Bad Brain

On the ableist narratives we create

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For the longest time, decades in fact, I had thought my body was the problem. More specifically, I had thought my relationship to/with my body was the problem. I was always angry with my body for “getting” sick, “getting” hurt, “getting” raped—for being a site of violence and discomfort. My story was that my body doesn’t protect me. My body hates me. My body does everything in its power to let me down time and time again.

In this week’s therapy session, I put together that it isn’t my body that’s the problem. It never has been, even though this sack of flesh and bones has trauma’s handprints all over it. It’s my brain that is the problem.

(Sidenote: I don’t mean that my brain is actually a problem. My therapist would say (and did say) that neither my brain nor my body are “problems.” While I do believe this, I have felt for a long time that one of them (or both at times) was something to be fixed and that it was on me to do the fixing).

When I think back (and feel back) to my childhood, I realize I had a fairly neutral relationship with my body. I didn’t completely notice it. It was just there. My body helped me to do pirouettes in ballet class. My body helped me to ride a bike. My body grounded me. I was more in my body—up until third grade—when I left it for my brain.

When I was diagnosed with two learning disabilities, my eight-year-old self perceived this to mean that I had a bad brain. This was also told to me by teachers—not in those exact words—but by calling me “stupid” or “incapable.” As a little curly-haired cutie, I thought: “Oh, so my brain is bad. It’s not good. It’s not normal.” From third grade through college, I carried the weight of this with me. I tried to fix my “bad” brain. I thought that if I just tried super hard, I could change it, that I could somehow reverse my learning disabilities. I wanted to become more palatable to my teachers. They acted as though translating their lesson plans to something I could understand was an enormous task. I felt like I was asking for the world.

At seventeen, after some medical trauma and being bullied by my best friends, I was again reminded of my no good, very bad brain. I was put on Zoloft, which saved my life, but it was another reminder that my brain was a problem. My brain wouldn’t let me live. My brain wouldn’t let me feel sensations without catastrophizing. My brain didn’t necessarily want me dead, but it didn’t want me feeling what I was feeling any longer. My brain was affecting what I felt in my body. My brain felt so powerful.

I have been mad at my brain nearly my entire life.

As an adult, I know I don’t have a “bad” brain. I know that doesn’t exist. I know so much of it was internalized ableism. However, I still have a lot of resentment for what I had to do just to be on a level playing field with others. I’m still angry that I didn’t believe I was “smart” until a professor in college that I really liked complimented my work. To this day, I’m a fantastic worker in part because of my learning disabilities. I think differently. I think more expansively. But this also means I overwork myself because I’m constantly worried I won’t understand a task or that it will take me longer. The stress and pressure of this makes having a 9-5 desk job rather difficult and unrelenting at times. I still worry about others seeing me as “incapable.” I still worry that I’m not doing enough. I still worry that inside my brain is just a kaleidoscopic mess; fragmented and all over the place.

The disabled parts of my brain struggle with rigidity and finite options or choices. This brain of mine has difficulty with word recall, which, if you’re also a writer, you might appreciate how horrific this can be. If you’re in my inner circle, you will hear me say from time to time, “What’s that word that’s like this…?” or “What’s that word that means this…?” This brain of mine simply cannot comprehend math or numbers. Try as I might, there is no connection there. This is probably why I gravitated towards dance, writing, and gender studies. I appreciate fluidity. I appreciate a variety of interpretations. I appreciate thinking creatively and flexibly. More than appreciating it, it’s all that is available to me.

I have a better relationship to my body these days—meaning, I have a relationship at all with it. Going from hating it for simply responding to life to then neutrality to then an actual, conscious relationship has been a wild ride. I’m now trying to do similarly with my brain. I’m trying to get to a place of neutrality with it, because going from zero to sixty is too intense. I’m trying to have compassion for my brain, for how it tries to protect me, for how hyper-vigilant she is, for how badly she wants me to be alive.

My brain is beauty.

My brain is ornate.

My brain is resistance.

1. Lessons in Self-Governance From the Zapatista Movement - Kelly Hayes

2. The Power of Zines -

   Creative Fuel with Anna Brones

3. Trauma-Informed & Relational Care for Libraries online course -

   Nisha Mody

4. PCOS and Queerness: A Bodily Haunting - Autumn Fourkiller

5. Different Women Have Different Narratives: A Book List - Meg Conley

6. Sapphic Sleuths: 10 Mystery and Crime Novels Starring Queer Ladies - Tirzah Price

7. Scientific Journals Are Publishing Papers With AI-Generated Text - Emanuel Maiberg

8. It’s Dirty Work: In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way? - Susanna Crossman

9. Zionism Über Alles: The German political establishment has abandoned the belief that the Holocaust gave it a responsibility to humanity and replaced it with a responsibility to Israel alone - Hans Kundnani

10. On repeat:

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