How beautiful is your mermaid tail? | Sofia Righetti | TEDxVerona

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Sofia was born in 1988 in Negrar, near Verona. When she was 5 months old, she lost the ability to walk because of a bone marrow ischemia caused by a surgical complication. Graduated in philosophy of medicine, rock/metal player, model, national champion of ski, vegan and animal rights advocate, in this talk she explains to us how disability is a relative condition. It only becomes a disadvantage when there is no suitable environment around it.

Such a pretty girl, huh?

Ouch.

Such a pretty girl, too bad she…

I am almost certain
that somewhere in your head,

those were your exact words: "Too bad."

Well, I will prove to you
that life is a matter of editing.

Choosing to add
or take out a certain detail

changes the whole picture.

At least, that’s what it looks like.

There are one too many clichés
when it comes to disabled people.

For example, no matter what we do,

even the easiest, most trivial chore,
like going shopping,

becomes sort of epic
in the eyes of beholders.

This has gotten me
quite a few laughs over the years.

You may not know, but I'm also
a heavy metal guitar player.

Here I am, on stage,

with my cool guitar and my cool hair.

One night I was backstage,
waiting to go up and play with my band,

electric guitar in one hand,
and a drink in the other,

when this journalist comes up to me

and, trying to give a compliment
I suppose, he says:

“You must be very brave
to go on stage in your condition!”

I looked at him and replied,

“Hey, what conditions?
I am perfectly sober!”

I had no idea what he was talking about!

(Applause)

Another prejudice has to do
with my wheelchair.

I have lost count of the times I heard
people say, “Confined to a wheelchair.”

It appeals me how much ignorance
this sentence is infused with,

and how it increases
that very horrible sense of pity

we're trying to get over.

A wheelchair is an incredible
piece of equipment,

halfway between technology and design,
which allows you to go wherever you want,

to wear, to dance, to run,

even to wear five-inch heels
without fearing cobblestones.

There is nothing “confining” about it.

A wheelchair gives you the freedom
to move around the world,

it does not take it from you.

I guess you are now wondering
why I'm sitting on a wheelchair.

When I was five months old,

I was diagnosed with
a congenital heart condition.

I was not given much chance of survival,

so I had to undergo emergency surgery.

The heart surgery was a success,

and I quickly got healthy again.

However, during the procedure,
the doctors hadn’t noticed

that blood wasn't reaching my spinal cord.

The result was a bone marrow injury:

a very low one, thankfully,
but it took away my legs.

Yes, that was a medical accident.

Most of you may say:

“How unfortunate!”

Instead, I think of it
as a simple "collateral effect'"

of being healthy, alive,
and here with you today.

Back then, I was one of very few cases

when a spinal cord injury
occurs in a newborn.

Thanks to this, however,

nobody explained to me
what I could or couldn't do with my body.

So I simply learnt on my own
while I grew up, like all children do,

adapting the circumstances
to my abilities,

learning to take advantage

of all the potential
that my body could give,

and not being worried
about my limitations.

Don't get me started on how many times
I caused my parents goosebumps

when they found me climbing trees
or kitchen shelves.

From then on, my free spirit
and my eagerness to explore the world

have taken me far away.

Fresh out of high school
I moved to Bologna,

where I graduated in philosophy,

and I traveled far and wide in Europe,

sometimes with other people,
but more often by myself,

to festivals and concerts,

with the very goal of seeing new places,
meeting new people, and cities.

One day, my travels
took me to the mountains.

I met my latest challenge in 2012

when I tried skiing for the first time.

I had never done any sport before then,
mind you, and I did not even like sports.

But when I saw these
high-power carbon mono-skis,

that can get you to 120km per hour,

the speed I take on the highway

down by the steepest slopes,

balancing on a single ski,

I fell in love hard,

and I decided I was going to become
a professional Alpine skiing athlete.

This is me, and then it started,

a very challenging time of my life.

I used to wake up at six AM
to load my mono-ski in my car,

25 kilograms with one arm only,

since I was balancing on the other,

and I would drive almost two hours
to get to the ski slopes of Folgaria,

singing along to Motley Crue or Testament
to keep me company on the road.

Then I would train for three
to four hours between the poles,

and I would jump back in my car
and head back home.

Three times a week,
plus competition weekends,

no matter what the weather was like.

I faced storms, snow, fog,
freezing ice, sun, heat, whatever.

After as little as two years of training,

in March 2014, I was awarded the title
of Alpine Skiing National Champion

with a gold medal in Giant Slalom
and the silver in Slalom.

Not too bad for a girl

who was used to staying up
all night playing in clubs.

Anyway, I can’t deny
that life on a wheelchair

isn't always rock events,
parties and sport winnings.

Often, yes, but not always.

As it happens in everybody's life

there are also challenges
you have to confront.

One of mine came about when I was 13.

I found myself with a serious scoliosis
and two possibilities ahead of me.

I could either wear

a plastic orthopedic corset
all day, every single day,

until I was at least 20.

Or I could undergo a surgery
called 'posterior arthrodesis,'

where two metal bars are inserted
on both sides of your spine,

in order to support, extend and fix it.

It is not an easy procedure.

