I’m not F**king Brave

Just to set the record straight, I’m not brave, okay?

I live with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) and relapse-and-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). I can’t count the number of people who have called me brave. I always smile and nod when they say this, but the truth is that bravery has nothing to do with it.

I was born with CP and have lived with it all my life. I am in some kind of pain twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are some days that are more manageable, where it’s at a low-level hum running underneath my skin. Other days, the CP is extremely active. The spasms change their position in my body from day to day; there’s no rhyme or reason to it.

The MS is on the other side of the spectrum. I have symptoms that come and go and when they return, they are…