#alright oats felt time for yoga and meditation

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Survival is anything but typical

I don’t work hard at positivity and happiness and self care because I’m privileged or neurotypical or never had anything bad happen to me ever.

Why would someone with such a perfect (and not real, no one has this) life and brain and body need to work so hard for those things? 

Maybe we need to ask ourselves that before we call every person or coping method *~neurotypical~* and be assholes about it. Maybe just don’t be an asshole at all, because neurotypical is not an insult? Why have we turned it into an insult? I’m really uncomfortable with “haha i make the assumption that ur brain is more on the normal side bc u recommended something to help, fuck u”, that’s really immature and gross.  

Unless you can literally see into someone’s brain, unless you’re someone’s actual neurologist or something, maybe don’t assume you know whether or not their brain is “normal” based on something that is annoying but ultimately just harmless ignorance like, “hey, I know you’re in a lot of pain everyday, maybe this one type of yoga is something that could help, I saw it in a documentary!”

Like, let’s talk about that for a second. As a disabled person (physical and mental yay), these are the things I work hard at to try to make life more bearable and to stay alive because my conditions and the high levels of pain I’m almost always in literally almost caused me to end my own life: meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, herbs, self-massage, journaling, and there are more things like treatments I get or going to the sauna but those are just the things I do myself. 

Guess what people who do not have such illnesses are constantly suggesting to me?

Me: *confesses to someone my illnesses and struggles* Them: Oh! You know, yoga might help— Me: Yeah, I do it twice a day. Really helps my spine out.  Them: Have you tried medit— Me: Two or more times a day, Primordial Sound as well as Vedic mantras and yeah, it’s really great for so many things. Them: My cousin’s husband’s niece does this thing where they get the oil from thyme leaves, you know like the stuff you cook with— Me: Yeah, I know, I use white thyme oil actually, it’s excellent for nerve pain and fatigue.  This is literally. Every new person. I meet. Who learns about my status as a person with incurable debilitating chronic illnesses. It’s exhausting and when I’m cranky all I can think is “what the fuck you just learned that I’ve been sick for several years and you think I never tried fucking yoga??????” But I don’t say that because I don’t wanna be a dick for no reason. That would make me a dick. There is no scenario where I would not be a dick for acting that way. People are not mind readers, the universe doesn’t revolve around me, strangers do not know what I’ve tried. My sister has tagged me in self care stuff in instagram that I already knew about, so should I call her a “fucking neurotypical” and be an asshole when she’s trying to help her little sis out? Sure, if I wanna be a dick.

My anger and frustration and suffering is not an excuse for me to be an asshole and snap at them and insult them for not knowing any better, for not understanding that yes, these things are very helpful and I already do them but they’re not cures and every person with illness is different and has to find different things that work for them. Yoga is great for me but might be too hard for others. In fact sometimes yoga is too hard for me if I’m having a bad flare up and I can barely stretch my arms without getting woozy. 

I’m just cracking up imagining some tumblr “blogger” at a healing center constantly interrupting a self-care lecture like “UM IMAGINE BEING THIS NEUROTYPICAL LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!” in a room full of sick and disabled people who are desperate to learn ways to improve their functionality and lessen suffering. You would look like an idiot and an asshole. 

When my self-care is mocked, my survival is mocked. When my survival is mocked, my will to live is mocked. When my will to live is mocked, my life is a joke then, isn’t it? I’m just a joke. Look at New, what a joke she is, making a yoga routine and sticking to it, what a joke she is, working hard to be nice and patient with people even when they piss her the hell off and on the inside she’s screaming. She must be #neurotypical lololololololol but oh wait her brain literally didn’t have enough bloodflow most of her life and her brainstem was compressed to the point where her brain couldn’t talk to her organs properly looool so #typical #amirite

I’m positive because on the inside, I’m actually very negative. The truth is, I hate myself. I hate my guts. I hate my voice, my face, my handwriting, my art, my videos, my life, my work, everything. It takes so much work to go about daily life with this much hatred for myself and sometimes it’s so overwhelming that my brain goes, “you don’t even deserve a heating pad or pain meds or acupuncture, you should just suffer and die and free your family from the burden of having to take care of you, and your friends will be much happier with you gone because then they won’t have to hear you complain all the time about how much pain you’re in!” I feel that I’ll never make my father proud, I’ll never be “someone”, I’ll never be happy, I’ll never find love, I’ll probably drop dead by age 30 and the thought is mostly “eh whatever” to me because I do not value myself and I’m constantly pushing myself precisely because of, wait for it and I hate that I’m saying this, internalized ableism is so deep in me that I do not feel that I’m worth what other people are worth. So my brain thinks, “it’s okay for YOU to make yourself suffer just to spare this actually able person a simple inconvenience because you are not of any value.”

Literally that is my brain nearly every day and I have so many up and down moodswings that I’m almost constantly overwhelmed by it. I work so hard to keep that shit locked in tight because if I don’t, it manifests as passive aggression and meanness and I DON’T WANT TO BE THAT PERSON ANYMORE. I DON’T. During very imbalanced and very sick times in my life, I was that person. I was awful. I was so deeply depressed and angry and suicidal that I acted like a fucking lunatic! I was mean! I was abusive! I was NOT A GOOD NEW! This was my mental illnesses aggravated by physical illnesses at their absolute worst.

It’s not neurotypical to want to be a better person. 

It’s not neurotypical to do my best with what I have and be grateful for what I have.

It’s not neurotypical to look on the bright side even when everything looks shitty. 

Like. I can barely work right now. I’m in my late 20′s. My 20′s are gone because I spent them sick instead of having normal life experiences. Last year I kissed someone for the first time in almost a decade, because illness kind of gets in the way of any kind of romantic life. One of my fears has happened. I’m too sick to do the work I love right now. It’s terrifying and I hate myself for it, I can’t stop feeling so horrible and feeling like I’m so weak for needing this time to heal and not using it to be working hard on set or advancing my career, and I have to maybe face the reality that I’m just done for and that was all I was going to be able to squeeze out of my poor sick body.

So you know what I do to deal with these feelings? 

I meditate. I make lists of the things I’m grateful for. I look for the abundance so that I won’t tunnel vision on the lack. Because otherwise all I see is lack, all I see is my pain, all I see is my empty wallet, my debt, my bruises, my vomit, my tears, my blood, my tiny studded belt in my shaking hands.

So bite my disabled ass. It’s finely toned from all the yoga I do, so be careful not to shatter your teeth.