emrys (& co)

I know I'm far from the only person saying this, but I saw an interaction on social media this morning that makes me want to remind everyone:

1. You don't need a diagnosis to be plural. You don't need to qualify for a diagnosis to be plural.
2. You can just be plural, for any reason you please or no reason at all. It's usually for trauma reasons, but it doesn't have to be.
3. Having a highly stigmatized diagnosis like DID on your records actually tends to be a bad thing when it comes to insurance, jobs, government assistance, psych incarceration…

So yeah! Diagnosis ain't what it's cracked up to be, and plurality is a wide and wonderful spectrum of experiences that a diagnosis can't pretend to encompass all of. The psych system is fucked up; don't worship at its altar of diagnosis!

—signed, a mixed-origin system with a DID diagnosis

People say to love yourself
This is true, but to love yourself is to eat the whole strawberry
To crunch the bones of the chicken as you chew and suck the marrow
To love yourself is to love the holes in your teeth
To love yourself is to love the rage and fury that rises from within
To love yourself is to know the bile and flame in your words
And to say “This too, is worth love.”

That is not to say you shouldn’t change
That is not to say you should stagnate
Or wallow in that
Saying this is who you are and nothing more
That is defeat. That is not loving yourself.
That is becoming complacent.

No, no to love yourself, to love every awful part?
Is to know why your bile rose,
Why your tongue cut to bone
Why your fist broke the world
And to forgive it, forgive yourself
And then to change anyway

You are worth loving.
Love is a force that changes.
We cannot be the same if we are loved
We need to love ourselves
To change ourselves with the patience of a Buddha
And the wisdom of an artist.

As We sculpt ourselves into new shapes,
New futures
We grow
We become
And we sing

Sing loud the love song of yourself
So that I may hear it
And sing along too.

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