Help! A Video Transcript

The Amazon Wishlist 

Please message me for the email address for the Instacart gift cards or information for the Veterinarian info

Ignore my Deadname and Use this Paypal for anything else  

 Visual Notations in the Video in Text form:

Hello, everyone. Making this video has been quite challenging. I've kept promising to provide an update on my ongoing medical issues, but it's been a struggle emotionally and physically. The delay stems from various factors: difficulties with the caregiver agency, worsening health conditions, and sheer exhaustion from trying to survive. Part of me is terrified to open up about my vulnerabilities. However, I realize that if I don't ask for help, I won't receive it. Those of you who know me know that I usually can make speech happen despite my non-verbal autism with a script. I am in such a state that this is not possible. So I am using my AAC. 

Currently, I'm embroiled in a legal battle with the caregiver agency, which adds to the stress and financial strain. Finding a new agency willing to meet my complex needs is a lengthy process, made worse by a shortage of caregivers and the low wages in the industry. Despite previous attempts to address the issue legally, the agency continues to deny care using legal loopholes, leaving me in a precarious situation, especially as I approach surgery. The most recent hearing on this matter was a few days ago and there will not be further progress before my surgery. The good news of this is that everyone knows I am in the legal and moral right. There will be a national review of everyone in this program. Every single person on this waiver needing a caregiver will have an audit to ensure they are getting their needs met. They will also be auditing those who died during the pandemic to see if other agencies are killing people. The bad news is this takes time and the legal loopholes being used aren't going away anytime soon. Legal change takes a lot of time and steps and the agency is not doing their job or admitting they cannot. I cannot stop fighting for care and change agencies hoping to get care without having care. It is a demoralizing and frustrating experience but I have a right to my basic needs being met. I deserve to eat every day, I deserve to be clean, I deserve to have clean clothes, and I deserve dignity and to be treated as a human.  

During the pandemic, my medical challenges have been overwhelming. From multiple melanoma diagnoses to a wheelchair malfunction that resulted in severe injuries including new breaks in my spine, the past few years have been a relentless struggle. Compounding these issues is untreated internal bleeding, exacerbated by the pandemic's impact on medical care. Now, I face abdominal surgery without a caregiver, adding to the urgency of my situation. I have had internal bleeding since the start of the pandemic, surviving via transfusions. Now my doctors think it is cancer and I am out of ability to wait for proper support. The combination of injury and the side effects of my already diagnosed cancers has me in a very fragile place physically. The surgery will include a complete hysterectomy and exploration of my abdominal cavity to see what the heck that thing over there is. The delays were not desired by myself or my doctors but the hospitals literally did not have a bed for me in the ICU where I will be guaranteed some time after. 

To cope, I've compiled a list of essential items I need for daily living. These include practical necessities like a mini-fridge and microwave for easier access to food, as well as personal hygiene items like an electric scrub brush and towels. Additionally, I require a suitable workspace so I can work and earn an income, as my current setup requires that I twist my spine awkwardly to use it. I didn't have to do that before the wheelchair broke my back but I can't sit the same way I used to. The window coverings will allow the removal of the very dirty blankets that give me some privacy. The clothing, towels, and bedding are needed as I don't have anything left to clean myself with. I haven't had clean clothes in 5 years. Between the flood that occurred during this time and the wear and tear on what survived I only own two skirts and a dress that doesn't fit. Everything is full of grime and holes. 

Financial assistance is also crucial, primarily for veterinary expenses and groceries. While I've considered setting up a GoFundMe, I prefer direct assistance to avoid unnecessary transactional layers. Any help, whether through direct payments or gift cards, would be immensely appreciated and would significantly alleviate my current struggles. I need 200 dollars paid directly to the vet for the veterinarian for Czernobog's outstanding ear infection care and vaccination. I would like to give the person paying the information to pay the veterinarian directly. I need 150 dollars for his sterilization and microchipping. For groceries, I am less certain about how much I need and would prefer to use Instacart gift cards, as this is how I get food. I am aware many will suggest I try Walmart grocery delivery. I have. They sent me a plastic chest, put me in the ER by sending me food I have airborne anaphylaxis to instead of what I ordered, and then tried to keep the money. I got a refund but they will not let me shop online and I do not want to risk being hospitalized for their bad decisions again.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that this isn't just about immediate relief; these items will serve me well in the long term, providing stability and support for years to come. I find it illogical to go through ten extra steps for a gofundme when I can just ask for someone to call the veterinarian, to give me the gift card I would buy anyway, and then I do not have to ask for the extra fees to be covered. If you're unable to assist directly, please consider sharing this video with others who may be able to help. Thank you for your support and understanding during this challenging time. If you have questions or if something needs clarification please ask. The link to the Amazon wishlist is in my profile.

