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elizabethridsdale

Cerebral Palsy and Mental Health Challenges: A link that is often missed, but always important

Updated: Oct 30

In this heartfelt blog, Elizabeth from our Customer Service team shares her personal journey with cerebral palsy and the unexpected mental health challenges she faced as a teenager. Reflecting on her experiences, Elizabeth discusses the importance of addressing both the physical and mental impacts of CP and highlights the power of community and support. Through her story, she encourages others to speak up when they notice someone struggling, reminding us that sometimes, reaching out can make all the difference.

 

By the time I reached my later teenage years, I was well accustomed to living with my cerebral palsy (CP). It wasn’t always comfortable or convenient, so it annoyed me a fair bit, but I knew what my everyday routine consisted of and was slowly learning to work around the physical challenges that CP presented.

 

What came as more of a surprise however, especially as a child of the late 90s and early 2000s, were the mental health challenges that seemed to appear out of nowhere when I was 17.


Flute practice after surgery

The Overlooked Impact of Mental Health

I was in Year 10, taking the first of my VCE subjects a year early, and life was busy with lots of extracurricular music, weekends helping my family on our farm and ever-present exercises and trips to the physio. To anyone looking in, including teachers and my family, my life was pretty good.

 

Before that day, when I found myself simply unable to get out of bed with symptoms that I would later come to recognise as depression and anxiety, my assumption had always been that CP’s impacts on me were purely physical.

 

The treatment I received from a team of doctors, surgeons and physiotherapists over many years seemingly made the same assumption. There wasn’t a lot of awareness about mental health, and even less education, even for those who were considered to have the utmost expertise in cerebral palsy.


"Despite spending many weeks in hospital and rehabilitation appointments throughout my childhood and adolescence, I don’t ever recall being asked how I was feeling."

It heartens me to know now that approaches and interventions for the emerging generation of children and young people living with disabilities or chronic illnesses are seemingly far more holistic.

 

I didn’t initially recognise my experience as the beginning of a significant mental health challenge, and nor did those around me. Of course, as I now look back having received support for my mental health and qualified as a Mental Health First Aider, things make a lot more sense.




With work colleagues

The Hidden Struggles Behind CP

 

My cerebral palsy didn’t cause my mental health challenges, but that I developed them is really no surprise when you consider what growing up with CP meant for me: repeated surgeries and grueling periods of rehabilitation that didn’t leave much room for a regular school life and meant many rites of passage that happened within the school gates were also off limits as they weren’t physically accessible; PE classes, school sports teams, the yearly dinner dance and most school camps to name a few.

 

Repeated medical intervention, despite positive outcomes, compounded my anxiety to the point that simply walking into a medical setting made me queasy and gave me a feeling of dread. I still hate the smell of hospital hand wash and disinfectant for the same reason.

 

Despite the care and support of my teachers and family, such isolation, plus both the fear and the reality of missing out left me without a consistent friendship group and increasingly lonely. I became a target for our year level bully.

 

I threw myself very seriously into academic work and music studies, in part as an attempt to patch over my inner misery and keep control over some parts of my life. I kept producing good work and grades that gave my teachers no reason to think that anything was wrong. Looking back, it is easy to see why my struggles were missed. I was fighting a relentless inner battle, but I don’t think you would have known it to look at me.

 

The Journey to Mental Health Support

In reality, coming to a consistently better place with my mental health took a change of schools, professional support, and later, a lot of work to come to terms with my lifelong identity as a woman with disability.

 

I often describe my realisation that the impacts of CP were going to continue into adulthood as like being dragged kicking and screaming into reality. No matter how hard I worked or how much physio I did, I would still have cerebral palsy.

 

My real introduction to the cerebral palsy community came through Instagram content creators with CP.


"The more I read and watched the stories they shared about life with cerebral palsy, the less alone and othered I felt, and the more my experiences were validated."

I started to actively seek information about mental health, how I came to have CP and the different ways it affects the body. Turns out it impacts much more than just mobility. I came to understand things that I had always wondered about, like why I hate loud noises and sudden movement and why I so often feel on edge and anxious about new situations. For me, this knowledge is power, and helps me to be a better advocate still today.


Riding at home on the farm

Finding community: Feeling seen and heard

Living in a regional area as I did, there wasn’t a lot of access to in-person support for those with disabilities, and I didn’t even know about CPSN!

 

Joining the CPSN community has changed my life and given me not only a group of friends and colleagues that I share lived experience with, but a way to put that lived experience, however difficult it has been, to work supporting others. I now embrace my disabled identity, and the future looks bright.

 

As I prepared to leave my long-time high school for a new school, one of my teachers said,

“I noticed that you weren’t your old self, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

My experience demonstrates how easily mental health challenges can be missed for those living with disabilities. If you notice that someone isn’t quite their old self, please say something. It means they don’t have to carry it alone and could mean that they get the help they need. This means everything.

 

 

 

Looking for support?


We’re always here to support you or refer you to the right support—reach out via our hotline by calling 03 9478 1001.


CPSN is not a crisis support or counselling service for people struggling with Mental Health.


If you need professional support in relation to mental health, please contact your doctor, local health centre or one of the services listed below:


  • Lifeline 13 11 14 24/7 -  Support for anyone having a personal crisis

  • Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 - Phone and online counselling for people aged 5–25.

  • Beyond Blue 1300 22 46 36 - 24/7 Mental health support

  • QLife 1800 184 527 - LGBTQI+ support

  • SANE Australia 1800 187 263 - Support for people or friends/family of someone with

    complex mental health

  • Mensline 1300 78 99 78 - for men with emotional health and relationship concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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