Autism & Anxiety

Yesterday, I received official diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

I've been referred to a behavioral therapist

I was for sure that I would feel something

Relief at least, but right now in this moment

There is nothing

I am numb

Something beyond exhaustion

I never had a doubt in my mind

but the world requires proof

the year worth of receipts I have around housing discrimination doesn't matter

because I am Black

my truth doesnt exist unless quantified and explained by their flawed systems

the same system that allowed me to go undiagnosed for 38 years

I am tired and have been doing this research for myself, without fail, for the last 3 years

honestly for the last 10 years

the last 3 have been the most intense

the last time I had insurance was grad school, 2010

had major surgery due to stress in 2011

Moved cross country for insurance this year

there were other reasons too

Unpacking the trauma

Writing

Reading

Crying

More research

Screaming

Remembering

Soft whimpers

Reading some more

Grieving

Anger

Im still angry, I dont know if that will ever go away

it will lessen

like all things do

with time

the doctor in and the nurse were okay

I felt as safe as was possible

in America today

Black American Medicine is not a thing

Or rather the continued exemption of Black bodies from Western Medicine, that is a thing. It's wild to me to see how western medicine systems reinforce their supremacy and supremacist ideals. I mean wild for effect. I know exactly how we got here. Meaning that the mental health of the Black femme has already been overlooked generation after generation.

Black cis men ain't my business, as they have made it their business to neglect and dispose of the Black femme. The medical institutions that are meant to help, are contributing to the decline of the Black femme, harming mental health and by direct connection bodily health. Simply going to the doctor is a gaslight. I weighed in at a solid 282 lbs. Class 3 - severe obesity. What does that even mean? Even at my smallest and so called healthiest, 180 lbs I was still Class 2 Obese. When I say gaslit I mean before I even got home. This directly impacts mental health and healing.

Our bodies have always been Hottentott'ed, still being Baartman'ed. Spectacle. We were never meant to be healed.

BMI is no longer relevant, it lacks nuance. But because the BMI chart is still being used. Doctors could literally just stop but they won't, because then a reevaluation of the whole complex would have to begin. Western Medicine is just another extension of their supremacy. Meant to invalidate anything that isn't vanilla ice thrice. The backwards, fragile, supremacist, wrong belief that smallness means goodness, means health, means that you are allowed quality of life and proper healthcare. The information being reported about Black bodies is only about quantifying that we are less than because of our health issues, i.e. they are all fat and sick, with no connection or recognition as to how those things (which are by no means synonymous) have happened as a result of being descendants of enslaved persons. Along with the purposeful and continued neglect of the dominant culture. The statistics are flawed because we lack humanity in their eyes. Now we are stuck in a never-ending vacuum of mistreatment and improper healthcare and failed mental health.

Outside of that fact that Black culture has now processed and believes that mental health is irrelevant to them.

Doctors still getting paid for writing the prescription of Black death, some 400 years later. They are still complicit and playing a willing part in Black genocide.