WARNING: real mf personal

I want to preface this by saying I was officially diagnosed with OCD earlier this year. This the raw form of a journal entry I wrote about a year ago. I wrote it on a day when I was seriously struggling with my OCD before I even knew the diagnosis of OCD. I want to share this to demonstrate the jarring reality of how it is living in a world that was simply not made to include neurodivergent people.

“Hey bitch, we are back.

Today was literal hell. What’s new. I don’t know what is going on with me but I’m so exhausted from it. I have been holding back tears all day. It is like I deadass have to navigate the world with this uncontrollable fear, anxiety, or whatever tf it is. And I have these ridiculous intrusive thoughts. They literally snatch my breath out of me. The world seems to keep going and I can’t catch up to the speed of it. Every step is a cautious one and I just keep overthinking each and every one. Something is off and I just don’t know what to do anymore. It’s more than just the normal anxiety everyone gets bruh. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m drowning in my own thoughts, really scary ones. Every decision, no matter how fucking small it is has its handy dandy best friends anxiety and doubt next to it. The questions literally echo in my mind and I keep second-guessing everything I do. The thing I really needed to get out and off my chest was this one intrusive thought that I haven’t been able to shake. It happened today while I was driving through the fucking chickfila parking lot. I just kept getting this vision and thought of Sophia dying if I didn’t pick the right order and say it the right way. It comes when I’m doing other things to. I will be cleaning the dishes and If something doesn’t get cleaned a certain way I think she will get sick using it and then die and it will be my fault. Or I will text her but I will think the message is wrong and rewrite it over and over again because what if she dies and I didn’t say the right thing and I won’t be able to fix it because she is dead. WHY DO I KEEP THINKING SHE IS GOING TO DIE??? HELLOOOOO??? I dont know bruh i’m crying right now just thinking about it. I literally had a fucking panic attack in the chickfila drive thru because of this. Like what is literally going on. And what makes me the saddest is feeling like I don’t know where to go or that I will be called crazy or overdramatic. I just don’t know what to do anymore or who to go to. Is this normal for other people to have. I have never heard anyone talk about intrusive thoughts like this so I really don’t know. I just need help. I can’t keep raw dogging life. I’m so exhausted of being anxious. I am just so fucking exhausted. But it’s okay. I’m gonna figure this out and be okay. I’m doing great and whatever energy I give is more than enough. I’m gonna be okay. Hopefully tomorrow is better. keep up the good work ❤

p.s. sophia is my gf 🙂

I hope some reading this finds comfort knowing they are not the only one going through this. There are other people who understand you and you will be OKAY. You are not alone ❤

This is the main character (Auggie Pullman) from the movie/book Wonder. He was born with Treacher Collins syndrome. It is described as a “rare craniofacial disorder that causes major malformations of the face.

I remember reading Wonder when I was in about 4th grade. When it first came out, I fell in love with the writing. I admired the new perspectives the book offered on disability that wasn’t usually addressed in school and kid/preteen literature at the time. For those who haven’t read it, Wonder focuses on the life of a disabled young boy named Auggie. It depicts the trials and tribulations he experiences going to public middle school for the first time and how it affects him and the people around him. A few years later, they made a movie. I watched it and loved it. Well, when I was younger.

I later watched it again around the age of 17. I can still say I enjoyed it but I did have my critiques, as did others. I felt like it stayed true to the book, and captured the complexity of relationships. However, in my opinion, I do feel they do not authentically represent the severity of Auggie’s disability in the movie regarding the makeup and script, making it more comfortable for people who weren’t disabled. This is a critique many others share, explaining why the movie got much lower ratings and lots of criticism, especially from other people in the disabled community. I think these critiques propose an important question, “At what point do decisions make about the presentation of disabilities within society reflect an ableist viewpoint?”

This is a question that is explored by many people and has a different answer from person to person. One article I think that gives a very important viewpoint on this topic is Critics Question the Representation of Disability in ‘Wonder’ written by Lauren Barack. She focuses on the perspective of Mike Moody. A 21-year-old female who was born with Crouzon syndrome, a disability very similar to that of Auggies’. With that shared experience, he expresses his discontent with the representation of disability within the movie. She discusses how she disliked how directors had “Tremblay appear disfigured, instead of hiring an actor who is.” She goes on to further criticize the film by saying “The film just seems to hop on the bandwagon of disability. It’s ‘inspiration porn’, the same driven by films like The Theory of Everything—films that treat disability as a costume, that kind of attitude permeates through the films to the audience. Actors who portray disabled people are revered, and disabled people (especially actors) are ignored.”

Though it can be seen as “harsh” this critique Moody expresses is one that many people agree with, including myself. Seeing the drastic changes in Auggie’s disability in the book versus the movie does make me question the underlying ableism within the production. It also demonstrates the constant fucked up reality that people with disabilities constantly have to face: having to change and diminish themselves for the comfort of others.

On a beautiful day in May of 2022, I was driving over to my then girlfriend’s house after a long shift when I was hit by a drunk driver. I was helped within 7 minutes by firefighters, EMT, doctors, a nurse, and police with selfless and kind intentions. But were those intentions an excuse for them to disregard my voice and pain?

