MOUTH TO HAND LEARNING CENTER

10/15/2024 1 Comment

More Than Disabled

I know that people see us as weird and that makes them uncomfortable. I find that it hurts me now more than it used to. I gave it thought over these last few days to try to sort out my own feelings. I think it’s because I see myself differently. Before spelling, I saw myself as completely disabled. Now I see myself as a twenty-four year old college student who happens to talk by typing. I am disabled, of course, but I don’t think that’s all I am, nor do I think I am wholly defined by it.

So when people act awkwardly around me, to me it means that they see nothing but my disability. They do not see the Tyler beneath it. And that hurts because I am so much more than my inability to speak. I am full of love and curiosity. I am full of desire to learn and have fun. I am full of knowledge and compassion and loyalty. So when people reduce me to nothing more than autism, it hurts.

We are not just our disability.

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10/8/2024 0 Comments

The Relativity of Time

Happy birthday to Judy! It’s funny listening to my Mom and Judy talk about the way time flies. They get lessons on relativity by having birthdays. My Mom and Judy get relativity simply by having the years move more and more quickly.

It’s true that time does seem to speed up the older you get. It doesn’t seem to me to be three years since I first started spelling. It doesn’t seem to be three years since I met Judy. And I find that time seems to speed by even more when I am busy. I am incredibly busy these days, so the days seem to whiz by. I am already halfway through my first college semester.

I’m delighted by all the wonderful things in my life, but even I, at only 24, understand that time feels relative. It is in what I call the time-space continuum that I compare a day now to a day when I was in school. That seemed to last a year.

Anyway, I believe that years are what you make of them. I am making good use of my time now. And I am very happy to share my time with Judy. We have an amazing time together. And time together feels like the most precious gift of all.

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10/1/2024 0 Comments

Three Years

My three year anniversary of spelling is this week. I am feeling very emotional about it. So much has changed in these three years. I feel like having a party. I am thinking about being a nonspeller versus being a speller: so much is better now.

Three years ago I was suffering in school, being treated like a moron. I had never talked to anyone, including my brother, Trevor, who also could not talk back then. I had no hope for a meaningful life, no friends, no education. The world was bleak.

Today everything is different. I am in college now, and I have hope. I have friends. I can talk to my family, my friends, doctors, etc. I am getting educated, and making up for lost time. I am being a light for others in the nonspeaking community through my advocacy work.

I am getting teared up writing this; everything is so much better. I believe in myself now, and that is a gift.

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9/24/2024 4 Comments

Shocked

I am considering my life a lot these days. I started college a couple of weeks ago. If someone had said, “Tyler, you will start college in the fall” a few years ago, I would have thought they were insane.

I am definitely feeling shocked a lot these days.

I am involved in so many great activities. I am in poetry and a book club. I am writing a blog now, and have written and published poetry and stories. I have interest in advocacy, and work for the Spellers and Allies Advocacy Network. I am interested in so many things, and feel like I can finally pursue them.

I am happy in my life now, which is miraculous to me, after so many years of suffering. I am excited to wake up every morning and to see what the day will bring.