Accessible Voting Places Exist?!

Let's talk voting. I have voted in every election I could except one since I turned eighteen, and that was due to being so ill it was impossible. As I am usually stuck in bed, due to my chronic illnesses, that should tell you what it takes for me to not vote. I thought I was going to die. In the years since my spinal cord injury I found myself growing more and more frustrated with the voting in my city, as often I couldn't get INTO the polling place and had to go elsewhere. This lead to my ritual of early voting, though the problem remained at least I could go somewhere else to vote and didn't have to risk injury, damage my wheelchair, or be exposed to as many people. That last bit matters as voting where I live is in the fall, when flu season begins.

This year was different. The polling place was the most accessible I have seen, the only issue being so many doors we had trouble finding the actual entrance. This is not something I consider dire, just funny in retrospect. The line while waiting to be processed was wide enough for a power chair, not just the manual chair I am stuck using until my power chair is fixed. The staff running the polling place didn't wear any cologne, no one had food in the building. The people in charge had a very efficient system.

When it came time to be signed in, I handed over my ID, impressed the man by having updated my address after I moved, as it is noted when I did that. Somehow my brain has memorized the new place without any fuss despite numbers and the issues I have with processing them.

They had a section of special wheelchair access tables, with magnifiers, larger pens, extra lighting and no one needed me to explain why my carer was helping me fill out the ballot. This year no one assumed she was trying to sway my vote, they assumed I knew what I wanted to vote (and I did).

The ballot was changed for New Mexico to have a large space between candidate names, yes or no questions, and larger print despite being a longer ballot than last year or the year before. It might be the longest ballot in my lifetime, though I am not positive. This matters because any miss marks will mark your ballot as invalid, and that means your vote may not be counted. The process for those ballots is to be hand counted but if the vote is still unclear then the vote is discarded to ensure fairness.

While I was voting I could hear people talking and it became clear that the man who signed me, a registered Independent, in was a Republican, while the man who was coordinating this space was a Democrat. There were several women who were also spread across the parties. This stuck out to me because 0 people were arguing politics, 0 people were judging who was voting. It was the partisan teamwork that I wish our politicians would follow.

Once my vote was done I made sure to tell the man who was the head coordinator how much better my voting experience was. It matters. I expect every year to fight for my vote. This year I didn't have to. That's a first since my illnesses were made visible. There was care given to my needs, needs others might have I do not, and effort by everyone present to ensure that every single voter was comfortable voting and felt like their vote mattered. I haven't felt like my vote was wanted before. When I was 18 and voting for the first time I didn't think my vote would matter. It did, as I would learn eventually. My vote being wanted was never something that felt clear. When I have to risk bodily harm to vote, disenfranchisement is extraordinarily obvious.

I am certain someone is going to wonder why I do not take advantage of the mail in ballot option. When I was voting and young I volunteered to help coordinate voting day and to count ballots. This is a very tiring job but I felt pride in my country for it's efficient systems. That pride was shattered when I found out that the mail in ballots were thrown away. This is something that stuck with me. Early votes were counted first, day of votes second, and mail in ballots were not counted at all. I did report this with documentation but I do not know what came of it, and it shaped how I vote.

I do not believe most places do this. I do not live where this happened but my budding sense of civic duty was left in pieces. I haven't volunteered since, and I could have despite health issues. I do not consider myself patriotic. I have spent much of my adult life embarrassed to be a citizen of the United States of America. Often over the actions of politicians.

I did not feel this shame when I voted this year. I will not have my annual naked politician nightmares (usually its every candidate since these started during the Palin/McCain run naked, barbecuing once awake this is hilarious but not while asleep.)

