Women Living with Disability: Monica

Name: Monica Foster
Bio: Monica is a Life Beyond Limits Coach for veterans and others with disabilities. She is Chief Motivational Officer for BUTTERFLYWHEEL Motivation Advocacy & Consulting where she also writes, speaks and presents disability awareness trainings
Website: http://www.butterflywheel.com

1. What is your disability or chronic medical condition? How does it affect you both generally and on a daily basis?

I have spina bifida from birth and am a recent left above knee amputee due to a life-threatening infection in my left leg that began as a non-healing pressure sore in my left foot. I am a full-time wheelchair user, but I am full steam ahead independent. I drive both an adapted car with wheelchair topper and full-size adapted van.

2. Do you consider yourself “disabled”? Do other people see you as “disabled”?

I’m a vibrant, independent woman on wheels. My husband and those who know and love me see me as a whole person. What others think doesn’t matter all that much, but I thrive on widening open minds and cracking open closed ones in terms of how they view disability

3. Do people treat you differently or unfairly because of your disability/condition? How so? Can you give an example(s)?

I have been talked down to like I’m a child. I’ve been spoken to loudly as if I had a hearing impairment. My legs don’t work. My ears are just fine. I have been told I was just too darn pretty to be in a wheelchair as if the wheelchair marred my appearance. I don’t think the wheels detract from my appearance at all. My disability is just another part of me like my hair color, eye color, height and other natural attributes. My husband and I are sometimes looked at as if we both have a disability because the obvious misconception is that only people with disabilities want to be with others with disabilities. He’s also been complimented for “taking care of me” when we have a 50-50 marriage. I take care of him in my own way, as he does me. I’ve been complimented that it’s so wonderful that I found a man as if my wheelchair were a deterent to finding a life mate.

4. If you could tell the world one thing about what it’s like to live with your disability/condition, what would it be?

I would have to say that living with a disability is like any other life situation we adapt ourselves to. We adapt to job changes, life changes and relationship changes. That’s what humans were made to do, to adapt. I’m not saying having a disability is the easiest thing in the world to adapt to if it’s a new experience for you, but if you turn off the negative self-talk and the negative misperceptions of society and just take it moment by moment, you’ll be surprised just how well you can live and how much of the world you are able to experience. Do we still have a ways to go in terms of civil rights and accessibility, as well as people’s misperceptions about what we can or cannot achieve? Of course we do! But we also have a ways to go in learning to accept ourselves as whole people in our own right. It starts inside ourselves before we can teach others around us that we are worthy and able.

5. What do you like about living with your disability/condition?

I love that my disability affords people the opportunity to start a conversation about how I get around in the world, about civil rights and accessibility issues. I enjoy the opportunity to turn well-meaning, but wrong comments into a way to teach people the right way to perceive people with disabilities…as people just like them, who happen to maybe go about things in life a little bit differently than they do. We want the same things in all facets of life, but it may take a little creativity and a different method to achieve our goals.