Today, I do not love you.

In fact, I don’t even like you.

I barely want to acknowledge your existence.

The demands are overwhelming and some days the work is just too hard. I am hyper-sensitive to your presence. I can feel every ounce, curve and part that doesn’t fit. I am exhausted through my bones from the struggle you force me to face day in and day out, over and over. When it gets bad like this, I seek numbness to increase my distance from you; I don’t want to face you. The pain is all consuming.

The strongest parts of me know these feelings are temporary and will fade to dormancy but in the meantime, when they are here, they are loud and mean and argumentative. Trying to drown the sounds out with music or vibrational frequency therapy only works some of the time.

What I fear more than anything in this world stares me down every minute of every day, forcing me to prove my resilience and determination. Sometimes it’s all too much.

I recognize that we must occupy the same space, breathe the same air and learn to co-exist.

Some days we work so well together. We are strong and courageous, clever and thoughtful. On the days we are not working together, like today, you are everything I have tried so hard to forget.

When the antidote is the poison itself, it feels impossible to choose a side. The side of the coin I landed on today is different than yesterday and may not even exist tomorrow. But for right now, it’s all-consuming.  

Despite the horrid feelings you fill my heart with, there is the tiniest light of empathy peeking through. Focusing my eyes on the light that casts around the darkness, I can see where we are.

There is compassion to be found in acceptance. When you can take something into your heart and belief system and adopt it as new, compassion grows.

On our worst day, which feels like today, I accept your existence, but that’s the best I can do when it stings to breathe.

~To my body on a bad day, Melissa Nadeau

6/16/25