No one should feel their vote does not matter. No one should feel shame about their country. I do not know if my vote matters. There's so much going on in my country that makes it clear a lot of people don't want my vote to matter. The efforts to disenfranchise are soul crushing. That's why I want to share that sometimes, despite the politics, things go right. Sometimes the process is as it should be, with care given to make sure everyone can vote. That's all I can ask.

To the people who helped run the polls this year? Thank you.

AVGO TVs from Fingerhut: A Review

This is the review of a very angry customer. A customer who knows Fingerhut is shit and was left choosing to try and build credit or not. A customer of many years who never missed a payment. As many people do not want to read a long list of the issues at hand this is a preface. Your "great deal" on the AVGO TV with the Roku is a bait and switch, and may be a violation of your local laws. In my state it is so I will be pursuing legal aide from the government under the consumer protections act.



What is wrong?



1. The advertised built in stand is not present.

2. The advertised Resolution of 4k is not the actual resolution. This tv is 1080P

3. The sound is terrible, echoey and unpleasant.

4. The Roku advertised as having a headphone jack and voice controls at the time of my order, this was not what was received. Other items ordered were also incorrect.

5. Fingerhut expects me to send back the items at MY cost, not theirs, for credit on my account minus the return shipping. Shipping to me was several hundred dollars, this would make the cost of the tv itself doubled on just shipping. This is unacceptable.

6. Without the built in stand there are added costs to the consumer, as either a stand or a wall mount must be purchased.

7. There is no manufacturer's contact information, I am suspicious of this and believe AVGO may be a Fingerhut brand name. I do not know this for certain and this is speculation but this does force the consumer to deal with Fingerhut directly, meaning the manufacturer cannot make me happy and send me the damned legs for the TV, but I must instead wait to see if Fingerhut will do the reasonable thing and send me the correct TV, before I send this piece of crap back.




None of my complaints are new but these TVs are. So I am doing this to make sure other customers are prepared. There are positive reviews however I am a technophile, I am not the cliche old woman who knows nothing but a Millennial technology fiend. I know exactly what I want and what was advertised, as that was not what is sold this is in fact a crime.

Edit: Fingerhut would not let me post a review on their website with this information until I removed the words rip off from my review. Censorship seems silly since here I am on my blog detailing this to you. I also know enough words and own a thesaurus to work around their verbal blockade.



My full rant is below.



I say often do not use Fingerhut. This public post is to relate my frustration. I have been a fingerhut customer for years as after being homeless my credit needed some TLC and that was a good way to manage. I have never missed a payment. I have been a good customer.

First and foremost I decided to upgrade my TV because I am disabled and have found gaming and watching TV a way to tune out the pain of missing vertebrae and torn nerves. Gaming helps me coordinate better and has been vital to my recovery from being shot in the head.

Fingerhut decided to send me the wrong products. Not just one but three. The TV I ordered was supposed to come with a Roku stick that had a headphone jack. No headphone or voice with this one.

The TV was supposed to be 4k as their strange "AVGO" brand that has no contact information in the tv box was a good enough deal to gamble with less than perfect quality. The quality is abysmal and it is not a 4k tv. This tv is 1080p.

The speakers are muffled and hollow sounding, the previous generic brand tv had great sound. The color is off, I would tweak it but right now the stand that is supposed to be built in as per the manual, ads, and styrofoam protector for shipping even has a space for these feet. My TV had none, and I wasn't in fact prepared for wall mounting as I instead went for a console upgrade as the tv stand I had was on the verge of dying, and this upgrade would be a luxury allowing my cats some freedom and me comfort, again with the comfort. No worrying about the tv stand collapse... No stand has me using the styrofoam at the moment. I wasn't sure what else to do.

So once I spend 3 days with the help of two people setting up the new tv console, those days over the advertised one hour set up because the console included part of one design and another, it was a celebration to open the tv.

The TV that is not what I ordered.

Fingerhut for a small charger for a game controller expected me to ship a wire back at cost to ME, before CREDITING my account. No shipping out the actual item ordered, just a customer service rep who was crying from the moment I answered my phone. Sobbing as I asked her why she needed me to verify the number she just called, because apparently that wasn't verification.

So, tv has no way to stand, console is a frankenstein, and... I didn't get the game controller chargers.  Not only that but the TV I had was fine, this was a splurge, a once in a decade leap at modernization that is beyond me outside of rare moments.

