“You can’t do that,” four words that I have heard too many times and from too many people in my life. From family to friends, to teachers, to providers of both physical and mental healthcare those four words have been thrown around since I was a small child. At first, it was my kindergarten teacher telling my parents I wasn’t “smart enough” to go onto first grade, and for the first and only time my parents told the teachers to shove it and I advanced to first grade anyway. I took my first set of standardized tests and scored in the 96th percentile in all subjects, and for the first time, neurodivergence was considered. However, my loneliness and isolation for being the “weird” kid who read in the corner; preferred the company of Librarians; my dogs and cats; who had a strong sense of social justice, so much so that I spoke out all over the state for LGBTQIA+ youth rights, would persist into adulthood. The lightbulbs didn’t magically go off in people’s heads about my having unrecognized ADHD and high masking and functioning autism spectrum disorder, but when the later-in-life diagnosis came, all those unexplained “quirks” suddenly made perfect sense. However, that was not to be the end to my one of these things is not like the others. I would survive a head injury that would have ended the life of someone without Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), my neck muscles, tendons, and even spinal cord stretched rather than breaking; I may have ended up with a TBI, lost 6 months of memory, and developed epilepsy, but I survived what should have killed me in an instant. EDS, however, is not my friend 99% of the time, it is the bane of my existence and a source of constant pain and mobility issues. I’ve had six surgeries due to EDS, and I will have more as I age and things break down, the arthritis is already setting in, and eventually, a wheelchair will become a permanent part of my daily life rather than injury-specific. Because of the multiple physical and mental health diagnoses I have had a multipurpose service dog since 2008, and I have turned education and advocacy about service dogs into one of my social work passions. For my state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, I organized and spoken on a panel with other social workers and the state’s human rights commission about service dogs, and I’m putting an abstract in for the state conference with another social worker on animal assisted therapy and service dogs. I will be working on figuring out how to strengthen protection laws for service dogs, as I have lost two to being attacked while working by pet dogs in public access to service dogs-only places. Protecting service dog teams is a big issue not being addressed right now. My disabilities have led me to become a master’s level clinical provider for LGTBQIA+, neurodivergent, and disabled clients, sometimes the easiest way to connect with a client who has been traumatized by the mental health system like many neurodivergent people have, is through shared experience. Last, being told “You can’t do that,” has turned me into a policy champion for social workers in the state, by advocating in multiple ways for legislature that supports social workers in my state to do their jobs. My friends and social workers who know me are beginning to know that wherever there is a minority that needs a champion, you will find me with music, sarcasm, and a smile.