around me black bats dive up from the dark.

sometimes they’re just watching a movie. my dad is learning guitar. he’s asking me about dinner

and I can barely hear him over the noise in my bones. what’s that noise?

nothing is happening. they’re just people. they have opinions about ice cream.

if they have committed any infractions at all this week, they were minor. I didn’t like my mother’s tone of voice. I didn’t like my dad’s little joke.

they’re harmless?

what’s wrong with me? these people are so normal.

I don’t think my brother knows. how can he have grown up in a normal house and I have PTSD?

I’m mentally ill. I have been since I was a little kid.

maybe my mom shouldn’t have said that but. it’s all so minor.

why do I think this is their fault? why am I fixated on child abuse?

my parents were a Girl Scout troop leader and a soccer coach.

she's reading an article about medicine and the vestibular system (she has disabling vertigo since December)

and she read a quote out loud about how there needs to be more research and treatment options and I didn't immediately respond and she went "it's an ignored field of medicine just like my family is ignoring me"

and then I said something vaguely sympathetic and then my dad was sort of rude about how she should be focusing on "positive news" instead of feeling bad about "the state of the industry," which would upset me very much if he said it to me.

like, she doesn't have any positive news to focus on. she has a husband who centers himself whenever anyone near him is having a problem and is openly resentful whenever either of us asks for disability-related help with something.

I can feel the space in my heart where the sympathy should go for a chronically ill person who feels screwed over by the healthcare system. and her only support for dealing with this is my dad.

except

can you imagine if I complained out loud about being sick? if I asked for sympathy out loud like that?

can you imagine if I accused them of not listening to me? of not being kind? of not being sympathetic?

anyway, I hate them. it feels like I'm betraying my disability justice principles when I get frustrated with how my mom is handling her new chronic illness but like.

when my dad left the room, I told her the thing he said was rude and dismissive and she thanked me.

she just lets my dad say shit to me. when she's not saying shit to me herself.

everyone deserves care and support. my mom deserves more care and support than she is getting.