I need to either buy a wallmount, with no budget for that, or figure out something better, a soundbar or something so that the tv sound isn't a mess, and oh maybe another TV... somehow.

Fingerhut has such terrible service it is legendary but those AVGO tvs are NOT worth it. They are a scam, and i will be withholding my payments until this is rectified not with a tv to be returned and six months to a year as they average for returns but with them sending the correct ITem then my returning this one. Why should I be without a TV, as I sold the old one to cover this, if they cannot do their job of selling what is ordered?

I am aware this is a first world problem scenario, however I am also bed bound. I don't get to go out and do fun things, this is it. I read or game or watch TV. Doctors and home are my life. I do not eat out. I do not drink. I do not smoke. By the standards of many people my age (us horrifying to the elderly millenials) I am not living. I do my best but I deserve better as do all other Fingerhut customers. I will be posting this on my blog, so that anyone googling for those AVGO tvs knows they will be fucked over.

The Opioid Crisis. and Pain Management

Today I woke up with a dislocated hip, had my cat bite my foot because he couldn't get enough attention while I had to figure out how to get to the kitchen and bathroom without my wheelchair since that is broken, and when he is worried he bites. When he is scared he bites. When he is great he does not bite. The amount of pain I am in has left me in tears, though I rarely cry I am often in enough pain I should. Its a matter of not wanting to waste my precious energy.

To the people who made me fight to up my meds for an extra six months because of my age? How can you be a pharmacist and not understand just by virtue of the people you serve that some of us have corkscrew spines, missing vertebrae, chronic dislocations, maybe cancer which is also painful but not my burden. I don't look sick because I work at being well enough I can do more than cry. No one is ever sick enough for you because you can't feel the anger in the inflammed joints grinding in and out of place. You don't see the hole in my lower back where those vertebrae used to be. You do not see the scars of gunshot wounds and knives and you do not live in my flesh. So I pass for healthy despite being a fat, balding, overly pale woman.

No one is sick enough for you. You hold back our medicine because of your own disablism and it is a frustration. If I didn't have those meds today I do not know if I could have managed to feed and medicate my elderly cat, myself though feeding is still up in the air, and contained the natural response to being bitten. That response is to make the biting stop. For me that comes with an impulse to hurt the thing hurting me. If I am in enough pain I cannot stop the reflexes and that isn't okay with me. I'd rather be hurt than hurt a cat who is flipping out with good reasons.

You do not listen to the police sirens that only come when the situation is so bad they send in Swat because you don't get actual police. You call about a gun going off and you get put on hold? I do. Did you have something shatter near your head while you were making food for yourself last night? I did. No holes I could see with daylight in them today but the bullet could've hit the outerwall and knocked things down. This happens.

When you judge people like this you are adding on to their shit lives. If these ads about opiods continue I worry I won't get to have my meds, and I understand why you wanted me to shell out for overdose antidotes but I am too poor to afford that. I debated telling you all of this to your face but that never actually helps and its been six months.

I understand every person on any opiate is now presumed an addict, this has been the reality since before I started taking my meds. I made myself wait for two years until a doctor convinced me it was better to try and treat my pain than risk killing myself because of pain. That was what it took because I was terrified of becoming an addict. So my very good doctor, who eventually got arrested for drug dealing, helped me come up with a plan for me.

In the next decade I would experience repeated times when my medicine was not attainable because of other people's decisions. Politicians, lots and lots of asshole pharmacists (I do not consider you one of these, these are the ones who also wouldn't let me get my heart meds because they didn't feel like working that day.) Not my doctors. I never hit withdrawals just unbearable layers of pain that made me very much take care with my meds. I wait to take my pills until I am starting to cry from pain. I wait to increase my pain meds until I have begun to lose the ability to eat, bathe, and sleep. Usually my other meds are tweaked, sometimes untweaked, to try and delay increasing the opioids.

I work damned hard to not be an addict, and some of that is not getting high on the meds. If you are in pain this is a lot harder. This may be why I never got high when I experimented with drugs as a teenager, but the anaphalactic shock and near death may be the other reason. I just knew it was not the right thing. Especially since after the experiments I was MORE paranoid and more afraid of what was going on in my life. I grew up without the medical care I needed because my diagnosises undermined the abusers wants in my life. I have a lot of demons I could easily bury with something.

