From December 15, 2012 I woke up hungover again Friday, December 7, 2012. I woke up a few times, barely reaching consciousness when the...

I have been a mushy person, and I am not a mushy person. I liquified so I could belong, I lost my inner authority, I had no point of view. I acted agreeable. And now, now I want to act like myself. What does that mean? I am a person who got lost. I forgot what I stand for, and so I forgot to stand for it. I was afraid if I stood for myself I would be left behind. I was told I would be.

Showing my self is something I stopped doing after the day I got called 'Underwear Girl' at my best friends house when I was five years old. The systems that taught that boy to make fun of me, to make either of us feel like we're a problem-that’s what I’m done with. I want to live in a way that refuses to exchange self-abandonment for belonging, one that doesn’t flinch when I’m being perceived.

I'm not sure what to write about this week- I have several topics swimming around in my head. So maybe I'll just write a little about them all.

Getting diagnosed meant I could run my life again- that my system could stop trying to assimilate and I could run free.

Being labeled gifted meant I was smart enough to know better—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. And no one ever told me how. I see now that the system didn’t want complexity, it wanted compliance. My kids and I were punished not for failing, but for not fitting. We were called problems, when really, we just didn’t belong to the way things were done. It took me decades to realize: I was never the problem. The system was.