My State of the Union Address

A poem about leaving behind myths in order to survive

Hello and welcome to Healing is My Special Interest, the newsletter at the intersection of late-diagnosed neurodivergence and healing from high control environments. As we are one month away from an intense election in the US, yesterday marked one year of unimaginable suffering in Palestine, and catastrophic storms batter so many parts of our world, I felt compelled to write a sort-of poem. It’s a poem for everyone who has had to claw their way out of the myths they were born into, and I hope you know you are very much not alone.

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The State of the Union Address

Photo by michael schaffler on Unsplash

I was born into a mythology and I had to crawl my way out

With my own two hands. My parents loved the myth, in fact

They dedicated their lives to perpetuating it.

Keeping me at home, far from those who could

Influence me. Away from those who would tell me

to trust myself instead of God.

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I was born into a country that was addicted to its own myth

And I had to learn this out the hard way, by listening to those

It had harmed. Like my parents, it demands perfect obedience

Allegiance to it more than to myself. The myth

Is hungry, and it needs me scared

And dependent on someone else to save me

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The state of the union is this:

I am learning to trust myself, despite everything

I eat the food that sounds good to me. I move my body

In weird and wild ways. I let myself feel anger and resentment

Unforgiveness, pettiness. I am loud and big and ugly. I take up 

Space, I take up my beautiful body and I thank it

For all it has done for me, all the ways we have survived. 

My closest friend, my savior. My skeleton and muscles

My nervous system, shaped like roots growing deep into the earth

Like mushrooms, spread across the forest network.

I love my body more than I love any myth, and this is new

For me, and maybe for you too. 

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The state of the union is this: I am learning to love

My body, myself, my intuition, my life, my family, my friends

While the world is falling apart in front of me

In real-time, in the headlines and on my phone,

I see how strong the myths are, 

and how badly they want to survive.

How they kill for power and for profit

and for the ability to tell the story of their goodness.

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The state of the union is bad (out there) but good (in here). 

I am learning to be inside my own body and 

Nobody can ever take that away from me. It is mine, it is precious, 

It is sacred. If god is real then god loves me and my body

God loves everything I was taught to distrust about myself

I myself am god. Giving myself the gift of grace, forgiveness

Embodied, radical love. A listening ear. A protective fist. A stomping foot.

Tears, when they need to be shed. Screams when they need to be scrumpt.

Silliness, seriousness. Whimsical moodiness. Sore and lumpy and

Sensitive and hilarious and most of all, alive.

Every time I listen to my body, it responds to me

The same way I imagine the trees and the birds and the mushrooms do

Happy for every point of connection, every thrill of realization

Of how close we are to each other, how protecting one protects us all

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I was born into the myth but I clawed my way out 

And there is no going back.

It is too late. I already know it is not them

Who keep me safe, but it's you. It’s me. It’s people

Who have decided to listen to their bodies instead

Of the men who are terrified of us and our power

It’s the moon and the mushrooms and the children

We once were and the children who will come after us

Precious, vulnerable, interconnected, alive.

A story ever unfolding, organic, soft, 

changeable, adaptable. The story of being a human

Instead of a servant, a patriot, a consumer, a soldier

The story of trusting ourselves 

The story of trusting life, instead of a myth.

I’m so grateful to everyone in this community who inspires me to keep listening to my body and to find points of connection with nature, other humans, and ourselves. You are saving my life right now, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the community I have found on this journey.