As a writer I like to ensure that my portrayals of vulnerable people are correct. I include addicts in this because while addiction involves choices, it is not something that comes without predisposition, demons that make you want to hide, and a lot of pain. Since I have an addict in the book I am writing I did research, interviewed people and the one thing I found that differs between me and addicts is my choice to face my demons head on. If I hadn't done that I might have been fucked over.

Addicts need care, they need help but these ads about opioids come with an unhealthy lack of personal responsibility. If we do not allow people to face their responsibility we hurt their recovery from addiction. The addicts I know made this clear to me during my interviews. I feel very lucky to have made the "right" choice, but notice my quotes. Sometimes there are no right choices and I know if I wasn't lucky I might have failed to recover enough from my own abuse.

I am aware some of my pain today is also my fear. A bullet possibly breaking something a foot away is too close. I have been shot. i do not want to experience that again. I have been stabbed. I do not want to experience that again. I want to live with less pain. That's it. Less. I know eradicating pain is impossible. I want to scrape the moldy bread free of mold and eat it, so I can survive.

I am in too much pain to work on my novel but I feel like this needs to be said. There has been no discussion about the lack of pain management care and options available. In my state none of the pain management clinics deal in medication, and a lot of what they do offer isn't right for a LOT of people. Epidurals didn't help me, they made my pain worse. The Tens units only helped a little and my skin comes off on the electrodes. THere's not a lot for me.

Don't stop asking the question. As frustrating as it is, I would rather someone who is an addict got help. Just realize that you need to ask grandmothers and us young foxy ladies. If it was up to me I wouldn't need any pills, but that isn't my life. In order to change that part of my life I would have to be someone else, giving up the things that make me want to be alive, and there's no guarantees another life is better. All the what if options for the big things that made my body this fucked up are worse too. Yeah I am missing vertebrae but I kept kids alive in a car accident. How can I regret that?

How to get a Doctor to think Zebras

First and foremost this blog does not constitute legal advice, its just how I did it. This may not work for you but I found a Yale graduate who is not a C student of life in Albuquerque, a hopeless place for anything beyond chile festivals and Dia de Los Muertos Parades. This means there is reason to hope if you are in a reasonably sized city. This advice will fail if you live in a small town or place with a monopoly on medicine. Such places do exist and I know that moving is costly physically, mentally, and financially. That said it is something that may be worth it for you. It might not be.

Here are the steps I took that lead to me having good doctors.

1. When a doctor treated me like I was insane, I fired them.Sometimes face to face, if they were so bad that I couldn't stay in the room with them. This includes doctors who triggered PTSD, said  my PTSD was made up, or otherwise told the woman with the corkscrew spine its in her head. IT isn't in your head even if it literally is in your head such as with my brain injuries.

2. If a doctor says they have EDS I have tested them. Simple questions about the types and care. If they fail I tell them so. My great doctor failed, its not just about being right or wrong but how they take you going, "Well, actually..."

3. Don't give up. This process is exhausting, humiliating, potentially expensive. DO not give up.

4. When you call a place you can ask receptionists questions about your doctor. I ask the following and some are phrased to get around privacy laws: Do you have any doctors without complaints? What is the average wait time to see (doctor)? Do any of your doctors have chronically ill patients?

Note: You can ask about types of patients but not more than that. This question may still be left unanswered by the very careful.

5. Google your doctor, use your local medical boards, better business bureau

6. Sometimes a doctor is still shit after all this. It can be demoralizing, heart breaking, and you want to give up. This is to me the most important step. Don't give up. Take a day, then get up and try again. The up is metaphorical, its okay to try again laying in bed, I usually do.

7. Self Care. Be it a gluten free pizza, ice cream for supper, a hot soaky tub (why you would do this I do not know!), tea, watching your favorite movie, or anything else fulfill the needs for self care as best you can. This can mean taking two days to make one phone call, it can mean a day where you just sleep. It IS okay to not be able to do anything else after a hard day, it is okay to not be able to do everything.

The reality is its perseverance, knowing yourself, knowing your needs and fighting for them. People ask me again and again how I do it, and this is the system I apply to every single specialist, my primary and honestly this is how I ended up finally getting a great caregiver too.

