I Sit With My Grief. I Mother It. I Hold Its Small, Hot Hand. I Don’t Say, Shhh. I Don’t Say, It

I do not want to be sick. I am sick and want to be taken seriously. There's a difference.

That trauma survivor feeling when you wake up from a nightmare that was a memory and it fucking clings to your bones like a maladaptive koala

Alright I’m curious, how much make-up do people use normally in their day to day life, for example, when you open almost any YouTube video or shorts, there are people getting for school, dates etc. with layers and layers of makeup and tbh I’m not sure how much of that is actually true

I hate how abusive parents love to imply that you know nothing about the 'real world', as if they're sheltering you and protecting you from the big evil out there, so you're 'naive and innocent' and don't know how bad it is outside, but what they're really 'sheltering' you from are survival skills and vital knowledge of how to function in the world! They sure are not sheltering you from evil! They're not sheltering you from abuse! They're not sheltering you from cruelty and violence and apathy in the face of suffering! They're not sheltering you from how it feels to be unprotected and isolated in an environment in dangerous individuals! You have all possible experiences of that! You have intimate and extended knowledge of that! You even know how to survive living with them! But self care and taxes, that is the gatekept information. God forbid you know how to live independently.

“And I don’t think anybody should feel bad if they get diagnosed with a mental illness, ’cause it’s just information about you that helps you to know how to take better care of yourself.

“Being bipolar, there’s nothing wrong with it. Being bipolar is like not knowing how to swim. It might be embarrassing to tell people, and it might be hard to take you certain places. But they have arm floaties. And if you just take your arm floaties, you can go wherever the hell you want.

“And I know some of you are like, ‘But Taylor, what if people judge me for taking arm floaties?’ Well, those people don’t care if you live or die, so maybe who cares? Maybe fuck those people a little. I don’t know.”

Taylor Tomlinson, Look At You (2022)

I'm getting back to a level of chronically ill where I'm like "wow I am actually very seriously sick all the time and not able to manage and facing the possibility of an incredibly drastic surgery" and I really really don't like it. I'm just over here hurtling towards the point of no return, preparing to have a huge organ removed from my body but having to suffer with it for the next 5 months while I wait for referrals, and I'm just tired and scared and sick.

Something that drives me fucking crazy is when I have trouble with word finding or remembering something, then explain it's just a brain injury problem, and the person responds by saying something like "oh I'm the exact same way!"

You're not the exact same way, if you can read without technology assistance, if you can hold a job, if you can stay verbal 100% of the time, if you don't have to wear an emergency bracelet with your husband's phone number on it any time you leave the house without him, if you can drive a car, etc. It's not the fucking same, stop being an invalidating tool.

This was my 4th Christmas without my mother. Every year, I am struck by how much of a fucking relief it is. I was told by so many people that I would regret my decision, that I would miss her, that "she's your mom and you only get one."

I don't miss her. My life has been objectively better without her.

I miss believing I had a mom who loved me, but that started a long time before I cut her out.

I don't miss the panic I felt seeing her name on my caller id. I don't miss her manipulation. I don't miss her parentifying me. I don't miss the burden of caring for her in her old age looming over my head like a fucking guillotine. I don't miss her guilt or her lies or her abuse.

I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I feel free.