Tag: Mental health

I started this year with a specific Word of the Year, a tradition in Christian women’s circles dating back to the heyday of the “blogsphere.” I usually don’t remember mine by April, but this year was different. This year the word that came to me, or that I picked (depending on what you believe about such things), was “complicated.”

As in, letting myself be.

I refused to simplify myself any longer. I would not pretend to be straight for others’ comfort. I would not pretend to be the perfect gold-star aromantic asexual person while denying the reality of my vague sapphic attractions, while accepting that I would never be fully accepted in the lesbian community either. Aromantic and yet a romantic. A cis woman and yet deeply, intrinsically, queerly, asexually so.

I would not hide that I have nontraditionally presenting ADHD in addition to my variety pack of mental illnesses. I would give up trying to screen and test myself over and over for autism, which I probably don’t actually have but also don’t not have entirely. I would be hyperactive and exhausted, both wrapped in brain fog and begging for someone quick enough to catch up with my twice-exceptional brain that has already put the pieces together. I would live into the reality of my disabilities despite feeling unqualified to use that term. I would respect my body’s needs and differences as my own and not the object of others’ expectations.