LEAVE EARLY

You are not choice-less

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Hi Dear Readers,

For a long time, up until recently actually, I thought I needed to “stick it out” when I was somewhere I didn’t want to be. Part of this was taught to me in decades of cognitive behavioral therapy. Akin to “exposure therapy,” the idea was to force myself to stay somewhere I was feeling uncomfortable because then I build up my tolerance for it, when is then supposed to lessen my anxiety. The problem with this is it completely negates the body. It completely overrides the nervous system. I have been in many situations where I felt unsafe in my body, but because I was taught to just hang on a little longer, I ignored my body’s wisdom. Hanging on a little longer has caused me physical and emotional harm. Not always. But too often.

I am currently learning how to stay present with anxious feelings/sensations AND listening to my body’s wants and needs. This can be a very delicate balance since anxiety wants me to flee or freeze all the time. Perhaps you too? Even when I know I am in a safe place, I will sometimes feel an anxious sensation. It has been my life-long work trying to figure out the subtle difference between intuition and anxiety. It is now also my work to find a balance between what my nervous system is telling me and what my brain is telling me. I trust my nervous system a bit more since my brain is often an unreliable narrator. Even so, I have to find a way for my body and brain to work together. I don’t always want to hang on. I don’t always think I should have to feel such immense emotional discomfort and pain to grow my tolerance. And the truth is, I don’t need to do this to myself. You don’t need to do this to yourself. You are not a failure for needing to leave early or for not “hanging on just a little longer.”

I am sometimes so insistent that I stick with something—a person, a place, a situation, a feeling, a thought—that I feel choice-less. As a multiple trauma survivor, this is disempowering and deadening. So I am learning now to leave early. To leave when I want. To stop hanging on if I don’t want to. To be gentle and ask myself, “Is this a moment to hang on or let go?”

I want to empower us all to leave early. You have choices, after all.

xL<3

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Reading List 🔖

We’ve only just begun to examine the racial disparities of long covid - Elaine Shelly
Researchers suspect that some populations are being hit especially hard by long covid because of disparities in health care. In fact, that’s exactly what happened with covid itself. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black people in the US are more than twice as likely as white people to be hospitalized for covid and almost twice as likely to die. Black women, who have a high rate of preexisting conditions and are overrepresented in occupations where exposure to the virus is more likely, are particularly vulnerable: a study published last year showed they are three times as likely to die of covid as white men.

My ICU Summer: A Photo Essay - Alice Wong
Another fear that emerged is not being able to speak and be understood. After my tracheostomy I communicated by gestures, facial expressions, and writing in my tiger journal. It is not easy to write while flat in bed! And yet, my sisters were able to read my lips and scribbles. To alert people, my sister Emily brought a device that I already used in my bedroom at home. It’s a button that I could clip on my pillow and it makes a loud DING DONG sound with a receiver plugged into an outlet. This button gave me a small sense of security.

What Lies Behind the Words: On Translating While Trans - Zeyn Joukhadar
In gendered languages, a speaker has the option of using gendered terms when speaking about themself. In a best-case scenario, a polite listener will wait for this cue to gender the speaker (though, surprise surprise, few cis people extend this courtesy to trans people). What this means is that pronouns can sometimes be “negotiated” in the space between you and other people without explicitly naming your gender. In Italian, I don’t need to say sono un maschio (I’m a male) or uso pronomi maschili o neutrali (I use masculine or neutral pronouns). I need only gender myself with the masculine -o or neutral -ə (-u is also currently used this way in some parts of Italy; in the Sardinian language, though, -u is masculine). In every language I speak other than English, to assert my pronouns I need only say sono uno scrittore / أنا كاتب, or even, simply, sono stanco.

The Artists Amplifying the Voices of Iran’s Protesters - Isabella Segalovich
Hundreds of videos of women burning their headscarves and cutting off their hair have spread swiftly across social media — and alongside them, Iranian and Kurdish artists are putting their skills to work to amplify their voices.

Abled-Bodied Leftists Cannot Abandon Disabled Solidarity to “Move On” From COVID - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
By wild, I mean painful. By painful, I mean heartbreaking. By heartbreaking, I mean every disabled person I know is in a state of grief and shock since April, when many mask mandates in airlines, public transport and public life were abruptly dropped by federal and state governments in the U.S., as everyone else abandons solidarity to “move on.” One minute, a lot of people were masking during Omicron; the next minute, everyone was back to breathing on each other on the bus — and we weren’t safe anymore. We increasingly feel pushed out of public life, as events and spaces from urgent cares to ERs to conferences say, “Oh, we’re not doing virtual anymore.” We’re talking about it, but it feels like no one else is. And many of us feel incredibly alone in our grief, and in the disorientation of feeling like we’re the only ones stubbornly remembering.

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Librarianship 🌻

Michigan library could close after town votes to defund it over 5 LGBTQ-themed books - Elaine Quijano

Milwaukee libraries would cut their hours and programming under city budget proposal - Sarah Volpenhein

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Books of Note 📚

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture - Sherronda J. Brown (nonfiction)

Luster - Raven Leilani (fiction)

The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School - (young adult)

Miriam and the Sasquatch: A Rosh Hashanah Story - Eric Kimmel (children’s book)

Woman Without Shame: Poems - Sandra Cisneros (poetry)

The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships - Diane Poole Heller (self-help)

[If you order any of the books above or any listed on my Bookshop site, a percentage goes to local bookstores and I get a small commission. Thank you for not ordering from Amazon!]

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Be Witchy 🔮

The 21 Best Witch Movies of All Time - Molly Fitzpatrick

Caroline Hagood on Weird Girls and The Inner Monster - Lisa Marie Basile

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Playlist 🎵

“Angel” - Allie Crow Buckley
”Love Looks Different” - Madi Diaz
”Cowboy Gangster Politician” - Goldie Boutillier
”My Horror” - Santigold
”Eggshells” - Dehd

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Mood Board 💓

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Self-Care + Good Things ☕

Heating pad self-care. Journaling. The leaves changing color. Getting my bivalent Covid booster. Getting my flu shot. Talks with A. Talks with K. Talks with Mamma. Surviving medical appointments. Fidget toys.