An Open Letter to My Body (and an Apology to the Public)

21 May, 2025

to my body (an open letter):

I sometimes often always sometimes feel at war with you. I don't know what you want from me. Nothing feels intuitive or safe or good. Everything hurts. I do everything right for you, and still—everything hurts.

I'm so very tired. I'm tired of hurting. I'm tired of not being able to eat without you throwing a curveball. I'm tired of meds and supplements and appointments and tracking symptoms. I'm tired of hurting so damn much for no damn reason. I'm tired of being tired.

I want this letter to have some positive spin to it. I want this to be a love letter. But right now, I feel betrayed by you. I feel distant, disconnected, rejected, and confused.

At the same time, yes—I am grateful for all that you've weathered with me. I am astounded, honestly, that you've made it this far.

And yes, I, too, have betrayed you. Over the years, I've demanded far too much. I've starved you of rest. I've pushed you beyond any sane limits. I've ignored your cues. I've even burned and cut you. Slammed your head against walls. Clawed at you with your own nails. Driven you into the ground.

And when you've soldiered on through it all, coursing with cortisol, tense with trauma, running on nothing but fumes and sheer force of will, I've cursed you for having limits. For bringing me so much misery.

But now—and for some time now—I have been caring for you the very best I can. I've nourished you. Given you the rest you deserve. Taken time every day to move you in ways that feel good—that stretch your gnarled muscles. I've created ergonomic setups for working, driving, sitting, sleeping, reading, eating...all to tiptoe around your sensitivities. I've taken us to appointment after appointment and tried treatment after therapy after procedure after supplement after medication after alternative approach. I've braved the abusive medical system, rife with gaslighting, myopic over-specialization, overt dismissal of my lived experience, and absolutely no answers.

I am trying.

But right now, you're only giving me pain and exhaustion in return. And I don't understand. And it makes me resent you. Because it changes me, the pain. I can't focus. I can't create. I'm embittered and withdrawn.

You know more than anyone that I can deal with and move through a lot of pain. I've always had to with you—from the very start. And I truly have accepted that. We're tough, you and I. But fuck—sometimes you escalate to a level and duration that breaks me. And it starts to consume my life. To consume me.

Right now, just trying to write this—at my ergonomic desk, after doing an hour of physical therapy for you—there's fire raging through my back and into my hands. My head feels like it's being crushed from the outside with so much pressure that my teeth are actually shifting so much that my retainer doesn't fit. My neck is in ropes and my eyes are throbbing. And I have no idea why.

Last night, in a peace offering, I took you to a last-minute-booked and out-of-my-price-range massage. As the therapist rolled her elbow over the angry fibrous clusters of your musculature, she said, "Girl, I don't know how you even function!" After she'd worked on you for an hour, she sighed and said, with a tone of defeat, "Nothing is relaxing. Nothing is giving at all."

I mumbled "I know" into the headrest.

Something has to give, body. We're at a stalemate. I want to understand you. I want to give you what you need. But I've tried everything. It's become a full-time job, eclipsing and consuming my life. I feel like a captive in you. And I resent you for it.

I do want this to be a love letter, body. Underneath it all, I am in awe of you. But the pain is so much louder right now. And I just want out of you.

to the public (an apology)¹:

I’m not at all sure about posting something like this to my website. I mean, I've had the topic of "An open letter to my body and brain" planned for some time...scrawled upon a little yellow sticky note on my "stuff in the works" blackboard by my desk.

But I envisioned the piece being far more well-composed, contextually comprehensive, and "polished" in an unpolished, raw way²—polished into "palatable authenticity" with a heartening upswing in the end.

I meant to weave in deeper social commentary on our broken medical system. I meant to write more universally about the demoralizing experience of dealing with chronic health issues—especially ones without any explanation. I meant to help others going through similar struggles feel seen and heard. I meant to help anyone who hasn't dealt with these struggles better understand what it's like. I meant to talk about how it wears on you, little by little, and how it wears on those around you. How you can sense it chipping away at others as well as yourself—taking pieces until you fear there will be nothing left. I meant to talk about the protective isolation—walling yourself off from the world for its sake, lest your pain consume those you love as it surely will consume you. How you start to feel like a black hole.

But more than anything, I meant to include some positive upswing in all of it. Some wrap-up that, while not manufactured false positivity, would at least leave the reader with something to hold onto...something heartening, if not mildly inspiring. Or at least not leave them with the feeling that they, too, have had even the littlest bit of themselves chipped away just by reading this.

I wanted to give, not take.

All of these desires embody the additional burdens of chronic health issues—of shouldering not only the symptoms themselves, but also the impact they may have on those around you.

We're taught (if not overtly, then certainly by societal messaging) to never share the struggle without the victory. People love a story of overcoming. They love when "the afflicted" deliver their message with a smile and an inspirational-poster-worthy tagline of persistence, determination, and seeing the beauty even through the pain.

But you know what? Sometimes things just fucking suck. Without reason. Without apology or explanation from medicine, psychology, the universe, whatever. Sometimes, pain is just there. And it's too much to smile through. Sometimes all you have to share is a teeth-gritting grimace.

And that's fucking okay.

As much as I readily and eagerly embrace the raw, "unpalatable" pain and darkness of other people, I still struggle to extend myself that kind of grace.

But that's exactly what I've set out to do with this living project of my website. It's a huge part of what I laid out in my evolving Website Manifesto—to lean into and embrace the parts of myself I judge/abhor/avoid/attempt to erase the most. To come closer to what I fear most—to approach what I've locked away for so long with curiosity and compassion. To refuse to turn away.

To give to myself what I so willingly and readily give to others.

At the same time, I still (perhaps primarily, even?) deeply hope that by practicing this for myself in public, it will somehow help other people.

At my core, I'm still the little five-year-old who cried herself to sleep thinking of all the injustices and suffering in this world—asking to take it all into her tiny little body if it would bring relief to everyone else.

So, I do want to leave you with something positive. But I don't want to blow smoke up your ass.³

So I'll just reiterate what feels most true to me in this moment:

Sometimes things just fucking suck. Sometimes you only have the darkness. And I personally believe that there is "positivity" in sharing the suck without spin.

If nothing else, we can grimace together.