PillowDen System

It'll be 9 years post-discovery in 2026.

A lot of things change. None of us are the same people we were 9 years ago, and only one of us is even recognizable. We've metamorphosed time and time again.

Some things get easier, and other things get harder. You learn how to handle the issues that keep hurting you, only to find new problems that need solving. It takes time to learn how to live life with each other. It takes a lot of time.

But it gets better. One day you'll look back and wonder how you ever struggled as much as you did. You'll always be learning, but you get faster at learning each lesson, and you'll have old lessons to lean back on. Living with the people in your head stops being as scary and overwhelming as it used to be. It's just another Tuesday.

Restricting the definition of who a label/concept can be applied to falls under the same philosophy that the systems that oppress the disabled fall under.

That is to say - restricting access so that imagined invaders and "appropriators" won't get in.

The endo "invaders" are not oppressors in any fashion. Hating them because our oppressors "won't take us seriously because of them" is joining the war on the side of the oppressors. It's only fighting ableism until the oppressors call out a target that's easy enough to punch down on.

We, as a community, can be better, more compassionate than that. Is this truly what being "radical" is? Stop punching down. For your own sake, too. Is this really the "good fight" you want to win? To remove all the "weirdos who don't belong?"

To my friends who still feel hurt, I understand. But the people you are fighting do not want to hurt you. They just want to understand their own individual human experience. If they are angry at us, they are not in the wrong. You know that rage, too, at being told that what you are is not real, or is impossible to take seriously.

You have been taught to value an idea of a "real" experience based in science. But that science is so limited. The DSM-5 is not a bible, it is written with the intent of treating us, making us more palatable, "worth our place in society". It is not something we should be thumping to ward off "impure" things. We do not need purity. We do not need sanctity. We need safety and community, so we need to build it.

If we view endos, willos, or any type of system as a pest, we will choke ourselves with pesticide to eradicate them. This is not kindness. This is not acceptance. It is cruelty.