Autoimmune Flare/Going Live/Inspiration
Is Chronic Illness an Abuse
Medium Day Keynote & GrowthJournaling@CloudCafe
I f you mean in the conventional ways we see ‘abuse’, then probably No.
I had a most protected childhood, born in a manger constructed with love, swimming with un-compromised atoms of care and affection, so much so that the real world came as a shock. You can call this abuse.
As a young adult stepping into life, coming to face the cruel, brutal world that is always ready to tear into your core threads and dying hard to make a different person of what you want to be, in a way it turns a perfect catalyst to wake your crooked genes to show their circus. It is abuse.
All your young adult life just goes in dealing with a frenemy, your own immune system, hell bent to destroy you when it should be fighting your enemies, pushing you to the brink, from where you can only walk forward putting yourself through the sludge showers, which breaks you, slices you, chips off the broken parts, making them look deformed, shapeless, which you know will never fit back like the blocks you played as a child with. Yes. That’s abuse.
But you pick up those pieces, the bad ones, the horrible looking ones slowly, start to mosaic them with what you are left with — your positive interior, your never-say-die-voice and your ability to have your back, because by now you know who you are, what you are capable of and that all your resources to armour you to stand up to the world, who never cares and definitely does not belong to non-conformists, non-normal individuals like you, are ready to spill over your now autoimmune-d/flared, not-so-pretty face. That is turning back at life.
Getting comfortable under your hurting skin, knowing you will most of the days not be who you can be, all your relentless efforts to look healthy and normal can vanish in a jiffy, the moment your immune system decides to turn rogue (which you know can happen within minutes of a trigger, such as stress), but get ready to switch on the camera nonetheless, put yourself there, talk, smile (rather weirdly), your ADHD peeping through the screen and actually have a nice time. It is calling peace.
To know that you have done it with certain flare (flare cuts flare), sending across the message you wanted to convey, showing your other sceptic self the certificate you greatly deserve, walking the words you fill your pages with, putting a face to your fight because it is never about competing with the world, but that part of you which is untraditionally tedious in adding wrinkles to your thoughts you can readily swipe.
That is GROWTH.
With Somsubhra Banerjee /Manali Mitra
The Replay Link for my/our session on Medium Day is available now:
I did observe some funny things about me, as how I was not sitting still or trying to read the screen with hazy vision, yet feeling very comfortable in being there and doing it. I am not in a habit of using personal photos. But I have used them today strictly for clinical purposes to help you understand how a ‘good sick face’ looks like.
To access the replay of our Live talk, you can use your Hopin Registration link, tap on Sessions/12th August (for people in IST timeline) and scroll down for my/our session: “How my Autoimmune Disorder made me a writer and Medium a Poet”. For the time being it only gives access to people who registered for Medium Day. Your feedback is valuable.
