and in turn, my confidence, tremendously. There’s a principle of disability justice that encompasses this truth, an idea of Recognizing Wholeness. The concept is, “We value our people as they are, for who they are, and understand that people have inherent worth outside of capitalist notions of productivity. Each person is full of history and life experience. Each person has an internal experience composed of their own thoughts, sensations, emotions, fantasies, perceptions, and idiosyncrasies. Disabled people are whole people” (Berne et al. 2018). From my teenhood into today, this idea of acknowledging my wholeness and the wholeness of others made it easier to find my intrinsic worth and healed a lot of the damaging thoughts I held about myself. I was kinder to myself. I started to feel an internal confidence that I didn’t before. 

As I accumulated diagnoses, disability justice became more of an integral part of my outlook on life. I found pride in my disabilities through interacting with the community, doing the things I loved, and investing in taking care of myself — in all the myriad forms that self-care takes. Earlier, I told you that confidence is a practice. I’m still practicing. It’s humbling but necessary work and I’m grateful to do it. I’m constantly getting to know myself and my needs better. I show up for myself through the art I make, the relationships I pour myself into, and the ways that I give myself care every day. My insecurities morph, change, dissipate, and sometimes return. I keep practicing.