everthere

although I respect and appreciate that we all have hurdles to overcome, I struggle to consider my degree of "broken" the same as any other person's. that may be megalomania, but if everyone had to go through this and went through life struggling with the other things that there are to struggle with, than I am impressively weak.

I was in law school when I had a catastrophic stroke due to a previously undiagnosed 14mm hole in my heart. within six weeks, I underwent surgery to repair the hole. every so often I jokingly refer to my titanium heart because that's what the patch is.

because of the stroke, I now have a seizure disorder, tremor, drastically decreasing visual accuity, and a clinically impressive 45 point discrepancy between my "smarts" and "doing" IQ. and I am EXTREMELY fortunate in that I am alive, able to work, able to communicate, and, for the most part, take care of myself (e.g.: pee on my own).

I take six medications on a daily basis to keep me functional. these are not vitamins or supplements; these are anti-epileptics, parkinsons treatments, and other brain chemical stabilizers. I cannot function without them. trust me, I've tried. it's not pretty.

so, no, I understand that we are all broken. I understand life is hard. but once we get past the emotional difficulty and needing hugs and all the shit that everybody else has (because right now I'm also still trying to be friends with my recovering-alcoholic ex who I love dearly and right now I do really fucking need a hug), I think having a goddamn legal disability makes me just a little bit more broken than the average jane.

so don't fucking invalidate me, okay?