2024 can suck it

So far I have gotten the flu, a nasty concussion + severe facial trauma, and survived a freak weather event. And it's only halfway through January!

Welcome to Healing is My Special Interest, the newsletter at the intersection of late-diagnosed neurodivergence and healing from high control environments. Once a month I write a more personal essay for the paid subscriber community, and that is what this week’s essay is all about. If you feel like you would benefit from being able to access the paid subscriber content but don’t have the funds currently, please reply to this email or reach out at dlmmcsweeneys @ gmail. com and we will get you sorted. Thank you to everyone who supports this newsletter and is helping me pay all the out-of-pocket insurance costs for my sad little busted-up face!

Hey-o, and what a year 2024 has already turned out to be.

concussion facial trauma according to AI

I started off the year knowing I wanted to buckle down and get to work on putting together a 3-part miniseries on Christian zionism. Ever since October 7th, I have been struggling with how to keep up with the news, do some writing, and figure out what and how I could say anything that was helpful to the current moment. I’ve written here about how my ethical OCD was flaring up big-time, and then all the holidays caused a lot of additional stress and drama in my life. By the beginning of January, however, I felt like I was getting into a good rhythm and was able to do what little I could and I felt proud of that. Could I personally stop the US supporting Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians? No, I could not. But could I stick to my lane and write/speak about what I experienced growing up ensconced in the violent and ultimately pessimistic ideology of Christian zionism? Yeah, I could probably do that--even though I was a bit worried about being triggered¹. 

The first week of January I was using my limited free time to work on that particulat project. I was reading books, recording interviews, gathering resources, and even making instagram infographics. And then, I started to feel really sick. I wondered: was it the flu, or was it my body just responding to the trauma of all the stuff I was reading/researching/talking about? I kept telling myself that no matter what, I was being a big baby about it. I felt absolutely miserable but powered through and recorded some podcast interviews before I finally recognized I had a legitimate fever. According to our thermometer (which we later figured out was broken), it wasn’t that bad of a fever and I couldn’t believe how crappy I felt and kept internally berating myself for this².

That night I didn’t sleep well, and tossed and turned until I woke up at 2AM and used the restroom. The next thing I knew, I was on the bathroom floor and I felt incredibly sleepy. I laid on the floor and dreamily talked to myself—is this why sick people always lay on the bathroom floor in movies? I get it now. It is so nice and cool and calming. Eventually, I sat up and one side of my face felt incredibly stiff and swollen. I looked in the mirror and realized I must have hit my face on something—it was already swelling up around my right eye in particular. I went and got Krispin and told him I needed some help. By that time it was 2:40, while I thought it had only been a few minutes. I had no memory of hitting my face and no memory of lying on the floor for that long of a period.