Hey, everyone. Allēna here. Lately, I’ve been grieving the fact that the body is so disabled. Therefore, I don’t know how hopeful or positive this post will be, but I can promise that it’ll be honest.

I was never abled. After having a stroke so young, I was always an odd duck. However, I could always fake being abled a whole lot better when I was younger. I could…power through better, so to speak. I know now that just because a disabled person can sometimes power through something, they really fucking shouldn’t. But I miss the days when I even could..

I had to learn how to dissociate from the body and power through tasks that would otherwise be horribly physically painful (and often still were) in order to escape further abuse from my mother, Hera and thereby avoid becoming so burnt out I stopped functioning at all.

I was going to hurt either way, so I might as well take the less painful option and give her hell on the way out, using my wrath at her as fuel. The extent to which Hera wanted my system to appear normal included refusing to accommodate our neurodivergence or even acknowledge it existed at all, except when it suited her. She chose instead to take a “my way or the highway” approach. So I was fucking pissed enough at her that my system and I ended up choosing the fucking highway.

This crippled the body further, as we had to haul ass even harder to survive, despite hauling ass as a baseline for over the past decade. We were beyond burnt out, and when we started working through our trauma, we started to feel it deeply. Eight, who was our host at the time, could often barely get out of bed for weeks at a time. We’ve improved a great deal since that point, but we’re still largely bed and housebound due to chronic pain, fatigue, and agoraphobia.

This makes me horribly sad a lot of the time. I’m still working on getting diagnoses and treatment for everything that’s ailing me health-wise, but I just want to bitch for a second because I’m in my feelings about it, even though solutions are very much in progress. I had gotten so good at powering through after college that I was training for a marathon and was often swimming, as well before the body rebelled, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to run cross country or swim outside again, seeing as the body takes psychic and physical damage whenever it’s outdoors for a number of reasons and we are, in essence, allergic to the sun. And I know that listening to my body and meeting its needs is more important than powering through in any situation, but it just… bugs me and upsets me to a huge degree. Ah, well. One day at a time, I guess. I’ll get there. ✨

Stay tuned for more magic, y’all.

-Allēna