#write your truth

“I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture” - Wole Soyinka

Why do I continually write about mentally ill, POC, plus size characters?

Because I AM a mentally ill, mixed race, fat girl- and I never see it portrayed in modern media-

There are things that happen to us that we absorb and shed like second skin, and then there are things that happen to us that stay stuck in our lungs, keeping us up at night in a panicked sweat.

8 weeks ago, I had an episode that landed me in the emergency room. I’d been in and out of Urgent Care and the ER for a month before that with sudden, crushing chest pain. The pain was so bad that it hurt to move, to eat, to speak, to breathe. But, as far as the doctors could tell, my chest x-rays were clear and my blood tests were normal; they couldn’t find any explanation for the sudden manifestation of the kind of chest pain I was describing. In short, they didn’t believe me.

I began losing more weight because I couldn’t eat, I missed days of work and hardly left my bed. One day, however, I worked up the strength to go help my friend move into her new apartment. I was doing fine, organizing items for her and chatting idly while we worked, when all of a sudden my hearing cut out. All I could hear was a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Then my vision started to shake and blur, before blacking out. My legs dropped out from under me and I collapsed, my entire body feeling like it was buzzing. A sudden, sharp pain in my left side left me clutching my abdomen and sobbing. I couldn’t move. I remember thinking: this is what it feels like to die.

My friend and her mother called 911, and an ambulance came to take e to the hospital. In the ambulance, I grabbed the hand of the EMT in the back with me and begged him to tell the ER doctors that my pain was real and I wasn’t a crazy drug addict trying to scam them for meds. He laughed and patted my arm, telling me there’s no way anyone could think I was a drug addict.

 I wish he’d known just how wrong he was.

I was put in a room at the ER and left there. I was scared, crying, and in so much pain I couldn’t think straight. Minutes passed, and no one came to talk to me, let alone treat me. I started to panic. Where were my doctors? Where were my parents? Where was my purse, my phone? I laid there, tears streaming down my face, and began to yell, “help me,” over and over and over. I begged the universe to take the pain away, promising to try and be better if I could just survive this. At one point, a nurse came stomping to the open door and slammed it in my face, saying, “you’re scaring the kid down the hall.” Good to know that a patient screaming in pain is a burden, but you go ahead and coddle the boy with the stomach flu.

About an hour passed before a nurse and doctor came back into my room, their eyes reproachful. They shot me up with various pain medications that might as well have been saline for how effective they were. I was still clutching my side and begging them to please help me, and they looked at me with barely concealed disgust. Even after my father and my friend got there, the doctors spoke to me with such disdain the words will haunt me forever. He told me that this was my fault, that I was doing this to myself by going back and forth to the ER and forcibly addicting my body to drugs. He told me I was an addict and that I needed serious psychological evaluation, then told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was not allowed to return to that emergency room for any kind of care.

This doctor has been treating me and my family members for over a decade. He has known me throughout the past four years as my chronic pain worsened and I had more frequent episodes. In short, he knew better. He knew I wasn’t an addict, and he knew I wasn’t getting the help I needed from any other doctors. And still, he threw me out like last week’s leftovers. 

I have never felt so small, so humiliated so worthless. I looked at him, hot, angry tears rolling steadily down my cheeks, and told him to take my IV out so I could just go home. He replied, “well if you’re so ready to go, I guess your pain can’t be that bad.”

I cried myself to sleep that night, and many nights after.

As a chronic pain patient who is also bipolar, I am often judged harshly on the ‘reality’ of my pain. I have been overlooked and screwed over by more medical professionals than I care to count, shunted around from office to office like the problem child nobody wants. As a result, I am my only advocate in an industry that tells me I am a liar and a drug addict.  Imagine what that does to a person, to be constantly looked down on, interrupted, and ignored. I told my friend days later that if I didn’t get the help I needed, and soon, the doctors would have a dead girl on their hands.

Because what do you do when no one can help you? Do you live a life in excruciating pain, every day being told you’re untrustworthy and insane? No. You have to fight for yourself, even when you feel like you’re bleeding out on your bathroom floor. I’ve survived 8 weeks. I can survive the next 8 weeks.

It’s never easy. Fuck, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like giving up on a daily basis. But, the alternative is losing the opportunity to try and live the life I’ve dreamed of living. And I’m not ready to give up on that. 

And to those doctors: You should be ashamed of yourselves. Fuck you. I’ll see you in hell.

I am pro choice. I am a liberal.

I am a millennial. I believe in freedom of religion. I believe in freedom of speech. I support our right to bear arms. I also support gun control. I believe in love. - - -

What I don't believe in? Throwing fake fetus entrails at women walking into abortion clinics. Laws - that still exist in some countries - that only allow a woman the right to choose if a doctor (most often male) deems it 'absolutely medically necessary.' As if every woman who desires an abortion hasn't spent hours, days, even weeks deliberating over a grueling, life-altering decision. A healthcare bill that will kill more people than it serves and that will fuel the fire of the war on drugs as desperate people turn to buying opiates and other medications they are no longer able to get from their doctors on the streets. Discriminating against those whose beliefs are contrary to mine on the basis that I don't understand. Shunning those who worship a different god on the basis that bad people happen to worship that deity. By that logic, there are just as many bad eggs in any community or religious sect, so remember that, while you sit in your glass houses on your high horses and throw stones. Censorship of the media based on the assumptions of a White House regime that carries out its most important business on twitter and wants to launch a fake news network. Attempting to justify loosening of gun control laws on the basis that it is our constitutional right while ignoring the fact that there are, in reality, many people who should never be allowed to carry a firearm. If I had been allowed to buy a gun after I was released from a mental hospital at 17, I would have killed myself. These laws exist for a reason. Perpetuating hatred based on differences of skin color, ethnic background, sexuality, religious beliefs, medical conditions, or literally any other reason.

- - - Hatred is not a force that will drive change. Hatred is what led Hitler to persecute the Jews. It is what nailed Jesus to the cross. It is what is killing people of color every day. It is anyone who stays silent under a regime of fascist oppression.

Imagine, if you will, a girl lying in a hospital bed, alone. The steady beeping of the machines are the only thing keeping you company as you feel like your body is trying to rip itself apart from the inside out.

Then imagine stumbling across old photos and videos of you smiling and laughing. Visceral reminders that even when life seems impossible, there are moments of joy and light. You post a photo or video on social media, a kind of bookmark for the bad times as you try, desperately to cling to a sense of self.

Now imagine a family member telling you that posting like that makes them not take your illness seriously. That they think I am not taking it seriously. Imagine having to try to explain to your loved ones that you’re just trying to live to see the sunrise in the morning.

I post photos and quotes and videos to remind myself I have moments worth living for. Take those moments away and I won’t live to see tomorrow. Don’t tell me you are trying to understand while you are shoving a knife in my back. Don’t tell me you don’t believe me when I tell you I am in pain. Don’t take my last wavering level of support out from underneath me. Because if I don’t have the support of my family, there isn’t much left.

I openly share my life as a coping mechanism. Knowing other people are struggling with various things inspires me to keep breathing, to keep living. So don’t you dare try to tell me I am anything less because I choose to be open and honest. Do not grind my face into the dirt as I desperately claw my way through each passing hour. Do not question the validity of my illness just because it’s something you have no experience with. Do not judge me for how I have chosen to live my life in a way that doesn’t make me want to slit my wrists.

It saddens me to know that even those who claim to love us will still find reasons to emotionally abuse us. It hurts my heart to not be able to trust my own flesh and blood.

It might be a me against the world, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need people on my team.