Contractions (Trigger Warning for child abuse discussions)

I started writing this with a long list of the false diagnoses I was given as a child all the Psychological things that didn't pan out for my mother. I am still processing the change of reality that comes with acknowledging her narrative of being saintly is bullshit. Acknowledging she is as bad as my father was hard and has caused a spate of analyzing my experiences with my OWn perspective over what was assigned by her.

One of the challenges of dealing with any abuser is the control of the narrative. As a writer this is something I exploit with the reader, who they share the experience with, who acts as their eyes. With an abuser they train you to ignore your own experiences over theirs. You learn to codify things as they tell you. So, I am studying myself in a strange sort of self anthropology.

An experience that has plagued me for years as it makes little sense  has finally made sense. Taking it from the perspective that my mother is a bad mother helped. As a child with a laundry list of Munchausen by Proxy induced misdiagnosises and drugs for psych reasons there was never any bodily sanctity. My mother applied for SSI on my behalf. She also bought a car and spent all that money on herself. I will not say SSI is ever a lot but as a kid who had no toys? I wouldn't have minded new clothes over used frumpy ugly things or a doll. I am sure she excused this somehow but never to me. It was simply "Someone has to pay to put up with you." The only other thing she said about the SSI was related to her belief that I couldn't function as an adult. I was told my entire life, up until the cusp of legal adulthood when I decided to try despite these lies, that I was destined to spend my life in institutions.

When, after proving that to be a flat out lie, I was diagnosed with EDS, broke my back, ended up homeless and was finally with shelter and a chance to get some help I asked for her support in getting SSI she told me then that I was faking it. "You're not that sick, get a job." This combined with her having refused to help me because she had just helped my sister, as if helping us both was impossible since the help requested was very different has had me wondering why for years.

Here is what I understand:

Telling me she couldn't help me because she had helped my elder sister, when what I asked was not to be fed but to sleep in the shed int he backyard that was once my bedroom and currently unoccupied by anything but dirt, where as my sister asked for money? She was punishing me for having told her I didn't need my medications and taking away the "my poor pitiful crazy child" routine. She had my poor abused daughter with my elder sister who has never really stopped being used for attention for good old egg donar.

She told me I did need SSi for mental health issues but bodily issues aren't real to her. I have questioned her supposed agoraphobia for a long time. Before I developed this myself I wondered and after I knew she was wrong. She has none of the signs. Going out wasn't an act of terror for her but what caused her to curl up in bed at times? I don't know. I do suspect its EDS things going untreated. EDS can cause chronic fatigue. Looking back at my life it is clear to me injury and other issues only existed when it benefited her. Most physical issues would have brought to light the abuse and taken away her attention seeking tools via "Pity my poor life with this disaster of a child."

The reason I couldn't get her approval in SSI or help with getting it was that I wasn't applying for anything psychological, that she knew of. I did in fact do so as the only diagnosis I had at that time due to a lack of access to medical care was my PTSD. It was a huge factor in not working. The cult of Mother in our family has most of her children avoiding doctors. Not me.

That was it. It wasn't some grand conspiracy, it wasn't not being sick enough, it wasn't ME doing something wrong. It was just another facet of what is wrong with her. I have found myself crying a great deal of late as I look deeper into myself. It hurts. It is also necessary as like a forest fire, this cleanses the mental wounds. I am not burdened by that whisper asking, "Why wasn't I loved? What did I do wrong? Why can't I be good enough? I can't try any harder."

I no longer feel like a little girl that can't do anything right when I think of these moments. I mourn for myself a bit, and yet understanding and actually grasping coherently why I am okay. Its sort of a cocooning stage, and each time I stumble over something like this I find relief from a long term pain in the answers.

The reason I am writing this out isn't just for strangers who may be seeking someone else out there who knows this pain. It is also for me. I am writing it to remind myself that this is a form of healing. I achieved this understanding before she faked her death, my mother cannot undo that and only confirmed that horrible moment.

They say that ignorance is bliss but it has never made things better for me. I find more peace inside of myself with answers and understanding. There isn't a real roadmap for recovering from abuse, especially during your childhood but if someone reads this and gets a glimpse its possible to heal? Good. It really is.

