It’s Not You. It’s the System.

At some point, you might start to believe it’s you.

That creeping doubt, the self-questioning, the quiet voice inside that asks, What if I am the problem? That’s not an accident. That is what the system wants. 

What I’ve learned through lived experience, through heartbreak, through relentless advocacy, is that when you speak up against injustice, the process is designed to break you. Not always loudly. Sometimes it's in the silences, the delays, the dismissals. Sometimes it's in the polite tone masking condescension, or the empty promises that lead nowhere. It is subtle and not so subtle. It is systemic and strategic.

The system is smart. It knows how to protect itself. It will consult with lawyers, cite policy, and hide behind carefully crafted procedures. It will use its power to delay, deflect, and deny in calculated and deliberate ways. 

You will question everything. You will replay every email, every meeting, and every decision. You will lose sleep wondering if you misread something, if you overreacted, if you were too much. You will feel alone. You will be made to feel like a problem that needs fixing.

This is not your failure.
This is their design.

The education system protects itself at all costs. It does not stop to examine the damage it leaves behind. It simply steps over the wreckage. Children excluded, families exhausted, educators silenced. Blaming the victim is not an exception; it is standard operating procedure.

But here’s what I know now.
I was not the problem.
And neither are you.

I’ve had to step back to see it clearly. I had to pull myself out of the narrative that told me to be quieter and more compliant. And when I did, I was overwhelmed by the truth. This system has done the same thing to countless children. It has made them feel broken for needing support. It has convinced them they are too much, too difficult, not worth the effort. It has repeatedly sent the message that the problem is them, instead of the environment that refuses to change.

How many children have been tossed aside by a system that decided they were too inconvenient to accommodate? How many have internalized the message that they are the problem? That their needs are too much, their behavior too disruptive, their very existence too difficult to support?

This is not just about exclusion from classrooms. It’s about the erosion of identity. When students are continually told to mask, comply, or change who they are just to be allowed to stay, they begin to believe they are broken. They begin to feel unworthy of belonging. The damage is deep and long-lasting. It shapes how they see themselves, how they engage with learning, and how they move through the world.

This is the harm of ableism dressed up as “normalcy.” It’s the trauma of being repeatedly told, in words or in silence, that you don’t belong unless you can fit in.

This is why we must keep speaking. Even when it shakes us. Even when we doubt everything. Even when we’re exhausted. Even when it feels like we are the only ones left still fighting.

Because it was never you. It was never your child.

And the more we speak this truth out loud, the harder it becomes for the system to hide behind the illusion of equity. It is our voices, together, that expose the truth. It is our refusal to be silent that begins to shift the weight of power.