“Everything that you’re feeling name it love”
some end of the year thoughts
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When I reflect on the past year, there were some good things, some shitty things, and mixed things. That’s life, isn’t it? These last few months have been some of the hardest of my life. I decreased my Zoloft for the first in 24 years. I decreased it again a few weeks ago. I started at 100mg and I’m not at 75mg. In case you forgot, my reasons for doing this are here.
I feel okay. So far. I feel more. I feel less blunted, which isn’t always welcome, but I’m trying to be with it. I plan to remain at this dose until summer.
Sometimes I feel crazy. Really crazy. I struggle with intrusive thoughts, I struggle with obsessive thinking. I struggle so much with my connection to my body. When I’m having a particularly difficult time, I wail about how I wish I was someone else—someone less feeling; someone with different problems; someone less crazy.
Do you know what it’s like to sometimes be afraid of taking a walk outside because one time you got an ocular migraine when you came in from outside? Do you know what it’s like to feel afraid to move your body because what if something shakes loose inside of you and you can’t set it right?
I cry a lot. I cry almost daily. It’s one of the only releases that makes me feel better—that seems to push the sludge through. I don’t feel “normal.” I’m not “normal.” I know my sometimes desire for normality is more of a desire for peace and ease because “normal” doesn’t really exist. But life is not peaceful or easy. Life is never “normal.”
I am a survivor of compounded trauma. Life is inherently little “t” traumatic, and then sometimes you experience big “T” trauma on top of it. It’s a lot. It’s too much. It’s what being alive is, though.
In the New Year, I have typical resolutions—eat less sugar (it’s not good for my PCOS or my anxiety), move my body more, get my first mammogram (which I’m terrified about), find ways to be less fearful (really trying to embody this quote from Andrea Gibson, ”When I accept what’s happening, then I get to be with life” and also “Everything that you’re feeling name it love”), and thriving instead of just surviving.
I have hopes and dreams for the future, but really I just want to be at peace in my body and mind. If I can have that, it would be a miracle.
Israel is still killing Palestinians, including 14 of my relatives - Ahmad Abushawish
Hawai‘i Has a Rare Opportunity to Reclaim Land From the US Military - Christine Ahn & Davis Price
Beyond Memoir: A Roundtable on Health, Identity, and the Invisible Injury We Aren’t Talking About - Molly Gaudry, Carmen Giménez, D/Annie Liontas
An Unholy Precedent: What today’s Palestine activists can learn from a notorious post-9/11 prosecution - Sarah O’Neal
Your Favorite Queer Books of 2025 - Danika Ellis
Sleep is delicious: The idea that we should reduce sleep to an efficient minimum in our lives gets something fundamentally wrong - Sara Protasi
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed - Joseph Cox
The Child-Care Challenge - Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
Can Italy’s History Offer Lessons for Surviving Our Current Moment? - Margaret McMullan
an oldie, but a goodie:
This essay was wonderful and made me feel less alone.
If you want I can walk you through a mammogram verbally so you have some idea of what to expect.
Inspiring