After I was hit, I reached for my seatbelt to try to get out, but it was stuck. You can’t see it in the pictures, but the machinery in front of my car imploded inwards, crushing my legs between my front and seat. The seatbelt was stuck as the impact destroyed it. I was in so much pain. I couldn’t do anything but sit and wait for someone to help me.

Two doctors and a nurse who were on the street as it happened rushed to help me. They open the door and ask me if I can move my legs, unbuckle the seatbelt, move my neck, and see them. Crying and in shock, I tell them there is a shooting pain in my lower back and legs every time I move my neck or feet. They ask me to stay calm and argue about what they should do. Amongst the arguing, the police, firefighters, and EMT arrive at the scene. They approach me, and before they even ask me anything, they begin leaning over me to try to unlock my seatbelt. I tell them it is stuck and I need to be cut out. They cut the belt off around me; now it is time to figure out how to get my legs out without causing damage. Long story short, every method they try causes me too much pain. They eventually decide to cut as much of the metal around my legs away until I can pull them up to my chin/chest so I can get out.

They start cutting them metal, and I can feel the release of pressure around my legs, but somehow, that shooting pain becomes even worse with the release of tension. I tell them to stop. They tell me to calm down and that it will be okay. I am pleading with the firefighters and police to stop. They don’t. I’m crying hysterically now. I am told by the police that I am just in shock and that it’s the adrenaline wearing off. I plead and cry, telling them something is wrong as they pull my feet to my chest and carry me out of the car. They lay me in the ambulance, and I told the doctor something was wrong. Once again, I’m told that it’s just because my adrenaline is coming down, so the pain from the impact is at its peak. I keep telling him this isn’t the case. Something is wrong. “They shouldn’t have moved me. Not without stabilizing my back and legs.” Throughout all my cries and complaints, I am told to calm down and that it will be okay.

I’ll meet with a neurologist and orthopedic doctors at the hospital later. They tell me I have irreversible nerve damage in my lower spine. If I’m being honest, I knew. I fucking knew it. I simply look them in the eye and say, “It could’ve been avoided if they hadn’t moved my legs. If they had listened. If they had stabilized me. Couldn’t it?” Their response: “They did the best they could. There is no telling what could’ve happened. Ensuring you got out of the car was the number one priority in case the car went up into flames or if you were bleeding out”. I didn’t say anything.

Over a year later, I have physical therapy, dozens of unused medications, and thousands of dollars in hospital visits. I constantly feel pain in my hip, lower back, and legs. I live in a constant battle of “They did what they could and only intended to help me.” and a state of rage for my complaints and pain being ignored and costing me my mobility. Why does it take physical and mental impairment/disability for women’s voices to be heard? It’s ridiculous.

Am I really a girl? I sometimes feel like a boy? Am I trans or just nonbinary? Or do I just simply feel more masculine inside and uncomfortable associating it with my feminine appearance?

Since embracing my queerness and discovering different aspects of my sexuality and gender, I have learned more about myself and society as a whole. Despite my parents’ hopes, dreams, and attempts, I am undoubtedly a lesbian, albeit a very feminine one. I feel completely comfortable and confident in my femininity. I enjoy having long and glittery nails, voluminous lashes, and dedicating hours and considerable expense to perfecting my makeup. However, alongside this comfort in my femininity, I also experience confusion about my masculinity due to the societal constructs surrounding gender. Gender norms for both men and women are deeply ingrained in our culture, and everything we do seems to involve some recognition of someone’s gender. I continually struggle to find my place within these constructs.

For most of my childhood, I was constantly given the label of a “tomboy”. I can still hear my mom’s voice yelling at me for wearing slacks and a shirt to a nice restaurant instead of putting on a dress. I constantly fit that label until one day, I just didn’t anymore. I can’t recall why, but I know a big part of it was feeling out of place around my peers and other girls that I was surrounded by. I became so immersed in makeup, pink, nails, hair, and everything “girly”. I finally fit that label of a girl. I felt deserving of that description. I did come to fall in love with it, but as I’ve grown up, I have come to recognize that with it, I have completely disregarded the part of me that was fulfilled with masculinity. The part of me inside that felt hot in a button-down and slacks. The part of me that wanted my hair cut really short and a sleeve of tattoos.

So, while taking this class, among other philosophy and gender study classes, I have become more comfortable exploring that discomfort. Recognizing the systemic factors that play into my feelings about my gender and the self-expression of those feelings has opened my eyes. It allows me to not only slowly recognize and break away from the constructed “masculine” and “feminine” roles pushed among individuals within society but also recognizes that everyone has both. Everyone experiences them at different degrees and finds different ways, but everyone experiences both. And there is no need to fit oneself into one or the other. Not one box will fit at all times, and that is OKAY. Some people might recognize both sides and discover they are trans or non-binary. Others might just recognize that they conform to their assigned gender at birth best. Others (like myself) might just not know and still be trying to figure it out. No matter what the case is, it’s okay. By the end of it, does it TRULY matter since it is just a social construct? I don’t know, but it’s starting to really not seem like it in the grand scheme of things when taking society out of it.