#but it's like...

i was turning a concerning shade of purple in my limbs in my 5th grade classroom and no one seemed alarmed by it until i was falling asleep in class. i now know that the mottling and coloration is a symptom of one of my many chronic illnesses but it wasn't normal.

and i'm SICK of thinking of myself as dramatic or exaggerating my symptoms because i went to school every day feeling like death because i knew no one would listen if i said i wasn't feeling well because i'd just learned that summer that no one would listen if i said i was in pain at all. i taught myself belly breathing so it wouldn't hurt to breathe when my ribs were healing and then got fussed at for looking fat so i had to force myself to rib-breathe instead.

like no wonder i was against wearing a bra when i needed to - it probably fucking hurt and i wasn't allowed to feel the pain because it didn't exist to anyone but me and i clearly was making it up according to them.

so i've probably done nerve damage to them through that.

decades of this. when i bruised my ribs while working on my car i didn't say anything and i kept walking everywhere because i didn't have a choice and no one would listen anyway.

it got me cool and badass points to be walking around injured but also no one noticed i was injured so the cool and badass points went ungranted to me because well. it's not cool and badass if no one believes you're injured.

it's also not cool and badass to walk around while injured by the way. it's mostly just painful and also bad for you. rest and heal up.

anyway i'm coming off of my hips having been 4 inches farther apart than normal because my body is convinced i have to have a whole baby every month even though we've never been pregnant and i'm just like.

no one in my family would believe that's the pain i'm going through, that i need special medicine to even make that possible to survive with, that i need medicine at all. i can try and tell them but they wouldn't understand.