Growing up I had good vision and was able to go about my life without missing anything with my eyes. This all changed when I got to third grade and I started to notice that things became blurry and almost illegible at a distance. The young me thought nothing of it at first, it was not until I started bringing it up to my mom that I realized that something was wrong and that I needed to go get my eyes checked out.

Before UMBC I took classes at my local community college and had to seek out accommodations due to my disabilities (mainly migraines and ADHD). The process was pretty self-explanatory and simple. I reached out and explained my situation and asked what the next steps were and scheduled a meeting. After that meeting I had all the accommodations I needed and did not need to jump through hoops to get what I needed to succeed in college. 

Trying to make friends while being neurodivergent is honestly extremely hard. Especially while having anxiety, it’s a mix of things that causes the task of making friends difficult to carry out. But when you get past that stage of making friends, what happens after that? What am I supposed to do from here? How am I supposed to act? This is where masking (unfortunately) comes in, playing the main role, and makes this process of making and keeping friends much harder.

I feel like I was always aware of my seemingly constant emotional labor in my formative years, long before I read Arlie Hochschild’s formal definition of it. However, my “second shift” wasn’t with a husband at home, but a grandmother.

What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. A chant that is used for every protest against injustice. Although it is empowering to be a part in making a change and fighting against injustice, I often wonder why it even takes place to begin with. This whole course has been about people fighting for their rights and justice, but when you think about it, they are literally just fighting to be treated fair or equal, which breaks my heart. Especially in our last section of invisible, chronic, and neurodivergent disabilities it just further saddens me to know that the injustice seems to be endless. As I’ve tried to learn about more subjects, I find it weird that some people could deny anyone basic human rights. Watching every person with a different color, gender, or disability get mistreated gets exhausting, and I am just a watcher. I cant imagine the exhaustion that someone struggling with this must feel, and I want to help in any was possible

Growing up very sheltered and naive to the hardships of the world I was very unaware of many of the injustices that took place, but also the subject themselves such as autism, chronic illnesses. How invisible something can be to everyone else but the person that has it, and in that case it takes so much room up in their life. I’ve recently got diagnosed with a chronic illness, and it wasn’t until recently that I’ve seen how much time and effort it takes up. I understand that its not the same as a lot of subjects learned about in class, but its given me more compassion for the people who deal with so much more that i was naive to beforehand. Although I can’t blame myself or my family for never understanding subjects, I now sit and wonder how I can make up for the time I went around not knowing about these disabilities. I want to be an ally or a partner, but understandably, I know some groups don’t want people to stand with them, but instead to highlight them, and I want to know how to do that (if thats the best thing to do).

TW- body hate, body dysmorphia, bad eating habits, etc.

Middle school through high school I helped my (immediate) family take care of my grandmother with dementia. It was hard to deal with, both emotionally and physically. My aunt and uncle told my mother, “if you wanna send her to a nursing home we understand”, but we didn’t want to. It’s so commonplace to just throw someone away when things get rough (not to mention the abuse that goes on in places like that!).

It’s like she lost value as a human being because she was old, because she had developed dementia. When my grandmother would get upset (because she was often confused about what was going on) it made people uncomfortable, they would stare, or they wouldn’t engage with her. 

To be completely honest I was going to write about something completely different. About my mother’s cancer and how that has all affected us. Blah blah blah. See, it is not really something to laugh about but people in our society tend to take invisible illnesses, like chronic illnesses and make light of them, almost like they are not real. But here I am, sitting in bed with 102 fever because I picked the lucky person and sat next to someone with Covid. Hacking up my lungs is no fun. This is something I believe we can all agree on. And to be fair this is just an all-around shitty situation.

Now it may seem like I am just another left leaning snowflake complaining about how people won’t wear their masks, (whatever that is) and honestly, I am. I am complaining, because I am tired of being sick. This is just plain stupid at this point. And of course, the average person nowadays can ease up their mask wearing. But this started all the way back in the beginning of March 2020.
Because of my chronic illness, my response to covid is far worse than the majority of people in this country. I do not blame anyone, as that would not be fair, well maybe Trump for politicizing masks, but that’s a whole other demon to slay later on. I just have to take into fact that this world was not made for me. I can’t live in a perfect bubble my immune therapist wants me to, so I take that risk. And I take it with both feet forward. Because what else can I do? Yes, I can petition and stage walkouts, but who really cares in our society besides the people it directly affects? This is the real problem that I am mad about. People just don’t seem to genuinely care for others. Creating this world that benefits them. As these people can walk, talk, and live freely without wondering if there’s a ramp or is this the day I finally am going to die.