“WHEELCHAIR RAPUNZEL” ALEX DACY SHARES IMPORTANT MESSAGE ABOUT NORMALISING OUR INABILITIES

Alex Dacy (Photo: @wheelchair_rapunzel/Instagram)

Influencer, entrepreneur, podcaster and founder of Wheelchair Rapunzel Alex Dacy has shared an important message about normalising the stuff we can’t do – and it’s something everyone needs to read.

The 26-year-old from Chicago who has spinal muscular atrophy type 2, a neuromuscular disorder that leads to muscle decay, has posted a video of her “jiggling thighs” on Instagram.

“My body has very limited movement, so moving in the ways I can feels reinvigorating,” she begins.

“It’s so cool…how the body moves. How each body moves differently. How each body has a different ability or inability of movement.,” Alex continues.

“There’s this thing that disabled people get told a lot: focus on the ability,” she says, explaining that this is in fact gaslighting a lot of people who are disabled, “because it implies that our ‘abilities’ should be the focal point.”

 

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A post shared by Alex Dacy ♡ (@wheelchair_rapunzel) on Sep 7, 2020 at 10:41am PDT

“I CAN’T walk,” she writes. “And that’s okay.”

Alex’s post points out that “it’s not sad. Or pitiful. It just is the facts,” like someone who might not be able to cook very well.

“We need to normalise talking about our inabilities because we all have them.”

What Alex is doing by urging her 102,000 followers, disabled or not, to also share the things they can’t do, is celebrating how perfectly valid it is to have inabilities – a message that is so rare in the world of media, beauty and fashion.

Her post is a reminder that we can accept ourselves, as we are. That we don’t have to hide the things we can’t do. And that it’s perfectly okay to be different.

And there’s nothing more beautiful than that.

Please check out Alex’s work at @wheelchair_rapunzel on Instagram…

And her shop which stocks clothes with inclusive messages on them…

Plus we love her “Sponsor A Tee” program where you can ‘pay it forward’ and buy an item of clothing from her collection for someone who can’t afford it.