I don't know if this is true or not, but it feels like the longest I've gone without touching my site so far. I tried to write a blog post a couple days ago as I processed a document that's supposed to equip you with the tools to talk to your loved ones about taking covid precautions, but.. I kind of broke down and spiraled for a bit. I was up until maybe 4pm or something today/yesterday. I was on the phone with my partner A for an hour and a half and I was so grumpy lol. I don't know who of us was fronting, it gets messy when we're all kind of co-con at all times, but we usually look at how we're behaving and how the body is feeling. But the thing is all of us have felt betrayed and abandoned. That's our trauma over and over. So coming to the mindset regarding covid precautions that no one cares about us or disabled people triggers everything, really. It could have been any of us, it could have been all of us. But I guess that's just to say thanks to our partner for being so patient. And I guess kudos to us as well for sticking it out and not just hanging up immediately. We're able to fight that more now.
But A said, why are you making yourself a martyr in this way if you've had week-long breakdowns every few weeks for two years? What is the point in which you decide it's time to move on because it doesn't seem worth it anymore? And I don't want to abandon anyone else, I don't want them to be disabled in the way I am, and so I try and try and try to readjust my plan to approach. But a disability justice advocate, Imani, or @crutches_and_spice on tiktok said the goal of advocating for a better future is to preserve the lives of everyone around you, life itself, which means you get to live it too. One of the lives you're fighting for is your own. Watch the video here. It makes me cry each time I see it. When did I stop fighting for myself too? ...Or did I ever?
And so now I make the choice to give myself a better future. I need community that is disabled or abled people who practice disability justice. Or at the very least aren't complicit in the genocide in the ongoing covid pandemic (which feels like should be a small ask, but the propaganda is strong). I need a medical team that will actually listen to me and not undermine my pain and who will actually try to improve my quality of life. I might need to finally push for diagnoses so I can start gathering what I need to apply for disability benefits. My whole life is going to change. And I didn't want it to, especially because that means I will have to let go of a lot of people. But it's already changed. When I said I don't want to start over with a new friend group and support system, A said, how many of your support system has actually been there when you needed them in the last year? When have they last reached out?
I'm laughing now. I've been delusional. It's been months and years for some of them. I've been blaming myself for not reaching out, but no one reaches out to me when I go quiet, which usually means I'm in some kind of danger. I just apologize and apologize when (if) I see them again, but...otherwise, it's quiet.
What a hellish existence I've been subjecting myself to.
I found a lot of online community recently, but I've been hesitant to actually speak with them. I don't know if it's shyness or something else, but. I think it's time to try. One of them is a "cousin" 3 years younger than me, from the state I grew up in, and with the same mix of cultures (minus one) as me. It's the first time I've seen that in someone I wasn't directly related to, and I commented, and they called me cousin, and we followed each other and I keep commenting on their posts, and I love them.
I'm immersing myself in Vietnamese. And I'm angry, so angry about it. This was taken from me. This was taken from my mom. There's the smaller violence of a father who prevents his children from learning their mother's language because he doesn't understand it and won't commit himself to learning it. And it's part of the larger violence of America's war crimes and genocide in Việt Nam, of US bombing Laos more than any country in history. I think of what was stolen from us. I think of the legacy of trauma and PTSD and CPTSD and mental illness and heart disease in my family. I think of who we could have been. I think of us trying to live in the US, with people who hate Southeast Asians because of propaganda, who thought we eat cats and dogs, who called our comfort foods disgusting and stinky, who laughed at our language, who only knew of our countries as enemies in war, or not at all.
I have an idea of what the future of displaced Palestinians will look like: our past. We don't know our family history beyond who escaped the war. We gritted our teeth and tried to succeed in a country that killed our kin and disabled us and laughs at our language. Our elders could only work in nail salons and laundromats and restaurants, so when we do anything other than that they're surprised. They think we're stupid and subservient. They love our food now, and they don't love us. And when any of the diaspora were to ever return home, we'd find it's not home, and we're touched to be around people who look like us for once only for them to reject us. They destroyed our homes and try to prevent us from making a home anywhere else.
And yet, we persist.
I've been telling my mom I have such a strong urge to visit the temples my great uncle and grandma built (one is in my city but I'm scared because I don't know the language or the customs, one is down the street from some family but I've hardly interacted with them as an adult and don't know how). And I have such a strong urge to see our home in Laos. Apparently it's still there.