The Dark Mirror

I am a bit afraid to write this, I started to write this in a clinical voice. Impersonal, cold. The voice of someone hiding something. I wanted to hide, at least subconsciously, that I am triggered by a horrible thing that was an accident. It mirrors horrible things that were done to children, not me, but ones I raised. Two of the children I have raised were drugged with "candy". Narcotics to sedate them. Candy. I was in pain already when they came to live with me and in that time broke my back. For two years my doctors wanted me to take drugs, anything to just buy time. I couldn't take the risk of them wanting that candy.

I sat with a toddler and an infant for long hours as they went through opiate withdrawals.Shaking, contorting, screaming. The sobbing into silence was worse somehow. They couldn't be held for much of it but when they could I let them. Their little nails dug into my skin, I bled. I didn't ask them to let go. I couldn't let go. My heart broke with every breath. Shattering again and again and I couldn't cry. I just had to be there. I was a kid. One cannot say I was an adult. I was barely free of the drugs forced on me.

I wonder if that is why my sister did it. The dark mirror of our own betrayal.

I wonder if my mother called it candy. I don't remember. My drugs made me crazy. Literally psychotic, with hemorrhagic side effects. A brain injury, then another later and its too much to remember. I just know that I was deemed insane and the doctors agreed with her. These psychologists never let ME speak, just her. The pills to make me a perfect child never quite worked. Now they tell us this medication makes children die. It makes them suicidal, psychotic, stunts their growth, damages their bodies. One pill at a time does that. I was on so many. Now we know that my DNA means those drugs are extra poisonous. I am genetically incompatible with them.

I think now on the years of pity my mother had for her desperately broken child. See, my mother has Munchhausen's by Proxy. My very real medical wasn't enough, nor was it treated because it was in the way of her delusions and her needs.

I do not know why. I wonder if it is because if its real it might be cured. Maybe she knew if it was real I wouldn't be beholden the way I was in a drugged up stupor. Maybe. I can't ask. Asking yields no real answers, just the strange "Well I knew you were sick but I didn't want you to have an excuse to be lazy."

I have known this is her ailment for a long time but I haven't named it or spoken about it this way. I have permanent damage to my already fragile body from this. I shouldn't be okay. With all I have suffered I shouldn't be a person anymore. She even tried to have me lobotomized once. Another of those clues my father was perhaps even less a monster. I still say equal because he was after all a serial killer, rapist, and generally horrible fucking person. The difference is she tried to warp my mind and pretended she was saving me.

She used to tell me how she wanted a child just like Snow White. Pale as snow, rosy lips and cheeks, big blue eyes. That was the only difference in description from the Disney film. She'd tell me this then say, "Then I had you." The tone you may expect to be loving was cold, as after she would remind me what a burden I was. Being a burden scares me but I am one to my friends. I also know that's alright. They help me when I can't do it alone. being a burden is called being a human being.

Some of this has come out of finding myself a Dark Mirror. I refer to people who have strange parallels that show you the alternative as these. They are often painful but usually its better to be you than them. There is rarely one so close as the one I found.

Once upon a time there were two little girls. Their mothers both were monsters. They were trapped by lies, duped doctors and evil bitches. Both knew one another for a time. One was much older, supposedly retarded and unable to walk or see. Her mother lied about a broken body and warped her mind.

The other was very sick but was told she was healthy and the doctors believed her mother that she was insane. She had every diagnosis under the sun. Both girls did. Both were lied to. Both were tortured. One was cut into pieces, feeding tubes and all. The other was denied care and put on medications that made her sick, made her have the sign of the mental illnesses they were to treat.

Neither girl was sick. At least not until it was too late.

The roads diverged as one girl hit adulthood and was made to stay a child. Every so often, before people noticed how old she was, she would be moved away to start fresh. The other was sent away and this was the difference. The system for mental health pulls you out of the situation and that changes things. I was lucky to be sent away, sort of. I was drugged, beaten, raped, and threatened with a lobotomy more than once. My autism was not diagnosed but used as proof of my defects.

My Dark Mirror was never free. She ran away once, she almost got out once. Those reprieves I had kept my reality at least somewhat intact. There were people who also believed in me. She never had those. They didn't see through the lies. Perhaps her Momster was a lot better at lying or the inherent presumption a wheelchair makes you stupid and feeble instead of being leg replacements (superior ones I say). No one saw she was fine under it all. Not even her father. Mine? He reveled in the lies and took advantage too. No where was safe for either of us but between the cracks I saw truths. I reached for them.

