Early on in my freshman year of college, I met a young woman who used a wheelchair as well. She was so outgoing and confident in herself. And I, on the other hand, was still struggling; letting my disability get in the way of who I am, or at least who I wanted to be. When I was comfortable, I expressed that to her. She said something like, “Girl, you just gotta act like you own it, you’re the queen, and your wheelchair is the chariot.” I didn’t understand that yet, but I’m so grateful she said that.

Not to rehash my whole story about my wheelchair transition in high school, but there were specific moments where I felt like a burden or an inconvenience for having a disability. Like when people pushed me to a class out of their way, or drove me somewhere where they had to take apart my wheelchair. Some people even complained about it, and that put me down even more. I’m just grateful that I had (and still do 🙂 ) high school friends who helped and supported me through everything.

Once I graduated I basically told myself, Okay you’re done with the people who give you so much negativity for something you can’t control. You need to put them behind you. And so that’s what I did, but my only problem then was I still didn’t work on myself.

Fresh start at college, I’m gonna be a whole lot better at this, right? Hah.

This time, it wasn’t only my disability, it was all of me. In my freshman year, some of the individuals in my social group belittled me, and that brought out more of my insecurities. By the end of that year, I hit my lowest emotional point. I not only lost what I thought were friendships and felt betrayed, but I believed a lot of their hurtful remarks myself.

“The way people treat you is a statement of who they are as a human being. It’s not a statement about you.”

I understand now that freshman year only amplified how I felt internally about myself in high school. This was only a push to truly want to work on myself.

That summer before sophomore year, I dedicated myself to a lil “self-love journey” (sounds cheesy but that’s what I called it). I started going to the gym a lot – helped me relieve a lot of anger, I deleted my sad playlists because I was exhausted of being sad all the time, I took a bit of a social media cleanse, and I even had my first job at Apple – which emotionally helped me so much more than anybody really knew because engaging with customers and coworkers made me feel wholesome again. Oh and it’s not like I magically flipped an emotional switch or anything, there were still many breakdowns and constant reassurances of nothing being wrong with me or my disability.

My sophomore and junior year was not totally easy sailing but I felt so much better about myself and where I was going in life – and aahhhh i still can’t believe that I’m going to be a senior and I can’t wait for school to start again!! A couple friends and I even came up with the Adriana rule for parties/events. Oh, what’s the Adriana rule you ask?? The Adriana rule: the party doesn’t start until Adriana gets there! 😉

In the end, I learned to love myself entirely; to call myself beautiful when I look in the mirror (to my good friends, now you know why I’m so cocky all the time lol), to advocate for myself especially when I’m not treated the way I like, and to not let anyone or anything determine my happiness again. And finally, I learned how to be the queen in her chariot – thanks girl, you know who you are.