The Story I was Afraid to Tell - Sydney Anne Bennett

Sharing Your Disability Story When You're Not Sure Anyone Will Care

I wrote my first story when I was six years old. I was too little to spell most of the words, so I told my mom the story and she wrote it down for me. It was about a little bear who wanders into the woods and gets lost. I illustrated the pages with colored pencils and stuck the whole thing in a three-ring binder—back when people still used those.

I always wanted to be a writer. When I got lost, words would come find me. Late at night, in journals, companions of insomnia, and later of pain, grief, and loss. Nothing made sense until I wrote it down.

So when I became disabled at the age of twenty-two, I did the only thing I knew how to do with that much pain: I wrote.

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Pain kept me awake at night, so my fingers tapped the keyboard keys, twinges and needles pricking through my body: tiny insect stings, ant-stilettos tap-dancing across my skin, muscles, and nerves. Maybe you know that kind too.

I never intended for anyone to read those pages. They were just for me. It took weeks before I found the courage to type the word disabled even to myself.

I didn't want a cane but I needed one. I searched online for someone, anyone, who looked like me: a young person with a mobility aid. I found Selma Blair. A cane didn't look like a medical device in Selma's hands. It looked like style. Finesse. Beauty. Bravery. I wanted to be like that.

When I got my first cane (which I promptly named Jeeves) I took a couple of pictures and started sharing my thoughts online.

At the time, I almost didn't think my story was important enough to tell. I knew people who were suffering much more than I was. People who had more dramatic diagnoses, harder treatments, bigger obstacles. Sometimes the question still persists: who am I to talk about it?

But I think that's just another thing many of us share, that we think we're all alone in. We worry about complaining. We worry about being misunderstood. We worry about being too much. I never thought my words would get very far, but people resonate with pain.

If you live with a specific kind of suffering—disability, chronic illness, a neurological disorder, a genetic condition—it can be isolating in ways that are hard to explain. You start to wonder if anyone else experiences the strange symptoms you do, the awkward moments, the invisible grief that comes with a body that struggles to live.

Finding someone who shares your vulnerability is life-giving. The more I gave small pieces of my story, the more people gave theirs to me. What began as a few slightly ashamed posts quickly became an abundant and genuine community. Within a year, more than 10,000 people had joined the conversation. Five years later, that number is approaching 300,000.

But the numbers are not really the point.

The thing that really mattered were the messages: "I thought I was the only one."

If you have endured—or are enduring—a certain kind of suffering, and you wonder if you should share it, that might be a sign that you really should. That question mark in your mind, lingering over your silent thoughts and feelings and isolation, isn't something you feel unless you have something to say.

Don't worry about being clever. Or inspiring. Or even original.

You simply have to tell the truth.

The moments you think you alone struggle through—the strange symptoms, the embarrassing realities, the complicated emotions—are often the very moments that allow someone else to feel seen.

Share the moments you think you alone experience and you may find dozens—maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe millions—of people who experience them too.

The book came naturally from those early works. Those insomniac scribblings. The posts I thought no one would read.

When HarperCollins Christian Publishing asked me what my first story was, I told them about the little bear that got lost in the woods.

That's where it all began. Maybe where it is right now.

My life wandered off the path I thought it was supposed to take. I've been tramping through the mud for a while now, and it's getting dark. I feel alone. But you're here too.

So if you are wondering whether your story matters, let me offer one encouragement: Don't despise small beginnings.

Tell the truth about your life. Get specific with your honesty. Tell it plainly, boldly (or shyly), and imperfectly. Write it for just one person. Write it for yourself.

That's really all it is—books, writing, storytelling. It's simply telling the truth to one person. And then hitting Post.

Author Bio:

Sydney Anne Bennett is a writer, disability advocate, and speaker who helps people struggling with chronic illness and pain find confidence and hope again—while pointing them to Jesus.

Two weeks after her honeymoon, Sydney became disabled and was later diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition that disrupts the brain's ability to send correct signals to the body. She experiences daily seizures, chronic pain, and mobility loss—and often uses a wheelchair.

In 2022, Sydney began sharing her story on Instagram as a way of processing grief, faith, and the strange in-between of being both young and disabled. Today, she encourages a global audience of over 300,000 people with honesty, humor, and hope that leans hard on Jesus. She lives in Idaho with her husband, Colton, and their two daughters, Hadassah and Felicity. Her new book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken, releases April 28^th, 2026.

@theanne.girl on IG

Photograph by Sydney Anne Bennett. Used with permission.

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