“I’m Not an Inspiration! I Work Too Hard to Even Be Called Sick! I Am So Productive!"

Am I this way because I am this way… Or am I this way because I’ve learned how to hide from bullies?

Read this first, then scroll to the bottom to watch the full video with my eldest and I, if a Word Nerd (supportive reader)!

THANK YOU to those helping this independent memoirist continue to work by upgrading to paid (which also helps my goal of gifting this every-weekday-writing-world to anyone who asks for a reading scholarship, no questions asked)

Am I this way because I am this way….

Or am I this way because I’ve learned how to hide from bullies? 

“Inspirational” used to mean what it means. 

Now, it’s how we make sick or disabled or ‘different’ people feel sh*tty for existing “in the light”, even if that person tap dances as fast as they can (in my case, literally tap dances) to try to say: 

“I’m not an inspiration! I work too hard to even be called Sick. I am so productive, I am so strong.”

Is there a human who doesn’t need attention, by the way? As babies, we can’t survive without. As kids, we seek it even in the wrong forms: desperate to feel loved, seen, cared for. As adults, we do this to each other.

As someone who drives to her own surgeries, or creates a hyper-focused-style at work with fellow hyper-focused friends all wanting a break from who we are outside the studio - leading to nary a “how are you” at times (sloughing off hospital visitors, etc)- part of me wonders: 

Keep going. Highly unfiltered feelings below….