Your backbone is open
and you stay there, under the knife,

in general anesthesia for four hours,

with no certainty of a positive outcome.

OK. Great.

I had to make my choice. What do I do?

On the one hand,
I was literally scared to death

thinking that something bad
could happen during the procedure.

On the other hand,

I sure didn’t want to be stuck
with a crooked back

and a plastic corset
for the rest of my life.

But then I thought of something:
I thought of butterflies.

Butterflies are not born as such:
they start off as chrysalides.

Still, hiding in their cocoon
in the dark, clammed up.

I thought of how much strength
and courage those chrysalises must have

to break free from their cocoon

and reach the open air, finally free
to fly in their most beautiful form.

I did not want to stay
a chrysalis forever.

I also wanted to fly, I wanted
to make all of my colors shine.

So I decided to become a butterfly
and I gathered up all the strength I had

to break free from my cocoon,
and undergo surgery.

When I woke up, I had a straight back
and a new awareness:

I had become a butterfly, and nobody
would ever be able to break me.

Having a straight back again
made me feel more beautiful,

and admittedly, more self-confident.

You know, it is not easy to go unnoticed
when you sit on four wheels.

But instead of hiding away
or feeling uneasy

under all of the stares, I thought,

“OK, if people really can’t quit
looking at me when I pass by,

let them at least look at the most
beautiful thing they’ll ever see!”

Here is another cliché
on people with disabilities:

the ever so irreconcilable contrast
between disability and beauty.

This one time I went to see
an American rock band

and when the gig was over
the singer came after me,

looked me deep in the eyes and said

“You can’t be in a wheelchair!
You are so beautiful!”

Excuse me?!

That’s what our traditional iconography
taught us about people with disabilities.

We're losers.

Even Mattel,

in an attempt to include disabilities
in Barbie’s perfect world,

produced Becky, Barbie’s friend
on a wheelchair.

And this is what she looks like.

We can see:

Lumberjack shirt, long loose jeans,
trainers, and a wheelchair as old as time.

Quite different from Barbie:

sexy, blond, slender,
with her colorful makeup,

glitter micro tops, and high heels.

Sadly, people with disabilities
often tend to reject their own bodies,

or the parts that can’t work anymore,

or what is not considered to be normal.

In fact, more often than not,
we don’t even need a disability

to feel uncomfortable with our own bodies.

Let me tell you a story on this subject.

Do you know what mermaids are?

Mermaids are creatures
of exquisite beauty,

much beyond the ordinary.

For centuries, sailors and pirates
have hoped to see one.

These creatures of sublime femininity,

whose allure seduced
and caught any human being,

have a peculiar trait:

A sinuous fish tail in place of legs.

And thus they swim in their immense sea,

quick and lively.

There is a well-known tale

where a young mermaid
falls in love with a human prince

and chooses to give up
her tail and her voice

in exchange for legs,
so that she can seduce her prince.

Deprived of her most
important features, though,

and contrary to what Disney
would have us believe,

the young mermaid fails, and the prince
never falls in love with her.

Did you get what this means?

It means that the mermaid,

refusing the very feature

that made her wonderfully unique,

thus not expressing her true self,

she ended up grey, dull, uninteresting.

Normal.

I know for a fact that, had the prince
seen her for who she really was,

not only would he have
fallen in love with her,

he would have loved her tail too.

And here lies the secret
to a mermaid’s seductive power:

not only is she proud of her look
and her tail's look,

she celebrates it,
she makes it her strongest point.

And here lies the secret of seduction.

Loving yourself, your peculiarities,

anything that makes you
different and unique.

I also - thank you.

(Applause)

There was a time when I used to wonder
how my life could have been,

had I had a pair of strong legs
in place of my “tail."

But then I closed my eyes
and I realized that yes,

my legs would never allow me
to climb up stairs.

but they let me feel
the heat from the sun,

the sand and the grass between my toes.

I started loving my body
and every single part of it

and I was grateful for all that they
allowed me to do in this world.

I never saw my legs
as too skinny to be shown again,

because they are slender and light…

and I started to highlight them,

maybe with just a miniskirt or shorts.

I believed in this so much
that I became a model.

A disability, per se,
is neither good nor bad.

It is a physical feature.

We all have features that make us
stand out from the rest of the people.

A disability only becomes a handicap
in relation to the environment,

that is, when the environment
is not suitable for it.

We need to remove
architectural boundaries,

to enhance our technology,

to allow all people to express
their potential to the fullest.

Only then can we judge people
for who they are

and for their true merits,

instead of appreciating them
in a cheap, slightly pathetic way

just because of their disabilities.

Similarly, being sexy

has nothing to do
with any prearranged model.

It is all in the confidence that we have,

in feeling at ease
in our own skin and mind

and in transmitting all of this to others.

You need to be aware
of how wonderful your mermaid tail is.

Loving our details

will make us love those
of other people too,

all of those small or big peculiarities
that make us all unique and beautiful.

That's the only way for disabled people
to be seen as they are:

beautiful in our entirety
and in our full seductive potential.

Life is just a matter
of editing, of choices.

Choose to keep your details.

Thank you.

(Applause)