#swedeonmarky

“You gotta smile cause fish can see in the boat.” - Jacob Markstrom, 2017

Thank you for the ask, K. Hope you’re well. 💕💕

3. Rant. Just do it

It’ll be a personal rant, but you asked, K.

Okay, so the way little girls aren’t taken seriously when they complain about pain drives me mad. I only got properly diagnosed after I had a stroke because that was too serious to ignore. And it only happened cause I went to three different hospitals after I had the stroke because at the first hospital I ended up at, I was treated worse than a dog and as soon as my life wasn’t in danger, I was informed my bed was already assigned to someone else.

You see, the pain started more or less at the same time as my first period which automatically meant all the doctors (yes, doctors!) that my mama took me to said I’d “grow out of it” or that I’d “get a boyfriend and forget about the pain”. Mysterious bruises appearing all over my body were caused by “too tight jeans” or “sitting too much” or some other bullshit. My headaches were just a way to avoid school and I “needed to stop focusing on myself so much” or simply “stop being so hysterical” the pain in my muscles I must’ve imagined. People kept telling my mama to “stop cooing over me and make me go to school and I’d get over myself”. I was called lazy by adults and laughed at by other kids.

And then at 25, I was in a hospital bed, unable to move and the doctors couldn’t believe the results of the tests they ran on me. During one of the exams, the doctor just asked me “how can you live with this much pain?” Cause their scale wasn’t enough for my illness. I got diagnosed with four different illnesses, each of them causing horrible pain. All of that because I was a girl when the symptoms started. And I’m still so fucking mad about it.

17. Google the top song from the year you were born.

I will always love you by Whitney Houston (according to the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1993)

oh 100%, i realised after posting i should have mentioned south america as well

“..as Canadians we’re so invested & our problems are based in the same roots of capitalism, colonization & white supremacy” 

yup, our countries are so very interlinked for those exact reasons, and i definitely don’t want it to come off as feeling any sort of superiority.

URL/Name Color Graphics: @swedeonmarky / Kiran