"I Take 5 Prescriptions A Day To Make Myself More Palatable"
Notes On Masking From A Women - Sent Yesterday.
Dear Joseph,
I've been watching and reading your journey for a few months. You have said and written some things that I've experienced or thought but haven't been able to verbalize over the years, and I can not thank you enough for that. I never wanted to be someone who reached out to you, just watch you navigate. But... you wrote something today that is the BASE of all my own struggles.
"To exist with this condition is to constantly perform a version of myself that is digestible." - Joseph Awuah-Darko.
As I'm sitting here in my bed, since last Tuesday my husband is begging me to go outside and smoke weed to "calm down" I know what he needs from me today is a masked wife and mother, but I can't mask today. I take 5 prescriptions a day to make myself more palatable to those around me.
My whole life I've been given tricks and tips to edit myself or told what people like about me and lean into that. I don't want to whittle myself into their idea of my potential. I just read your quote again and it made me remember that look, the long off gaze that Bourdain often (mostly) had where he looked bemused, disgusted and proud of himself for digging out a version of himself that the public liked.
Thank you.
Anon.
