My Enemy Is the Helplessness I Feel; Not My CP

 “One of the worst feelings is feeling helplessness. To realize that in certain situations you’re totally and completely powerless. That you gotta roll with the hard punches life will throw.” —Amitesh Kumar

Someone backs up and bumps into me in the hallway. I teeter sideways.

I’m walking in PE and I’m on my knees on the gym floor before I can even register what happened. 

I try to step off the curb but fall to my knees on the sidewalk. 

I attempt to run and play with my classmates at recess and end up on the grassy ground instead.

What do all of these have in common? I fall down, yes, and the tripping and falling is due to my cerebral palsy, yes—but more than that is the engulfing feeling of helplessness that overwhelms me in each scenario.

At some point I realized that I wasn’t “normal”—or like most other kids. There were rare occasions when a kid would bump into something and fall down, or trip over an obstacle in their way. But there weren’t many times where people tripped over what seemed like air.

I thought that as I got older, the falling would stop. My knees were pretty much always cut and scraped. When I was little, I feel like my falling didn’t matter so much because all little kids get into accidents. Also when I was little, I was shorter, so I didn’t fall from very high. 

But the falling hasn’t stopped. And falling has almost become more emotionally draining than physically draining for me. 

Most of the time, I fall frequently when my legs have the most spasticity—or basically, when my hamstrings are more tight. My muscles have more spasticity when I have a growth spurt. I can’t really predict when I’m going to fall. It takes me completely by surprise, which is why I feel so helpless when it happens.

I don’t have a lot of confidence. I tend to look down at the ground a lot. (For some reason I feel like if I make eye contact with people while passing them in a hallway, it’s like I’m challenging them.) I’ve tried to look up more lately because my posture had been causing problems with the nerves in my neck and arms. Looking up means that I don’t watch my feet, and that means I trip and fall frequently.

One of the worst falls I can remember is when I tripped going off the curb on the way to my mom’s car. I felt so helpless because the teacher on duty had to help me up and carry my bag to the car. I felt like a five-year-old who can’t carry her own stuff.

More recently, I fell during theatre rehearsal, which interrupted the scene. Interrupting the scene turned out not to be that big of a deal, but I still felt really bad about it. After a minute, I was able to stand up by myself, but I limped backstage and had to sit down.

Falls are really embarrassing. Not many fourteen-year-olds fall down frequently. At some point, I thought I would get used to the feeling, but I never have. There’s a brief moment in time when I don’t yet realize that I’m about to fall. I don’t really feel the weight of the tightness of my legs, or the drag of my feet. It is actually a freeing feeling, but in the millisecond after that, I realize that I’m going to fall down.

There is barely time for me to think before my body (usually my knees or occasionally a hip) slams into the ground. The impact usually takes my breath away. The pain is what I react to first. Unfortunately, I make a noise most of the time because it hurts so badly. When I fell during theatre rehearsal, I clutched my knee, in the middle of the stage, while trying to scoot out of the way.

Then the embarrassment hits. I usually think to myself, I hate my legs, as I force myself to my feet. I usually want to pretend that I’m someone else—someone who doesn’t fall constantly.

The pain isn’t really a big deal for me in the grand scheme of things. I am in pain every day. It’s the helplessness that sweeps me up, the self-hatred that chokes me. I’ll never get used to the impact or the feelings that come with the fall. I don’t want to be viewed as fragile—by myself or by others. I don’t have control over that, though.

All I can really do when I fall is make sure I get up and keep trying. CP might knock me down, but it won’t triumph over me for long. 

Learning To Trust Others and Act Like Myself in Theatre

 “Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding yourself in there.”—Meryl Streep

Theatre has always been a somewhat complicated hobby for me. I’ve always loved it—but most of the time I let people hold me back from truly embracing myself and my role as an actress. Having cerebral palsy does make doing theatre more complicated. Generally, I am used to modifying things, making things work with my challenges, but there was and is an emotional aspect between my CP and the roles I have been given. I always want to do my best in everything, no matter what. But sometimes I feel as though I can’t give the character the full personality, the movements and gestures, that it deserves because of the lack of ability in my legs. Other times, I feel like other people’s perceptions of cerebral palsy prevent them from giving me a chance as an actress.

My first production was about pirates. I was young and maybe—probably—naïve, which isn’t always bad. The drama teacher told us that the pirate characters were going to be based on personalities. I was the youngest in the class and unbelievably excited. Even at a young age, I liked exploring characters’ personalities and what made them tick. 

That’s when another girl in the class said, “Ainsley’s character should be clumsy and off-balance ‘cause she trips and falls a lot.”

 I was dejected. I didn’t completely understand what I was feeling at the time, but I did understand that my disability, though it is a part of me, was and is not my personality. My parents expressed that to me all the time. Everyone else in the class laughed and emphatically agreed, while I stared at my shoes. 

I was trying to act and do my best and transform myself into someone else temporarily—maybe for once I didn’t have to be the girl who needed help with everything, the girl who walked funny and didn’t have any friends. I didn’t always want to be that person. 

