Being challenged in some way growing up has made me not fit into the molds that the system has had for me over the years. From a young age, it has taken people, including mostly my mother, to fight the system to ensure that I received the education, care, and treatment that I needed. She would be the advocate for me when there was no one to advocate for me or no one would take my needs into fruition. It was not until recently that I had revisited this in my past and had been grateful to my mother for being the voice that was many times the fly in the ointment that no one wanted to see or hear.

It started from being in a specialized preschool program and reality was that I was not ready to enter the public school at the expected time. At that time, there was a desire to have me placed at the Intermediate Units’ (what we call a regional education agency in Pennsylvania) school for severe disabilities at a local monastery. My mother had gone, observed, and determined instantly that it was not the place for me. She advocated for an additional year of specialized preschool and against the Intermediate Unit supervisor’s “better judgement,” I was allowed to remain.

School had been one of the constant places where my mother had to be the advocate. When there were issues with me, she pushed to have them addressed, fighting systems and old mechanisms to ensure that I had the same experiences as everyone else. When I was struggling and singled out for my differences, she stood up for me and clashed with educational staff even when there were things that were against the norm that needed to be tailored to my needs, my mother was the woman that the school feared because while she was diligent, tactful, and appropriate, she stood up for what I needed when the education system was failing me, even if it meant making foes of people, my needs were paramount.

One of the most grateful things that was advocated for was when I was being discharged from the residential treatment facility and returned to live with my parents. I attended school in a different school district that had a different grade alignment at that time. In my home school district, ninth graders attended junior high whereas I was in ninth grade in a four-year high school. Many knew that returning to the same junior high where I left with a plethora of issues the year prior would not be a good recipe so much that even an educator that I would later meet made it known that if I return to that same circle in my home district, the old behaviors would redevelop, thus leading to regression.

As much as it hurt my home district, they allowed me to finish the remainder of the school year at the other school district with the superintendent’s permission being granted even though they did not want to provide transportation. Thankfully, there was a four-lane expressway built a few years prior that connected my hometown to the road that was close to the high school that I was attending, making it a short journey.

It was even fighting the system and filing complaints to go against the decisions that were made to hinder the betterment of myself, keeping me away from my family by placing me on the other side of the state. I am grateful to my mother and one late worker for going places, touring them, and securing the residential treatment facility that I would eventually go to. It took my mother using her voice, filing countless paperwork, and reading countlessly to ensure that my needs were met, rights were wronged, and the law was followed.

It is essentially both my parents who have been my logic and voice when I could not see, standing up against what was unnatural and fighting for my rights to have what was needed to make me flourish as the person that I am today. I am grateful for their advocacy at a time when it was expected that parents just fell in line with what they were led to believe or were directed at. It is something for which I am always grateful.