The world is unprepared to hold sick people like me

Part I, Chapter 2 cont'd: On the confidence required to shed.

From my book, Unsolicited Advice: A Consent Educator's (Canceled) Memoir, only on Substack.

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In addition to the anti-authority mentality I was developing, I was also learning how unprepared this world is to hold sick people like me. Friends fell away as I now had health needs and non-negotiable boundaries that impacted them. A new form of self-advocacy was taking hold of me. As empowering as this process was, though, I want to be very careful as I share it with you because I’ve begun to see a pattern within this particular phenomenon in early consent learning. I often see people learn about the Wheel of Consent in particular, realize that their friends have been taking from them, and decide that they therefore need to be cut out of their lives. But often this is a premature conclusion, one that bypasses the hard work of maintaining those relationships and setting boundaries within them. Relationships are collaborations, and all parties involved need to be part of the processes of changing and maintaining the relationships. It’s valid to cut people out of your life if they demonstrate that they can’t have difficult conversations, or that the relationships can’t withstand conflict. But before doing that, setting boundaries is a crucial step, not to be skipped. Ending relationships without attempting to shift them first results in immense amounts of grief and isolation.

The confidence required in this letting go, shedding, shaking off, demands of me that I like myself a lot; that I believe I’m worthy of care and protection.

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Photo by Summer Wagner