The Memoir Of Ms. Butterfly

Hi, my name is Erika M. Santana
My brother & I were born on 09/04/81

Besides being the youngest of four older siblings, we were born with cerebral palsy, which meant that our brain didn‘t get enough oxygen to many different parts of our minds during childbirth.

I have always been told that I was the most vigorous twin out of my brother & me because I didn’t need so many machines to keep me alive; unlike my brother, he needed a lot more assistance keeping himself in check. Anyone reading this must keep in mind that my twin and I were born at two a half pounds each.

As our life counties, I realized that I wasn’t the strongest out of the twins anymore, and our family is from a different country from the United States; our family did the best they could do with our disability.

Whatever else was unfamiliar to us as a family, we tried our very best to learn as we kept going so our family could make the right decisions for my brother and me.

This is me

I‘m someone who needs someone from the time my eyes pop open for the simple things that most people take for granted: getting up and getting into my wheelchair alone.

I entered the bathroom and washed my Purse because my hands were not strong enough to scrub her down the way she deserves. Imagine a grown-assertion doing number# two and then having someone wiping them because they can’t do themselves in life. That’s only a tiny part of my crazy life.

Dressing me is a lot of fun, too, because the only thing I can do is decide what I’m going to wear, while others get me dressed as if I was a newborn. Yes, I can brush my teeth and food myself, depending on my hands themselves.

I want people to understand that I’m not too fond of the relationship I have with food because if I get fat, no one will want to help me if I allow myself to enjoy eating the way everyone else does.

Food is a control thing for me. After all, it’s the only thing I can decide because everything else in my life is a dictatorship.

Now that I have listed all my crazy negatives, let me see if I can list some positive things that I can or have done for myself.
I‘m smart and not afraid to learn new things, whether in a book or life.

I love opening myself on paper if my sentence structure can sometimes make no sense because missing words is a lot of the time. After all, my head can be a little faster than my hands.

I have also managed to fall head over heels in love with some fantastic people who have taught me so much about myself.

Despite my physical limitations, I engaged in my first sexual experience at 21 with someone who saw me as a person, not my chair.

I also had the willpower to become someone’s wife, even though the whole world was against my decision because my marriage was going to fail. Of course, people will assume I regret my decision with a failed marriage, but I don’t because I did it myself.

My limitations have never defined me because I know I am more than the wheels I use as my legs. I’m a human being first.

Ms. Butterfly Genesis