Self-Advocacy
What is self-advocacy?
Self-advocacy is the ability to speak up for youself. Advocating for yourself involves:
Being able to figure out what you need.
Being able to reach out and find resources and people that can help you meet those needs.
What makes self-advocacy difficult? How do you overcome the challenges?
Even the thought of self-advocating can be overwhelming and difficult with everything else going on in your life. There may have been experiences and difficulties that left you feeling unwanted, overlooked, or unworthy.
Those feelings are real, but that doesn’t mean that they are true. You matter, and you are worth the work it takes to learn how to speak up for yourself.
Learned helplessness is something that can get in the way of you being able to advocate for yourself, and is experienced when things happen that feel out of control. You might try to do different things to improve a situation. But if your efforts don't seem to help, you learn that you can't do anything to change your situation, and that can make you feel helpless.
When you experience different things, your brain builds pathways as it learns how to respond to different situations. This happens all the time, even if we don’t realize it or think about it that much.
Think about something that you do now, like eating with a fork or spoon. When you were younger, you didn’t know how to use utensils, but after having a lot of practice, using a fork/spoon probably feels like second nature and something you barely need to think about. That’s because through practice, your brain made a pathway telling you how to eat with a spoon or fork.
Sometimes, your brain tries to make you more comfortable by avoiding hard things. While this might be helpful in a moment, it hurts you in the long run because then you avoid hard things and might miss opportunities just because they are hard at the beginning. Your brain sometimes creates pathways that tell you not to do hard things, and the more you avoid them, the stronger that pathway becomes.
Because of how many difficult situations and circumstances have happened, your brain may not know how to respond, and when things keep changing and the people in your life keep changing, it’s really hard to know what to do.
How do I advocate for myself?
However, there is still hope. The brain can form new pathways. By building new habits, you can create new pathways. It's initially difficult, but as a new pathway forms, it becomes easier and can eventually become a routine. To change into the person you want to be, be consistent, persistent, and intentional. Adults may come and go, but you're always there for yourself. Persevere through difficulties and do the hard work to change for the better. Set goals, share them, research, and take action to achieve them. Though it is a journey, every successful journey begins with a single step.