My Life my Way: The Power of Stability in Everyday Life

August 12, 2024 | by sau1admin

As part of a community, we all want to feel stable in our place within the community. This is true whether you experience disability or not. When asked what stability means to them, self advocates said, “Changes to my life are made only with my permission and input. The people around me do ‘nothing about me without me.’ They plan with me to meet my needs, now and for the future.”

As people, we all have a desire to live our life the way we want. Stability is important for everyone to feel safe and at peace within their own life. The difference between the general population and the disability community is that we may require help to make the choices and decisions that are best for us. We ask that people respect those choices and help us to make the choice that is best for our life. We want to be involved in the decisions that affect our lives even if we do need support to make those decisions. Respecting the fact that we want to have a stable and fulfilling life is essential for us to live our lives the way we want.

We have a saying in the disability community, “nothing about us without us.” All of the values we have talked about so far, stability included, highlight the fact that we want to control our own lives. Even if we need support to make our choices, it is important to us that we are involved in making those choices as they affect us just as much as our support team. We ask that you support our vision for our everyday life and let us be a part of bringing that vision to life. Only when these values are respected can we begin to live our lives our way. Thank you for educating yourself on these values to spread acceptance and awareness statewide.