Personal

I was valedictorian at the Texas School for the Blind with the highest test scores in my grade and four scholarships. Two weeks before graduation, I had to go home. They stripped everything. I got my diploma in the mail.

The gap between what I know I’m capable of and what my brain will let me do. About executive dysfunction, initiation, and the feeling that your own mind is working against you.

I spent thirty years believing I hated writing. The problem was never writing. It was the barrier between my thoughts and the finished words, and the mom who saw that before I did.

Eleven years ago, a tiny stray puppy walked into the room where I was curled up in pain and decided I was his person. Now I’m in a nursing home and he’s with my mom, and the distance between us is the shape of everything disability has cost me.

Being seen as highly verbal and good at writing made people assume language was easy for me. It wasn’t. This piece is about the hidden labor behind producing words, the harm that assumption caused, and why AI can be language access rather than thought replacement.

A personal account of my experiences as a blind, multiply disabled student in a residential school setting, highlighting systemic failures and their long-term impact on health, functioning, and safety.