I’m that girl, the one everybody goes to when there’s a crisis. I’m there, sorting it, finding out, lending a hand, raising money. That’s me. That was me. Then, one day, I was the crisis. And Then She Fell is the soft title of a memoir of recent events that I never plan to write. I keep making up titles for the not-book, though. It helps me try to make sense of senseless … [Read more...]
Advice for Able-Bodied People: Not All of Us Can “Take a Walk” To Feel Better
Over the last few years, I don’t think I would have made it without the internet. When I think of my reduced blueprint for living, I know it was the internet that kept me from feeling completely isolated, frustrated, and stagnant. I still did feel plenty isolated, frustrated, and stagnant, just not completely that way. I would sometimes imagine how I’d get through a pain day … [Read more...]
When You Call Me Skinny (Hint: It’s Not a Compliment)
Content note: This article contains extended discussion of familial fat-shaming, attempted weight loss, dieting, and eating disorders. In a radical self-love webinar I took with TBINAA founder Sonya Renee Taylor, she asked participants to recall their first memory of body shame. Everyone had one. I went blank. I had none. The truth was, I had far too many. My entire life … [Read more...]
But You Look Fine to Me: Invisible Disability and Flying
You get the wheelchair at check-in. An attendant swoops in and looks at everyone except you. The attendant is looking for someone apparently disabled. It’s embarrassing, and you wish you could take back the twenty-four-hours-in-advance phone call that reserved this chair. The alternative is to walk for you don’t know how much, stand in the security line for you don’t know how … [Read more...]
Why I Don’t Want To Talk About It: When Sharing #MeToo Becomes Self-Harm
We, at TBINAA, wish to acknowledge and hold space for those people who do not feel safe about participating in the hashtag, #MeToo, because of how sharing trauma can be re-traumatizing if not shared with the right folks. About a year ago, I had lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. I was looking forward to reconnecting, yet dreading the ‘telling my story’ part. … [Read more...]
The Dilemma of Privilege: Recognizing It In Myself
This morning, I made the bed. I walked back and forth, around the bottom of the bed to the other side. I didn’ t count how many times; but enough to straighten the sheet and the duvet, fluff the pillows, and place the extra blankets. Maybe you do this every morning, or maybe you’ re someone who doesn’ t like to or have to make your own bed. It’ s probably not something that you … [Read more...]
Dark Night of the Body: Surviving PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury
Have you ever lived in a mind that wasn’t yours? Not in a science-fiction kind of way, but in a hall-of-mirrors, not-very-funhouse kind of way? In a where’s-the-Google-map-to-my-brain kind of way? In 2004, when I read in The New York Times that writer and performance artist Spalding Gray’s body had been found in the East River, it was clear to me that he had been living … [Read more...]

The Body Is Not an Apology
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