(artwork by Joel Gehmen)
Is my body broken if its shattered pieces are held together by flesh colored adhesive that is merely my own mental salve?
Do I suffer from pain if the constant ache in my bones is an echo of the violent histories passed down for generations?
Is it illness if the markers are not physical, the symptoms not visible, and there is no possible diagnosis in western medicine to comprehend this malaise?
How does one treat such dysfunction? With brave smiles and silent resolve? With quiet tears and chronic despair? Or with hordes of medication that sedate and suppress but fail to inhabit the exact synapse of cellular transmission communicating to the brain that all will be well and that peace can be found?
Where is wholeness to be found if no one can see all the broken pieces?
Yet I know my pain, I know my illness, I know my suffering. None can take that knowing from me. Because if they could, I would let them.
Unruly Bodies 
Wow, have I felt like this before. You wrote such a beautiful message. Sometimes there is no diagnosis or medical terms for how broken we feel. Sometimes it feels like there is no treatment because of that and especially no validation. When you try to get help, the having to choose between suffering and the endless cycle of pills and doctors. I understand this feeling and I wish I knew how to escape from it too. I hope that your pain is uplifted, friend.
I love this piece. I am also constantly thinking about this. How am I meant to live a different life from those who came before me if I look just like them? “My” body isn’t really just my body. The “echoes of violent histories passed down for generations” that you write of are ones that so many of the women in my family have heard and still here. If the world doesn’t change to allow for newness or transformation in any way, how is my body my own?