As much as I try to embrace who I am, it’s hard dealing with the fact that I have a permanent disability that causes me emotional and physical pain. Sometimes I hate my legs. I don’t like falling down all the time. All of my classmates thought that my CP summed up all I could be—the girl who was clumsy.

I told myself that not everyone was like that. I told myself that there were people who would give me a chance to show what I could do, would give me a chance to do what all theatre lovers want to do—act.

Determined, I auditioned for my school’s Talented Theatre program. I was thrilled that I made it. Theatre class was not what I had hoped. The environment was cliquish. The other girls in the class giggled and whispered when the teacher was talking, and they never spoke to me. It was like they sensed, somehow, that I was different.

When I was in fourth grade, the Talented Theatre program decided to put on a play called Happily Ever After. I was excited because I loved fairytales. I was cast as Doc, the lovable elderly dwarf from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I was happy about it at first—until a girl in my class said, “Ainsley’s perfect for the role! She already walks like an old person.” 

I didn’t know what to think. Was I just picked for roles because I had cerebral palsy? That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter, because I had fun playing Doc. But it did matter. I wanted to portray different imperfections. I didn’t want to always play people who were old and clumsy. I am a young person, and I want the opportunity to portray characters from all walks of life.

From that point on, I decided (subconsciously, because I didn’t even realize I was doing it) to hide my CP, at least while doing theatre. I wasn’t trying to be dishonest; hiding cerebral palsy seemed to be the only way I could try to make friends in theatre and be seen onstage for something other than my limitations.

Although my cerebral palsy generally is considered mild—I can speak and walk—hiding CP quickly proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Choreography (the movements and blocking of the characters onstage) is a big part of theatre and usually requires a series of quick, often complex movements. I couldn’t and still can’t quite move fast enough to blend in with the rest of the ensemble. I stick out onstage because my movements are too slow, or a beat too late. 

Often, I got trampled because I didn’t respond to my onstage cue quickly enough, and everyone else rushed through the backstage curtain. I decided that for the time being, moving quickly was more important than my safety. 

And that brings me to ninth grade, where my hopes of hiding CP during theatre to be accepted and not underestimated as an actress ended with a resounding thud—namely, my knees slamming into the stage floor.

In hindsight, my castmates probably realized I was different long before that moment. A staircase leads to the stage, and I need help on the stairs. I have falling anxiety, which means that I have a fear of falling down. (That is a little ironic, because there was a time in eighth grade where I would fall twice a week, on average.) But I’ve never gotten used to falling down, and it’s always been an embarrassing experience for me. For the first few week of ninth grade, my theater teacher would help me up the stairs. It was fairly awkward—as much as I appreciated her help, I hated the fact that I had to bother her to ask for help. There was and is a part of me that believes that I should be able to climb the stairs by myself. Because my feet rotate inwards as I climb the stairs, though, I’m very likely to trip, so doing the stairs by myself is not always an option. 

And then my classmates started to help me. I was incredibly grateful. None of my classmates in past years had ever really tried to help me before. I was pleasantly surprised that my classmates were being so nice and accepting. They were all older than me, so I guess I thought that they would be mean. (I have not had the best experiences with some people.) However, I started to make friends in theatre! Everyone was extremely kind. I was hesitant, waiting to see if there was a catch. I knew I would do something weird, and then that would be the end of my friendships. I’m so happy to say I was wrong. 

Then came a potential obstacle—I was cast in a scene in which I had to run. I loved the play we were going to perform—called Peter and the Starcatcher, the show is the prequel to Peter Pan. The first time we rehearsed the scene, I attempted to speed-walk. I wasn’t quite fast enough, though. So I decided to just get onstage as quickly as I possibly could. 

That decision resulted in me face-planting onstage. I was really embarrassed, but all my classmates were asking me if I was okay. I apologized for messing up the scene, but everyone was very reassuring. No one seemed to think it was funny that I had fallen, but no one thought that I wasn’t capable, either. I was happily surprised. I was pretty sure that I’d hurt the ligaments inside of my knee as I limped offstage, but then I realized that the fall hadn’t been all bad. Not even close.

Because of my fall, I realized that what I had were true friends—who didn’t want me to fall, but would be there to help me and comfort me if I did. Yes, we were all actors, but when it came down to it, they cared more about my well-being than if I messed up the scene. My theatre friends were somewhat aware that I was different, and it was okay with them. They never acted like I was a burden, just their friend.

In the end, I wanted what all actors and actresses want—a chance to act. I’m able to act now. I don’t have to hide a part of myself in order to do that anymore. Maybe I never did—I just needed the right people in theatre and in my life. 

In theatre, I am accepted for who I am. I have amazing friends who are so helpful and see past my CP, which is a big part of me but a part that in no way defines me. I don’t have to act like someone I’m not in order to be accepted. I can just be myself, no matter if I struggle sometimes. Because even if I struggle, I have friends who will support me, and the show will go on.