I'm just me

I've had Charcot-Marie-Tooth my whole life, but once I officially found out I had it I felt like was a different person; I wanted to be normal again. I've heard "Ignorance is Bliss," and in this case I really felt like that. Maybe if I never found out it'd just disappear, and I wouldn't be forced to cope with it and eventually accept it. Only recently have I seemed to realize that I never became a different person, that I've always been me, and that's all I'll ever be.

Throughout the last few years, whenever I'm going to be around a new group of people (like in a new school) who don't know me or my physical history, I promise myself that I won't let them find out and change how they think of me. CMT will NOT define me, I say.

And yet somehow I always end up telling people, and they end up finding out many details about my "adventures." Do I let CMT define me with these people? No. CMT will never and has never defined me, but it has helped to make me the person I am today and is an important part of who I am. If someone is really going to know me, then they should know my CMT too, a very intimate part of me.