These last few weeks of topics have been incredibly hard-hitting, drudging up many of my own experiences and frustrations, as well as igniting my excitement to share what I do know or hear what others have learned. Neurodivergence, disability, chronic illness, depression, bodies and their accepted forms. It has been overwhelming at times.

I often find my brain caught in a loop trying to process the emotions of my own experiences, trying to process the experiences of others, trying to find an answer, a solution to this fucked up world. All I can come back to is There is no winning. It is a phrase that I first iterated as a teenager, and have never been able to let go of. At that time, it was in reference to toxic parental relationships (still is sometimes haha). But I have found it over and over again in so many different aspects of life. Medically, for me there is no winning. If I am right about what is going on with me, my body is broken, sick, abnormal. If I am wrong, it is all in my head and everyone was right, I am just anxious or need to eat better or need to just toughen up and push through and “learn discipline”. When it comes to the world and its flaws, there is no winning. I can’t fix the socializing factors that create the horror that is racism, misogyny, white supremacy, genocide, ableism. I can do my part to not contribute, I can do my best to combat the systems in place that create those, but there isn’t enough time in my life nor energy in me to truly fix it, change it permanently. It can’t be done in one lifetime. And it breaks my heart over and over again. We’ve discussed recently how even in a small scale, adjusting to accomodate and correct for one person or experience can have a negative impact on another. We can’t create a space where every individual person is able to be comfortable and free and happy at a basic level–depending only on physical and emotional needs, spaces with lighting levels and seating and maneuverable space and learning formats or communication formats suitable to every person, where stims of any kind are acceptable. The alternative is creating separate spaces for different needs and desires, but to me that borders on segregation and isolation once again. We move all the people who can’t function in the “common” way into a new space but isn’t that the same as just telling them not to come at all. And that is before thinking about the resources that would require, the infrastructure, the training, the social relearning and culture shift that would have to occur. And how do we globalize that? Is it even possible? There is no winning. We can’t force entire cultures and countries to alter their traditions and ways of life, and so many of those are firmly and strongly holding to the truth and righteousness of their beliefs and thus the wrongness of any others and how if it is wrong it cannot be tolerated.

I suppose that I would at least like to start. I want to create one place in this world where some semblance of balance and peace and compassion can exist, where the voices of the wronged are heard and reconciled, where people are respected without a question or hesitation. I want to live in a world, or at least a country, where the focus isn’t on how much we can squeeze from someone, how much we can get away with doing the bare minimum for those around us so as to avoid punishment and consequences, but rather focused on how we can serve and support the people around us. A communal world, not a individualistic world, where differences in mind body and soul are valued and honored and treated as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as challenges to overcome.

I am so sick of existential crises. I am so sick of being sick. I am so tired. I just want joy to thrive. There may be no winning, but it doesn’t mean I can’t keep fighting to create that world.