Hi, it’s me again! Sorry I haven’t blogged in awhile. I have mostly been posting on my Facebook and Twitter…..doing lots of writing via those two platforms. I mostly write about ableism, what it’s like being an autistic adult in a world that is still not built for autistics, and I also write about social justice / political things relating to disability rights, racism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, marginalized people, gun and police violence, and how our governmental leadership is seeking to roll back people’s rights to the 19th century Dark Ages again.
So..first an update on how I’m doing.
I identify today, as Queer, Bi-Sexual, and Non-Binary. Contrary to what some may believe, this isn’t a choice, but the way I have felt since I was a child playing with my little brother and his Tonka trucks, and making huge mud holes in our backyard, just as much as I played with my Barbie dolls.
Just as much as my Autism is a huge part of all that I am, so is my sexual and gender identity. Take all the time you need to sit with this. It ain’t changin’, because this is me, full-on.
I’m still doing dialysis, but have still been having a rough time due to Nurse W, and two other impatient and rude ableistic techs. But they have now put me back out on the main floor, Side A, and Nurse W is now gone daddy gone, as in she has a new job somewhere else that’s away from my dialysis clinic, so I no longer have to be “graced” with her presence when I dialyze.
I am much happier on Side A, as I still have my customized chair with the specially-built leg rest for my legs, and I am once again working with the kidney center staff members with whom I have always gotten along with very well. I have a wonderful social worker there, too, who truly has my back.
Connie and her daughter Natalie are still my caregivers. I am slowly losing weight, for the sake of my mobility and health only.
And now, I want to address some things, mainly some misconceptions that keep cropping up about me.
To my eldest sister, whom I love with all of my being, of course I forgive you! I forgave you long ago when I wrote that open letter to all of my family members back in 1994, and you called me one afternoon and we talked things out. I also forgive my second eldest nice sister, who I have also gotten to talk to—she and I talked after my mom took a fall on New Year’s eve 2019, two month’s before COVID happened. (No worries, my mom is fine now.)
I also forgive my eldest brother who passed away, who prayed for me daily when he was alive. And now, he is one of my guardian angels.
I also consider my mother to still be my best friend and ally. And to this day, I still call her at least once a day.
I am even finally starting to have positive dreams about my father now….and am beginning to forgive him for not getting and accepting me as I was when I was growing up.
It is the rest of my living family who to this day, my other 3 siblings, nieces, nephews, and in laws, who still don’t get how much or how deeply they have hurt me, and who still think of me as their “batshit” sibling/relative who always had too many “problems” and meltdowns. They refuse to believe I was born Autistic, that I was born with a whole different wiring system, and that my Autism does not make me Less Than, broken, and wrong, nor did it ever make me their personal punching bag/scapegoat for all that they say has gone wrong in their lives, “because of me”.
They still think of me as too weird and that I am an effing burden, who should just be shunned and shoved away in a nursing home, so I can risk being abused, neglected, and further isolated from the outside world and life.
I don’t “hold grudges” from my past. I am greatly traumatized by my past. There’s a difference.
Because that’s just how C-PTSD trauma, which I have, works.
When things happen that hurts one’s vey spirit and being/core of who they are,
that one has had no closure with,
and these things happen repeatedly, over and over and over again throughout one’s entire lifetime because they happen to have a disability they never got to, or refused to understand,
it causes deep and pervasive long term whole body affects: everything from nightmares, to flashbacks, (viscerally real flashbacks) to Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, to deep trust and abandonment issues, to constant hypervigilence, and startle responses, to fight or flight mode, to eating binges, and gastro-intestinal effects, plus other fun tings like sleeping disruptions/insomnia, a weak immune system, headaches, and lots of other physical health issues. Including things like kidney disease. Yes, kidney disease.
Trauma, being made to feel unwanted and unwelcome, and unloved…. affects us from head to toe.
And yes, this is shit I experience on an almost daily basis today. It breaks my heart that 3 of my siblings, and nieces and nephews, still won’t even try to have the hard conversations we need to have in order to make peace with one another.
The hard conversations that me and my eldest sister did have from 1994 on to where she now does get me.
I do happen to have a deep faith. But I channel my personal faith by speaking out on the things that have actually always mattered to me: injustice, racism, bigotry, anti-LGBTQIA hate, disability rights and justice, people’s reproductive rights being upheld, the Separation Of Church And State being upheld, us having voting rights, and clean air, healthy trees, flowers and plants, and clean water.
In 7th grade, Angela Davis was one of my heroes for how she spoke out on racism. She still is one of my heroes today.
I did not vote for Donald Trump, because he is an extremely evil soul….and the very antithesis of what Jesus was all about. You can take all the time you want with this too, but I am not a Trump supporter, never will I be, nor am I a Republican. I stopped being a Republican when they morphed into the Tea Party, and then cruel Trumpism came along.
I stopped being a Republican when I became informed.
Today, after reading America’s true history, and seeing way too many Black, Brown and Indigenous People still being appressed and murdered by police, and racist citizens, I am Left of Left, because I care to my very core about humanity, and I also do not believe it is my place to tell others what they can or cannot do with their own bodies.
I had many of these beliefs even when I was a moderate non-conservative Republican, and only was a GOP’er because it was what my family’s political party was.
I believe in a world that is just and fair and equal for all of humanity, not just those who share my same skin color.
I believe in Matthew 25 where Jesus says for us to welcome the immigrants and refugees, not cruelly separate their children from their parents and throw them into crowded filthy cages.
To those in my family who support Trump and Trumpism, big shame on you. You were raised to know better than to stoop to that level of low.
To my dear eldest sibling, I hate that I cannot sit down and pen you letters. I miss the days when you had internet and we emailed.
I seriously cannot handle handwriting letters anymore because of the executive functioning it takes, when I make mistakes or want to re-phrase something the whole page gets ripped up and I have to start over again, plus, sometimes my right hand shakes and same thing–I will rip the page up and start over.
And since COVID happened I no longer go in stores myself so I can pick out a nice birthday card for you anymore. Or you would have a nice birthday card each year from me. By the way, I hope you have a happy birthday this year. 
And in closing, it is my fervent hope that before I leave this earth, I will get to finally achieve my lifelong dreams and goals, and that I will also be able to help others find their happy in life.
Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment