an excerpt from my poetry book
— “scribbles in my notepad” is a poetry book about quarter life crisis and adulting and other thoughts that got you scribbling on your notepad
when the job interviewer asked if i know how to edit photos but i speak it like it's my 3rd language (i'm still bilingual btw despite having 1500+ streak on duolingo). when they asked how many years of editing experience i have but i just know how to edit before i even learn how to write my own name in cursive. then they asked if i can edit both on a computer and a smartphone but i started editing using a nokia keypad phone. asking me how i learn how to edit is like asking how i learned how to eat. it's in my bloodstream. it's the air i breathe. i live love laugh edit. i was born in the right generation. i am meant to have a pizap and picsart and vsco phase the way tigers are always meant to eat meat. it's just innate. we're conjoined twins. i can cut off ties with people but i can never cut editing off my life. but am i good at it? that's the question. are fishes good at swimming? hire me to unlock full potential.
At 12, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. I started wearing a back brace when I was 13. I was in the middle of 6th grade when I first started wearing my brace. I only wore it at school until I graduated elementary and never wore it again outside unless I'm going for check ups, xrays, or physical therapy sessions.
But that shouldn't be the case. I was advised to wear my brace for 23 hours max a day until I turned 18, and I didn't follow that. It might be easy for you to say why can't I just follow what the doctor says so I could be cured. The thing is, there is no cure for scoliosis. Everything we do about it—check ups and therapies—are all for prevention so my current condition won't worsen. Why didn't I follow it? Nobody talked about the burden of having scoliosis. People only see it as extreme back pain leading to bad posture, but it's not just that. If It's not just avoiding slouching to fix my posture, it's also avoiding being bigger than your current size and trying not to be taller than your current height because your brace won't fit you anymore and you'll have to pay another thousands for a customized back brace because it’s so hard to find one that is your exact size. It's not just physical, it also affects you mentally and emotionally and financially. Not just taking your money, but it would cost you a lot of your time and your energy and the wasted opportunities and cutting your ties with the world.
When I was first diagnosed, I needed regular check ups at least twice a year with regular therapy sessions at least twice a week. That set up affected my academics which caused me to leave the class earlier than my actual dismissal time whenever I have physical therapy sessions. When I started wearing a brace, the bullying got worse. People only see me as someone wearing metal covering my body who took a half day every other school day. They literally called me names such as "half day" and "iron man". Looking back, those are funny nicknames. Mentally, I would give myself a nickname as someone whose outfit costs 30k a day (that's the approximate amount of my brace afaik or idk srsly i’m just here for trauma dumping not sharing our budget plan) and being that expensive kind of made me feel like a VIP. But that's not my mindset before.
As a kid, I was already bullied even before being diagnosed. School was a nightmare, and I will forever stand by this opinion. I wore big jackets in hopes to hide my brace but it just became more obvious and grabbed more attention. Hence, more teasing and being a laughingstock. Until I started not wearing it outside the comfort of my house. After school hours, I immediately hid in the bedroom whenever I needed to wear the brace I should be wearing all day. I never took photos whenever wearing it because I hated myself with it. It made my already low self-esteem plummet to completely zero. No pictures, no proof that I was a loser. I isolated myself from everyone, bedrotting in my brace that is either too hot or too cold (because metal is a conductor of heat if y'all don't know basic science) for me to handle, fighting internal battles that I’ll take on to people around who do nothing but care for me.
Looking back, I kind of regret it. I wish I had taken a lot of pictures and videos to document my growth. I kind of regret being embarrassed by it. The one who should be embarrassed are the people making fun of other's conditions. I should embrace my condition the way my brace embraced me throughout my teenage years when nobody else did. I should thank it because it's the only one who was with me in my downs but I disregard it in my ups. I am not the person that I am today without it. I would not write my gut-wrenching poetry collection if it weren't for the people who hurt me (yes I'm promoting my newly published book “scribbles in my notepad” that you can also see in the video because if not me, who willl?), doesn’t mean I forgive them. Call me immature or whatever but I will never forgive the people who made my scoliosis journey harder than it already was and I wish them nothing but worse.
So now, in honor of scoliosis awareness month that I didn't even know existed but it should be talked about, I made this short visual film or whatever you call things that bored unemployed people do. I stopped wearing my brace since I was 20-ish but I wore it again for this and it felt weird. Happy scoliosis awareness month! 🩻💚
“Giving someone a second chance is giving yourself one. If you want something you've never had, then you're gonna have to do something you've never done.”
– Principal Woodsy, Heartbreak High 3
“Some things are out of our control. But what is in our control is our ability to support one another and ensure that we do not allow fear to keep us from experiencing something that could be truly special.”
— Eloise Bridgerton (Bridgerton Season 4 Episode 8)
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner