My name isn’t actually Jacob Barrett, and I don’t have Cerebral Palsy. I’m really Jamaican Gold medal winning sprinter Usain Bolt. Had you fooled, right?
No, just kidding.
I really am Jacob Barrett, disabled college student from New Hampshire.
Walking is overrated anyway.
I make fun of myself a lot, in a many different ways, to numerous people, anywhere, any time of day. I don’t do it to offend people, or do degrade myself or anyone in a similar situation as me.
I make those jokes to lighten the mood.
Kendall Pope/ Managing Executive Editor
I’m in a tough spot. I’ll be the first to tell you that it sucks not being able to do the things I see my friends do. I want to be able to run in the woods, go hiking, play football and dance with my own two feet instead of my walker.
Due to a series of unfortunate events, that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
Instead of dwelling on that fact, and at times I still do, I make people laugh about it.
It’s kind of like, what I do.
What’s going on with my body is a part of who I am and how people see me.
So, it’s only natural that it becomes a part of my personality too.
In the past, I used to sit and dwell on what seemed like a life trapped in a prison with no date for release. I doubted I’d even get parole. There’s nothing funny about that.
Life was just a cycle of getting up, going to school, going home, watching TV and going to bed again.
All of this while trying to avoid interactions with most of the people that I passed by throughout the day.
People would smile and laugh and I’d sit there and grimace.
They weren’t laughing at me, but somehow I thought they were.
I’d often ask myself why those people were laughing. What was so funny?
When people would come up to me, I’d be somewhat put off and, because of that, my social interactions were staggered and strained.
I’d think they were constantly thinking about my disability, but maybe that’s because that’s what I was thinking about too.
This made conversations less fulfilling not just for me, but for my peers as well.
The fact of the matter was that my social skills or lack thereof were not derived from my disability, but from my view of myself because of my disability.
I don’t know when the switch flipped, but one day I came out from under my rock and started talking, cracking jokes with my classmates.
A lot of them were shocked when I came into class late one day, for no particular reason, and when the teacher asked why I hadn’t been in class for the first 15 minutes, I calmly replied with a smile that I had fallen and couldn’t get up and had left my LifeAlert in my other walker.
Which wasn’t true in any way. I just wanted a cookie from our school store.
Everybody laughed. It felt great. People saw that I was comfortable in my own skin, and things began to change for the better.
As I said before, I’m don’t make these jokes to poke fun at anyone other than myself.
It’s a coping mechanism, and a way to make people realize that despite my struggle, I’m just like everybody else.
This doesn’t just go for me, but for everyone. I’ve found that if you’re not comfortable with yourself and with your flaws the people around you probably won’t be comfortable around you either.
That doesn’t mean your flaws are necessarily bad, but it does mean that you’re letting your flaws be bad. If there’s something about you that you don’t like, try to do something about it.
If you can’t, then own it. Make it a part of what’s unique about you, not what’s wrong with you. You’ll be a lot happier that way.
In my case, smiling in a wheelchair is a lot better than frowning in a wheelchair.
Walking is overrated anyway.
Jacob Barret can be contacted at jbarret@kscequinox.com