I got out long before Dark Mirror shattered. I cracked, I broke, I also kept going. Dark Mirror was still in her mother's clutches when Tangled came out. I hate Tangled. When I saw it, I was post my exhusband I think but I am not entirely sure. It all blurs a bit with what that was like. Tangled hits too many sore spots and Rapunzel is a terribly written heroine. She doesn't mourn a thing, she just is happy the entire time. For a supposedly "saves the hero" kind of character she really isn't a heroine at all. She is cardboard. She has no resolution to the pain, no consequences of being a prisoner with that much verbal abuse. At least Quasimodo (who is Rapunzel with a Penis) has the consequences of Frolo's abuse. Frolo's lines and Mother Gothel's lines are interchangeable. The plots are too. Rapunzel is a remake without a soul.

It is also dangerous. It tells people who are trapped they can get out, and they will be fine. There will be no consequences. They just need a man. So Dark mirror found a man. Dark mirror and her man murdered her mother. While I wish mine was really dead and at times fantasized when I was being abused about her dying, doing this is different. Dark Mirror's Prince? He has a lot in common with my abusive exhusband. So much it shook me.

Dark Mirror is in jail for murder, She will never really be free of that trap even if she is no longer tortured, drugged and exploited for money. We both will pay the price forever for this. My untreated medical issues should have killed me, as those were to be in my head. Her body is scarred and pains her as unneeded surgery is fucked up.

At the end of it all though, I am okay. It scares me to be okay. This doesn't mean I am great, I am not good right now either. I feel burdened and I am struggling. The betrayal of a faked death has me paranoid, as do other things I should not post online. Even anonymously.

Abuse warps your reality and some of us, Munchhausen's by Proxy or no, will always have to ask, "Is this real?" Its more so for us, the survivors of other's delusions but gaslighting and other abuse also thrives on warped reality. Your abuser sets the rules. Statistics go "You should be dead." Science too.

So why am I okay despite statistics?

I do not know but I know that while every pain and memory and fresh betrayal cracks my heart further and it is fractured I survived. Somehow I managed to learn to be healthy. My depression is still here, my agoraphobia isn't entirely gone even if I am well enough to go on adventures. I am just okay. The extremes of my life have let me learn to endure a lot and things while always rocky, are at a place where I am at last able to see that I am free. I've found a peace with in myself, the guilt I used to carry is mostly gone. I feel it in spurts instead of all the time. I do not want to die except when I first wake up and just before I sleep and that is not even a true suicidal  urge but a chronic issue from pain, drugs, and abuse., My brain doesn't have the ability to not do this.

I carried so many labels but all of the ones she lied to get me fell away except depression, PTSD, and the medical things. The ones that were real stayed. I have even debated if I really ever had an eating disorder, and it turns out yes I do but I am well enough that it doesn't come up much. The symptoms are rare. No one is ever cured of an eating disorder but what do I have that has a treatment muchless a cure? Out of 32 rare genetic diseases and fuck the rest as still no cure or treatments only one thing has a treatment.

That is what is so wrong with the Dark Mirror. She had the medicine I needed and I wonder if she can ever even be okay.

I have never truly been free before this recent bout of struggle showed me I made it. What has happened as a result of my grasping, before she faked her death to just really hammer it home, that my momster was a momster did was I am free. I got to a point where the thing I needed to know to truly step forward and just live my life came. I cannot be here for my siblings if they need me. Not even if she is dead. I must be an orphan. They murdered the me who was born to them a long time ago.

She faked her death, but the little girl she asked her god for and got died. Now she's stuck without even me. I am someone else. I like who I am, even if where I am is in a hard place. I do not know that anyone's life is ever easy, calm, but mine is peaceful and I am happy. Its bittersweet this joy, because in the Dark Mirror I saw the alternatives and how I weep for what might have been. I wouldn't change it though as I would not be me. I wouldn't know if I would still help people, if I would still have stories to tell. I don't know if that me could survive.

I won't look into the dark mirror again willingly, no one looks willingly but I hope if I ever must again that I am still healthier than my reflection. If you find your dark mirror, mourning is natural. Just remember to look away because that isn't your reality. You're okay.