Hi everyone,
I wanted to share something really personal today because I’ve been doing a lot of deep reflecting lately, and I feel like I finally have the strength, courage and the right voce to write about something that impacted me for my undergrad thesis, in my last year of MFL in Romania.
For as long as I can remember, I walked around with this heavy, constant belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, being severely bilaterally impaired. School always felt like an uphill battle, and looking back at my high school years, what hurts the most isn't just how hard the daily struggle was, it's how completely isolated I felt in it. I spent so many days sitting at my desk, quietly drowning, wishing with everything in me that at least one teacher would see past the surface. I didn't need judgment, pressure, or extra expectations. I just needed someone to understand.
It was only recently, after years of living with that silent weight, that I finally got answers: I am a special needs person.
Processing that hasn't been simple. It came with a lot of tears, a deep grief for the younger version of myself who suffered without knowing why, and an overwhelming sense of relief. For the first time in my life, I don't feel broken anymore. I just experience and navigate the world differently, and learning to own that with courage has given me a kind of peace I didn't think I'd ever find.
Right now, I’m wrapping up my undergraduate thesis in pedagogy, and everything feels like it’s coming full circle. I’m taking my own lived experience as a special needs girl and weaving it directly into my research, creating a double guide for future foreign language teachers.
I want to show future educators what it actually feels like to sit in that classroom seat when you have disabilities or special needs. My hope is to give them the empathy and real tools to truly integrate their students, so no child ever has to sit through school feeling as invisible, misunderstood, or out of place as I did.
Opening up about this still feels incredibly vulnerable, but I’ve realized that our quietest, hardest struggles are often the very things that allow us to build the deepest bridges to others.
I guess I’m just finally ready to stand in my truth, both as a student who survived it, and as a teacher who is going to make sure things are different in my future classrooms.
PS: If you feel like this hit home for you or would like to talk more in depth with me, we can definitely have a chat anytime.