storytelling soup ♡

a life story isn’t linear. this is mine, unpacked in parts.

[jadedgenasi]

I've seen this before, but it's been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn't need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.

[ancientorigins]

Survivors of Black Death Passed on Genetic Risk to Autoimmune Disease

We may have a lot more to thank (or curse) our ancestors for than we realize. When the Black Death or the bubonic plague swept through Europ

Genetic mutations which helped people survive the Black Death in medieval times, are actually linked to a higher risk of autoimmune diseases in modern humans, claims an unprecedented study of DNA sourced from ancient skeletons.

[sentientsoup]

Where do you turn when you feel like the triggers are coming from all sides?

Healing hurts.

Help hurts.

Support stings.

Silence sucks.

It’s hard to be broken but I’m trying anyway.

[sentientsoup]

sometimes I think my mind must have a lost trauma drawer; a lot like my lost sock drawer.

sometimes when it wants a little something ✨unexpected ✨ it just whips out a long forgotten trauma and sprinkles it over my brain like confetti.

[sentientsoup]

I just keep thinking about how the things that I love most are deeply threaded through my trauma

and

i can’t always make sense of it

[sentientsoup]

I don’t know how to be openly disabled when I’ve tried to hide it for so long, but I never knew how to be healthy either. I faked it okay, I guess, but it always came back to bite me in the ass.

[sentientsoup]

I didn’t know that

I could say no

or that boundaries matter

when I’m talking to myself.

Ableism isn’t something that’s happened to me much from other people (except my family), because I was subjecting myself to it so ruthlessly that no one else got the chance. I tortured myself into compliance with societal participation. Keeping up with, taking part in, achieving for …

only to fail myself as I fell into frustration and lost my sense of self to it all.

[sentientsoup]

“oh, that” I say, nervous laughter trickling between the syllables, “I’m just very anxious.”

they watch me, steady and curious, down the frame of the camera.

waiting.

i hold my breath and wonder what will come next and open my mouth to begin again; i need to fill the wondering with words or thoughts or — anything but emptiness when

they take a gentle breath.

a soft smile.

i can’t decide if it’s patronising or patient.

“have you considered you might have adhd?”

the moment, and the words, expand and contract my reality.

the idea folds in on itself once. twice.

then it bursts.

i shake my head because no. i never considered it.

the learning disability nurse smiles then, and this time I know it’s kind, “maybe we could consider it together then.”

[sentientsoup]

have you ever heard the story of a butterfly’s metamorphosis? Of what happens between their caterpillar and butterfly form?

within that chrysalis, they liquify.

their bodies, thoughts, hopes, dreams and memories are reduced to the shape of becoming.

of becoming.

I’m becoming.

I am soup, sentient soup.

And this is my story.

[sentientsoup]

i am a 33 year old American woman and I have been living with a disability since I was born.

this disability has impacted my life every day since I was 13.

i almost lost my life to it at 17 and again at 24.

but I didn’t know I was disabled, I refused to identify as disabled, until last week when the British government explicitly asked me about one of my conditions in a standard disability screening. Then, they asked about another.

In a standard screening, 3 of my conditions were listed by name.

I am properly disabled, and disabled enough to identify as such.

So why didn’t I?

Ableism.

Medical poverty.

Fear.

Gaslighting.

American Dream culture.

but none of those things made me LESS disabled. they simply made me feel alone.