As many of you know, I just returned from Orange County, California from the 14th International Fragile X Conference. It was an AWESOME experience was once again. It's always so good to see my Fragile X Community/Family. Especially my close friends who I don't get to see all the time and see each other every 2 years and catching up with them. Hoping to change that in the future.
This was my 4th conference attending, although I've been to other conferences and had awesome experiences there as well. Saturday night after telling everyone goodbye and giving hugs and riding the elevator by myself and going to my room, I had a chance to think and just sit down and soak it all in. The experience that I had at this conference was unlike any other experience like at the other conferences. It really hit me and I realized what my role is in this whole journey and it's to be a self-advocate and to talk and share about your journey with others and how you cope with that journey and help each other out and be there for everyone.
Also being on the female panel this time really hit me too, so many people came up to me told me what an inspiration Iam and what an awesome and amazing person Iam and all of these other things and parents in tears after our talk and the parents telling us what an awesome job we did and how touched they are by our lives and etc. and how brave we are getting up there and talking about our lives.
I'm just in awe about all the feed back that I've gotten at the conference and all of the complements as well.
I do have say that I enjoyed the self-advocate sessions a lot. I got a lot out of them and I didn't feel bored at this conference at all. It gave me a chance to connect with other self-advocates and meet others with Fragile X. I learned some tips on how to deal with my anxiety and learned some breathing techniques to help calm myself down when I'm anxious.
Overall, I had a great experience and looking forward to the next one in San Antonio in 2016.
