What I Wish People Understood About Growing Up in a Wheelchair

Atif in his first wheelchair, 1987

I was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma when I was an infant. Doctors saved my life, but the treatment left me paralyzed. By the time I was old enough to remember anything, I was already in a wheelchair. So while a lot of people think of disability as something that happens to you and changes your life, for me, the wheelchair was never really a "before and after" story. It was just the only life I knew.

That doesn't mean it was simple.

The separation nobody talks about

One of the hardest parts of growing up in a wheelchair wasn't the wheelchair itself. It was the way it quietly separated me from everyone else, especially since I was typically one of the only people in a wheelchair around me, even when no one meant for it to.

When I was young, I was placed in special education programs, away from my peers, more often than I can count. On paper, it probably looked like the right call — accommodations, safety, support. But from where I sat, it felt like exclusion. Like I was being sorted into a different category of kid before I'd even had the chance to show anyone who I was.

I want people to understand that inclusion isn't just about physical access — ramps, wide doorways, accessible bathrooms. Those matter. But the deeper barrier is often social. It's being kept at arm's length "for your own good," and slowly absorbing the message that you don't quite belong in the room with everyone else. It was also difficult because I was already very shy and it was hard for me to make friends.

Confidence isn't automatic — it's built

People sometimes assume that because I'm a wheelchair tennis athlete now, competing at a high level, confidence must have come easily to me. It didn't.

I dealt with real feelings of inadequacy for years. Between the surgeries — I had four major back surgeries over eleven years just to correct spinal curvature — and the sense of being different from everyone around me, confidence wasn't something I woke up with. It was something I had to build, piece by piece, usually through experiences that forced me outside my comfort zone.

The clearest example was my internship at the White House. I was 3,000 miles from home, navigating a new city in a wheelchair, doubting whether I belonged there at all. But I went anyway. And it turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my life — not because the self-doubt disappeared, but because I did it while the doubt was still there.

Community played a huge role too. Finding other athletes in wheelchair tennis — people who understood the daily realities I was navigating without needing an explanation — gave me a kind of confidence that willpower alone couldn't. There's a difference between pushing through something alone and pushing through it alongside people who've been there. That's part of why I care so much about creating spaces, whether on a court or in a room I'm speaking to, where people don't have to explain themselves to be understood.

What I'd want someone to know

If there's one thing I wish more people understood, it's this: growing up with a disability doesn't mean growing up broken, or waiting to be fixed, or needing to be handled carefully. It means growing up navigating a world that wasn't built with you in mind — and finding your own way through it anyway.

The surgeries, the separate programs, the moments of feeling like an outsider — those things were real, and they were hard. But they didn't define me. What defined me was what I did with them: the fortitude I built, the connections I made, and eventually, the story I get to share on stages with students and organizations who are working through their own versions of feeling different.

That's the message I bring with me now, whether I'm on the tennis court or in front of an audience: what makes you different doesn't have to be what holds you back. It can be the very thing that makes you strong.

Atif Moon is a professional wheelchair tennis athlete, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. To book Atif for your school, organization, or event, get in touch here.