Roleplay
“Standing Strong” by Sarah Arace
It isn’t traditional to start an adventure at 32. Even starting at 25 seems to be pushing the limits. Adventures can start at birth, as a soon-to-mature-child, or as a teenager ready to take on the world. In light of this, your options for this story will begin at birth to give you the best head start possible.
1. You are about to be born.
To choose a loving, stable family with genes that do not predispose you to chronic illnesses or disabilities, go to 2.
To choose a body with genes that are coded for future illness and disability, choose 3.
***
2. You do not get a choice in your birth.
Go to 3.
***
3. You are loud until Kindergarten, and then you get very quiet.
You are sick often enough that you have multiple drawings taped up on the walls of your pediatrician’s office, but not often enough to be hospitalized like the kids in commercials.
To remember your childhood, go to 4.
To skip over your childhood, go to 5.
If you have regained your voice, go to 13.
***
4. There are predators and there are prey. It is not often that the littlest animal gets to play predator. You know this from the nature documentaries you watch in the summer, and from the way that a throat clearing can set you on edge, hackles up, arm hair rising like you are in the presence of ghosts—this is the nature of predators.
You stare out the window and you document. You write down which alley cats visit the backyard, by name and physical description. You write down what they do while they visit. You occupy your mind with anywhere but here.
Go to 7.
***
5. The sight of cherry patterns makes you sick to your stomach.
Go to 6.
***
6. Later, you will have to really think to remember your childhood. It is like suffocating every organ of your body, by choice, and it is generally not even worth it.
No amount of vacations to Amish Country or ice cream birthday cakes are enough to make it worth it.
If you have always been interested in animals, go to 7.
If you like surprises that you have to wait years to understand, go to 8.
***
7. Your interests are in biology, in the Earth. You like animal documentaries and vet shows. Jane Goodall is your hero. You want to save the Earth. You want to save—
Before you have even left elementary school, you can pronounce chlorofluorocarbons. You want to scream, to tell everyone about the emergency, but you have forgotten how to make your voice big.
What you do not understand is neurology. You do not know that your brain’s pathways are rewiring themselves every time you swallow your screams. You do not know that the signals of PANIC! FEAR! RUN! flashing constantly will rearrange what your body thinks is a threat.
If you are still a child wanting to save the Earth, go to 8.
If you have come here from your therapist’s office, go to 13.
If you have a collection of diagnoses and are ready for more, go to 18.
***
8. Smell was always your worst scent. They say it’s the one with the strongest tie to memory.
But you can remember having perfect sight, seeing all the way to the horizon when there were still training wheels on your bike.
If you enjoy foreshadowing, go to 9.
If you don’t want to be spoiled, go to 10.
***
9. You start your period the month before your 13th birthday. You are gifted a cherry cake. You don’t even like cherry filling.
Soon after, the period stops being regular. You are taken to the doctor. At 13, you receive your first sonogram. A cyst in the ovary. Normal, the doctor assures you all. Totally normal. It will solve itself.
For nearly 15 years, you will have unbearable pain and an overabundance of bleeding for half of every month, for what is essentially half of your life. Nothing will save you. You cannot lift a curse without a name.
If you want to pretend everything is fine, go to 21 and stay there, blissfully unaware, disembodied and at peace.
If you want your body to disappear, go to 10.
If you want to take up space, go to 11.
***
10. Shrinking your body is the solution that you come up with.
It is a deluded solution, one made in fight-or-flight mode, one made drunk on adrenaline that never stops flowing. Shrinking the body means that there is less of it to hurt, less of it as a reminder of unwanted hands, less of you.
You survive on Weight Watchers snacks and the cold cuts that you occasionally sneak from the fridge late at night.
If you want the hurt to stop, go back to 1 and stay there. Pretend to live in option 2. Lose yourself in the illusion.
If you want to survive, continue to 11.
***
11. You escape. It feels like a dream. It feels like a nightmare. You can hardly believe what is happening around you. You spend a whole humid summer watching the window of a temporary dorm room, just waiting for shit to hit the fan but, by some miracle, the shit never arrives.
Go to 12.
***
12. You receive your first round of diagnoses. This time, the mind: Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Major Depression. PTSD.
Your first therapist asks you why it’s so important for you to tell people the truth when you mention journaling about your traumas for class.
If you would like to revisit why your brain is the way it is, go to 7.
If you would like to remember that you used to tell the truth, once, then go to 3.
If you would like to put the past behind you, you can try 13.
***
13. You learn to say no.
You shake, you get tunnel vision.
But you learn to say no.
People don’t like hearing no. They never have. They like to at least pretend they have consent, most of the time.
You try a medicine for the shaking and the tunnel vision.
If you like evidence, go to 14.
If you like results, go to 15.
***
14. Black tar vomit. Unable to stay awake. Unable to eat. Unable to function. And you are told that you must have had some bad frozen spinach when you seek out help.
The withdrawal: muscle tremors so violent it feels like your own body is killing you.
Remember this. So violent, it feels like your own body is killing you. It is a chorus, not a verse.
If you survive the pain, go to 15.
***
15. By the end of the year, you are using the cane. You still have no name for what ails you, like the other unnamed illness that started at 13. It takes effort, research, time, energy, money.
If you want to figure out how to live, go to 16.
If you are too tired, too sick, too stretched thin, too poor, then pause here. It is understandable.
***
16. You have a name. It takes month. Your newest diagnosis: fibromyalgia.
You learn to walk with a cane. You learn your limits.
Other people still don’t like no. Or maybe later. Or I’ll get to it.
If you would like to revisit why your brain is the way it is, go to 7.
If you need a rest, go to 17.
If you can push yourself, go to 18.
***
17. Take all the time you need.
When you are ready, go to 18.
If you cannot handle more pain, go to 19.
***
18. Carry a child within your fragile body for 35 weeks.
Your ability to smell has become like a superpower. You’ve read that fluctuations in hormones can cause that. You wonder if that’s part of why pregnancy causes upset stomach; it’s easier to smell the rot in the world.
Rejoice. Go to 19.
***
19. Share your child with the world.
The bleeding from before gets worse. The pain gets worse.
You are gifted your third diagnosis: endometriosis.
More medication.
If you know the vibe of 2020 (and 2021), you may want to skip to 21.
If you like to have specifics, go to 20.
***
20. A pandemic. A beloved grandmother’s death. Academic hurdles. Career hurdles. Job market impossibilities. A child going through her own struggles in the cold and demanding world. A move halfway across the country. Stress after stress. Factures reaching out like twigs off of branches off of unsteady trunk.
More medication.
If you need encouragement, go to 21.
If you need reassurance, go to 22.
***
21. You have survived all of this.
Go to 22.
***
22. This is not your fault.
You did nothing wrong.
You had no choice.
This is just your body, just your life, just you working with what you have.
You are doing your best.
about the author
Audrey T. Carroll is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Lost Balloon, CRAFT, JMWW, Bending Genres, and others. She is a bi/queer/genderqueer and disabled/chronically ill writer. She serves as a Fiction Editor for Chaotic Merge Magazine. She can be found at http://AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter/Instagram.
About the Artist
Sarah Arace is an artist of assorted expressions including drawing, painting, and street chalk art. Her passion stems from personal experiences of overcoming adversity and learning to embrace and appreciate her own imperfections. Her creative inspiration was born from her experiences of a young girl raised in Huntington, West Virginia, and becoming a single mother at a young age. She appreciates the opportunity to use her passion to inspire and empower others through her teaching and artwork.