A letter to a loved one

I know this is going to be hard to hear. Because you are hurting. Because the crazy voices in your head (and they are of you, yes, and you are you-with-them, but they are not you) are so loud, so much louder than my quiet voice. Forgive me if I yell sometimes. I’m only trying to speak above them, so you can hear me, because I know how hard they work to drown out everything else.

You are strong. You are so strong, though I know you are only human, and you can bend and break and bleed as well. You don’t want to speak your truth because you’re afraid others will hear a lie, don’t want show your wounds because you think they mean you are weak, but you will survive them, you are surviving them, and that means you are so strong, so amazing. You are dealing with so much, so much ugliness, so much fuckupitude, so much batshit — from inside and out — and you are surviving. Do you know how amazing that is?

If you don’t, if you can’t, it’s because your head is filled with the craziness, and your body is surrounded by kyriarchy, and they conspire to keep you sick, they require that you stay sick so they can exist. They tell you this illness isn’t real, that it’s a character flaw, that it’s inside you and so you are somehow damaged. They lie. If this were a physical illness, if you had cancer and it was your own cells, measurable, that were dividing and multiplying and spreading and filling your self with wrongness, with illness, people (mostly) would get it, would recognize and honor you for fighting for your life, would cheer for you, would run fucking marathons for you, and you would deserve it. You DO deserve it, and so much more, and fuck the kyriarchy for denying you that, for making your fight for your life silent, obscured, supposedly shameful when it is a badge you should wear with pride, a flag you should wave for all it’s worth because you are worth so much, you are doing so much, and pride is justified, would be recognized as your right if our society were right and just.

That you are still here at all, that you are trying, that you are fighting, struggling for breath, struggling for sleep and sanity, struggling to survive, any way you can: you are amazing. I am amazed by you. You are awesome. I am in awe of you. I won’t place you on a pedestal because I know you’re going to slip sometimes, and I can’t do this for you no matter how much I would wish to, but I am here, I will always be here, cheering you on, holding you when you fall, walking with you as much as I can, telling you I know it gets easier, it gets better, there is light at the end, that you can do it, that you are doing it, that I am so, so proud of you.

Fuck everything else. Fuck the kyriarchy, fuck those whose perception is deadened by kyriarchy, fuck the crazy and its endless what-ifs, its concern over what they think, how they’ll react. If they are worth caring about, they’ll care about you. If they are worth paying attention to, they’ll pay attention to you. If they’re worth living for, they’ll want you to live.

I wish I could just wrap sanity and security and stability and self-confidence and the support you need in a bright shiny package, and take it to your house, and watch you pull the bow and have it unfold in your mind, in your soul, in your life, settling over you and comforting you like a hand-made quilt, each stitch worked a blessing for your well-being. I wish I could tell you there were any way out of this hell except through. But I can’t. I can’t, and I’m so sorry I can’t.

I can tell you I am proud of you, and I know you can do it, are doing it, and it doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to be perfect, and I know it’s so hard and it hurts so much. I know. But it’s OK. You’re OK. You’re amazing, with all your flaws, with all the crazy inhabiting your thinking right now, with all the ugliness you are struggling with. You are beautiful. And I love you.

——————————————-

As I write it to her, I think — maybe, a little — I can hear it myself. If the God/dess speaks through me, s/he speaks to me, and I am humbled.