Online

I rarely complain about my life on social media. In private groups; definitely, to personal friends; abso-fucking-lutely, but never in public because, truthfully, it's just not your business - it's mine.

Unfortunately that leads to the misconception that everyone (but you) has the perfect life. They have that rose coloured, greener grass, picket fence thing going on that we're conditioned to envy.

It also means no one is compassionate - at least in person. Our life is perfect, what right do we have to look less than perfect or act like anything other than the perfected Facebook picture that we are?

So I'm going to start to by saying that I rarely wear pants, I hate myself 97% of the time regardless of my body positive posts (thus the reason they exist in such abundance) and in the last year my health has deteriorated so much that I hardly leave my house.

Now that that's out of the way, let me be more clear::

I am legally disabled. A judge and multiple doctors, therapists, and lawyers all consider my health problems to be so bad that I can not work. At least 10 days a month I can not even leave my bedroom except to use the bathroom and some of those days are me crawling on the floor or Steven holding me up so I don't pass out.

Yesterday I puked a few times, thought I was well enough to help Mathew open his bubbles, and then proceeded to puke on my phone, the bubbles, me, him, the sink, and the floor.

People-ing is really fucking hard when you can't think enough to form sentences but need to pretend like everything is perfect.

I have an autistic son. He's completely amazing and I love him with every part of me: but he is hard work. He has ABA therapy, speech, a special needs preschool, and regular early intervention appointments.

Do you understand how hard that is to keep track of? I'm so tired of having to apologize for missing appointments or forgetting things I need to bring.

Half of my diagnosis' and meds give me such a foggy brain I barely keep track of what I'm saying when I say it.

My middle daughter is currently in the process of an autism diagnosis as well. I'm a lot of ways she's more difficult than my "severely ASD" son is and seems to have the more "traditional" symptoms like aversion to crowds and noises.

Now she's also starting speech therapy, occupational therapy, and pre-school.

I also had to make the decision to start her on meds for sleep. Do you know how hard that is? To decide to medicate your child because you're tired? But she was staying up until 3 am, waking at 7, and then staying up until 4am the NEXT DAY. Regularly.

More recently she, and my oldest,  have been working on a diagnosis for Elhers Danlos; hypermobility: a connective tissue disorder causing faulty collegan. It affects the entire body and causes dislocations and pain on a frequent (daily) basis.

Unfortunately they got that from me.

To reiterate, that's a literal fuck ton of appointments to keep track of and attend.

When I come stumbling in with all 4 kids looking pristine, my hair curling in a million directions and dark bags that live under my eyes now, it's literally taking every bit of strength and willpower that I have.

When I forget what the doctor's name is, and I'm aware how frustrating and hard that can be for you because I've worked as a receptionist before, please don't judge me. Don't roll your eyes and assume I'm a waste of lazy space; please.

Understand that Joey has multiple doctors and therapists, Lindzy has a few more, so does Reyna, and I have double that so remembering every tiny detail every single time is really hard.

Please don't tease me and treat me badly because you think I'm not trying hard enough; I assure you I am. I have lists of every person we see. I set reminders on my phone. I put them on the calendar. I send messages to myself with the information. I put sticky notes on my bathroom mirror like an a Alzheimer's patient and I still manage to forget things two seconds later.

I forget sentences as I say them. I forget what words mean and I forgot normal everyday words constantly in the middle of a conversation.

I am a writer, straight through to my soul; do you know how that feels? How agonizing and hopeless it feels to lose one of the most important things in your world?

Stumbling through my words and giving you the wrong birthday gives me more pain than it does you, I promise.

Please just keep in mind that people aren't what we see online. We have lives and problems and minds that exist beyond the limited scope of appearance. We are all just trying our absolute best.

Please understand from a different perspective than your own because we do we can't truly love and accept.