Unfiltered Resilience: Dawn Olson's Journey

I threw a pizza party for my caregivers. That’s it. Just pizza and some time together outside of our usual routine. My agency’s response? My caregivers were told they couldn’t contact me outside their shifts, and one of them was taken off my care. In this episode I’m talking about personal care attendants, the people who help me shower, get dressed, and get positioned so I can actually sleep at ni...

Most people get on a plane and worry about legroom. I get on a plane and hand over my legs. When I fly, my wheelchair goes under the plane with the luggage. And my chair is not a bag. It is how I move through the world. So every time I watch it get wheeled away at the gate, there is this moment of here we go, hoping it comes back in one piece. It has been broken before. It has been lost before. On...

This is the finale. A heads up before you start: this one goes to harder places than the last. We talk about children being punished, secluded, and shamed, and about what happened inside institutions. If that's close to home for you today, it's completely okay to skip this one or come back to it later. When I was a little girl, my mother gave me a piece of gum before she left the school wh...

Today is a first for me. I have never interviewed anyone on this podcast before, and I will be honest with you, I was nervous. Now that it is done, I am really proud of myself. My guest is Karyn Harvey, a psychologist who has spent about 40 years working alongside people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. That is her resume. Who she is to me is a friend, a mentor, and the person who...

Last week I told you the story — the school, the piece of gum, the dark room. This week I want to take you somewhere quieter. This is the part I don't usually say out loud. What it's actually like to carry this. How it came rushing back the first night I spent in a nursing home, decades later, until it felt like I was four years old again being left behind. How a presentation about Holocau...

This is a hard one for me to share, and I want to be honest about that upfront. I was born with cerebral palsy in 1959. When I was four years old, my parents were told the best place for me was a school a hundred and eighty miles from home — so that's where they left me. Back then, that's what parents of disabled children were encouraged to do. So this is my story, but it isn't only mi...

I didn't know much about service animals going into this one. Not the cost, not the training, not what it actually takes for someone to get one. I'll be honest about that upfront. I also want to tell you about a moment I'm not proud of — passing a woman in a grocery store with a small dog in her cart, hearing her say it was her service animal, and quietly wondering why. I had to catch...

Most people hear the word "transportation" and think of buses and schedules. I hear it and think of freedom. Or the lack of it. In this episode I talk about what accessible transportation actually means for people with disabilities — and what it costs when the system fails. I tell you about an ADA meeting where my mom started keeping a tally of how many times the directors said "can...

In my last episode, I talked about the word "can't" — that earthquake feeling when a system slams the door in your face. Today I want to talk about the complete opposite. Two words that have opened more doors in my life than almost anything else: just try. In this episode I share what those words actually feel like — not the logic of it, but the feeling. The sunrise. The light at the...

"We can't do that." I have heard those words more times than I can count — in transportation meetings, in therapy rooms, from systems that were supposed to help me. And every single time, it lights a fire in me. In this episode, I get honest about the word "can't" — what it feels like, what it really means, and why I believe most "can'ts" are just "wo...

A year ago, I almost didn't do this. I thought a podcast was too much. That I didn't have enough to say. That nobody would want to listen to one more person share their story. I was terrified — and honestly, I almost let that fear win. I'm glad I didn't. Unfiltered Resilience is officially over a year old, and in this anniversary episode, I want to be honest with you about somethin...

Last episode, I told you about the reality of living with cerebral palsy and trying to stay in my own home — the 30% gross income rule, the attorney I hired, and the hope that didn't pan out. This episode is the next chapter. This is what happens after the hope runs out and you keep fighting anyway. I'm pulling back the curtain on what navigating the Medicaid system actually looks like fro...

This isn’t about awareness anymore. Last month, we talked about why visibility matters. Why speaking up matters. Why making noise matters. And I meant all of that. But this episode is about what comes after that. Because awareness without action doesn’t change anything. This is the reality behind the ribbon. In this episode, I’m walking you through what it actually costs to live independently as y...

