the weasels that live in my brain

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

[the-memedaddy]

Meirl

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

He's guarding me from the scary dishwasher

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

My anxiety weasels have had so much fun this year. Pandemic plus permanent illness = weasel party. Thanks to my excellent head shrinker, meds and making these comics, I've gotten better at wrangling the little jerks. We're buds for life though. Managing the fibro is almost a full time job with my energy levels what they are. There's so many things! Appointments, research & reading, food, remembering what pills to take when, trying (mostly failing) to do this mindfulness stuff, attempting to get proper sleep and stick to a routine (and often failing), etc. It's taken a long time and a lot of frustration but I'm finally at a place where I have a few good hours in the day to do other stuff. I woke up at 9 am the other day without an alarm and it was basically like winning the fibro Olympics.

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

Project Mystery Illness Part 2It was months, almost a whole year (not counting the 16 years before of pain doctors couldn't figure out) of doctor's appointments, tests, waiting around, feeling crap for mysterious reasons. 

Then my specialist hit a wall with the tests: everything had came back normal. So his working theory is fibromyalgia. I'm not even sure if it's a proper diagnosis. But there's a label now and that's something. 

One of my pet peeves this year has been doctor's telling me I should take 'brisk walks' Part of it is the word brisk. Who says 'I'm going out for a brisk walk?' Mostly it's because I used to walk everywhere all the time! I would love to be able to go for proper walks and not feel crap afterwards. But, sure, briskly walking around the block is going to fix everything. Cool beans.

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

Last year I started the process of figuring out what my mystery illness is. It's been.. an experience. So I made a comic about it. This is part 1 of 3.The first theory my doctor came up was: it's just anxiety. I reckon anxiety is the new hysteria, the old wandering womb syndrome repackaged for the modern world. I like to imagine that my uterus is going travelling. Good for her.

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

so that’s what happened to my memory... 

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

Thanks, universe

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

Stuttering & Biden

There’s a lot to celebrate about the defeat of Orange Voldemort, but the fact that a country’s President has a stutter made me cry.

Until now I’ve mostly tried to hide the fact that I have a stutter. It’s much better than it was in childhood, but it’s still there — showing up at the worst times, of course. Since it started in kindergarten, I’ve felt ashamed and wanted nothing more to be able to speak normally. I’ve done every I can think of to hide it. I have all kinds of verbal tricks to downplay it. I avoid situations where I know I’ll stutter even though I’d actually like to participate. I use humour to deflect attention from it. I make myself small so fewer people notice. I couldn’t watch the King’s Speech for the second hand embarrassment, and it annoyed me that so many people told me to watch it. I couldn’t stand anything stuttering related. Like Biden said, it felt like being sucked into a black hole.

And now that seems ridiculous. Why should I be embarrassed about something I didn’t choose and can’t control?

All the things that people have mocked Biden for (stupidity, cognitive problems, unfitness for his job, etc etc) are the things that I’ve always been worried people will think of me. I internalized the rotten things people say about stutterers. And that turned into not feeling worthy of jobs that required me to speak, turning down opportunities, and not pursuing goals.

Sometimes I have a hard time saying my own name -- easily the worst part of having a stutter and something I didn't know until yesterday was a thing that happened to other stutterers.  About half the time that happens, some comedic genius pipes up: “uh oh, did you forget your name?

”It’s always the exact same joke. And instead of saying ‘it's a stutter’ and/or giving them the cold hard stare they deserve, I gather up and swallow all the discomfort and embarrassment of the situation, and I join him (it’s usually a him) in mocking myself. Ha ha, yeah, I’m really that stupid, sorry it’s been a long day, my brain doesn’t work. Once I mocked myself in front of thirty people when a tour guide made The Joke.

Well. No more of that nonsense. Biden becoming president has inspired me to be open and unapologetic about my stutter. Shame feeds on secrecy, and I’m going to starve it. To anyone who mocks a person for the way they speak, or any other difference — all you’re doing is showing us that you are weak. Shut up. 

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]

it’s only been winter for 4 days and i’m already over it

[theweaselsthatliveinmybrain]