March was CP Awareness Month — and today I'm making sure it doesn't pass quietly. In this episode, I'm getting personal about what cerebral palsy truly means in my daily life: the spasticity that takes over my whole body, the learning disabilities nobody sees, and a story involving 911, a locksmith, and my bare behind that I've never forgotten. I'm also celebrating three things...

Sometimes the most powerful thing someone can do is simply see potential in you—and say it out loud. In this deeply personal episode of Unfiltered Resilience , Dawn reflects on the women who didn’t just influence her life, but truly shaped it. In honor of International Women’s Month, she shares the story of Dr. Carlson—a woman who quietly defied every expectation placed on her—and the lasting impa...

Winter in North Dakota isn't just cold. It's 30 below, blizzards every weekend, and windows buried under snow kind of cold. In this episode, I'm getting real about what winter actually looks like when you navigate the world in a power wheelchair. Blocked curb cuts, caregiver worries, a patio door frozen completely shut, and a cat who blames me personally for all of it. I'm sharing...

Last time, we talked about grief — not just from death, but from all kinds of loss. Today, I want to talk about what helped me carry it. For most of my life, I didn’t even know that what I was carrying had a name. I thought I was too emotional. Too much. The problem. I believed that if I had been better, quieter, less difficult… things would have been different. But they weren’t different because...

In this episode of Unfiltered Resilience , Dawn Olson opens up about a kind of grief that often goes unnamed—and unvalidated. Not just the grief of losing people, but the grief of losing abilities, independence, privacy, spontaneity, identity, and versions of ourselves we once knew. Through deeply personal reflections—on caregiving, physical decline, anticipatory grief, and the quiet heartbreak of...

As we step into 2026, I’m feeling a mix of excitement and fear, and I wanted to be honest about that with you. In this episode of Unfiltered Resilience , I’m talking about what this new year is bringing up for me: setting boundaries, finding my voice, and learning how to take up space without apologising for it. I share some personal stories that shaped how I see myself, including moments where I’...

This week on Unfiltered Resilience , I’m reflecting on something I didn’t even realize until I sat down to prepare for this episode—I’ve been teaching a disability studies class for fifteen years. In this episode, I share what the class looks like, why perspective matters, and how we walk students through the full lifespan of disability—from history and education to employment, parenting, and end-...

In this episode of Unfiltered Resilience , I take you with me through the Thanksgivings that shaped me — the ones spent at the Ann Carlson School, the few treasured trips home, the makeshift celebrations with chosen family, and the quiet holidays that look different as life and abilities change. These stories aren’t just about Thanksgiving. They’re about how all of us, disabled or not, learn to ad...

Disability Awareness Month may have ended, but the reality behind the statistics hasn’t. In this episode of Unfiltered Resilience , Dawn Olson goes deeper into why awareness alone will never be enough — because right now, she’s living the consequences of a system that wasn’t built to support disabled people as they age, work, or try to stay independent. Dawn shares her personal case study in real...

“Awareness Isn’t Enough: What Disability Employment Really Looks Like” Disability Employment Awareness Month may be over, but the work isn’t. In this episode of Unfiltered Resilience , Dawn Olson gets real about what “awareness” actually means—and why it’s not enough. From outdated laws to the fear of losing benefits, Dawn shares her own experiences navigating employment as a person with a disabil...

Welcome back to Unfiltered Resilience . Today, I want to talk about something universal yet rarely explored — aging, and what it means to age with a disability. For many of us, independence isn’t just a goal; it’s part of who we are. But as our bodies change, that definition begins to shift. In this episode, I reflect on how assistive devices — like walkers and wheelchairs — are often misunderstoo...

Welcome back to Unfiltered Resilience. Today’s episode is deeply personal — and yet, it’s one that many families will recognise. We’re talking about diagnosis day — that pivotal moment when a label is given, and everything you thought you knew about the future suddenly shifts. This episode was inspired by a classroom story from a parent — and by my own mother’s experience when she first learned ab...