Transcript:
So this is my first attempt at leaving, um, some long form communication. By way of a voice note for whoever is here so far in small winged musings. Um.
Ideally, I want to be able to, you know, talk about music and talk about mixes. And I think that there's already a share in here in Small Winged Musings of a, like a, some lo fi mixes that I've done on four track or maybe just one song. Um, I'm fortunate enough to have the help of a team who's helping me put this together. I don't really know how to do things like this because, um, because basically when the digital world started to become ubiquitous with… like, you know, in 2014, I think 2014 is when Spotify was released… and I think that's like the beginning of the digital, like streaming world as we know it now–obviously, there was earlier iterations like Napster and things like that–but by 2015, I sustained a brain injury. Some of you who are here already know my story with that. Um, some of you are are maybe new to that, but what happened was that I kind of got left behind in terms of my digital fluency.
So now at this stage of my life, it's 2026 and I kind of just started. There's been a bunch of like moments where I sort of thought I was getting my shit together and was not able to. So it's like I sustained a brain injury and, and then I was starting to feel better. And then I ended up dealing with ICBC, which is the insurance company of British Columbia. They were studying me, so they were, um, I guess trying to disprove my injuries. And at the same time, I was being stalked by someone who was pretending to be a man who ended up being a woman. And those, you know, the pressures of being stalked and surveilled were a lot for my brain because my brain was already compromised.
And, and then, um, you know, I've had other big tragedies, like primarily the loss of my younger brother by fentanyl. And then, um, my dad died as well. And then I've been dealing with, you know, on and off, um, routine targeted harassment that's also really, um, debilitating. And to top it all off–and sorry, I don't mean to sound like super boo hoo, I actually feel pretty good about my life, but I'm just giving context and, and I don't know about those of you who are listening to this, but I need to hear things a bunch of times. It's, um, it's kind of, uh, it's nice to hear. And I know, like from being, um, you know, from being older and learning more about how people learn, whether you are brain injured or not hearing something a bunch of times is really helpful for comprehension.
So if I am repeating myself, I hope that it is valuable. Um, but I, you know, I just want to emphasize that my losses and my tragedies, I know that they are a part of me. And currently I was faced with the, um, I was faced with an accumulating fibroid tumour like a tumour that was hardening. It was as large as my uterus, almost. And, um, and it's something that I want to talk about because I'm very interested in science as ceremony. And health as ceremony and like letting things… you know, letting a, a large tragedy be a part of a personal letting go.
So in terms of the culmination of losses that I've taken and endured as, as a female and as a person who is mixed, but has dealt with a lot of, um, targeted harassment for not knowing my full story and, you know, exclusionary tactics and tactics of isolation and that, I feel like all of that stuff is… it's very clarifying. And because it kind of… it just reminds me who I am. Like, it reminds me that of what my own value system is and that I would never treat someone that way. And in terms of the most current loss that I'm dealing with, which is the loss of my uterus as a result of the of being dismissed and diminished and ridiculed by medical doctors over the last decade, you know, for chronic pain, they all sort of, it all sort of feels like the same to me. It all feels like the practices of diminishing women, but I would say it extends to men too. And it's not specific to women, but I'm talking about it as specific to women. In the case of me, because I'm cisgendered female. The practices of diminishing and, you know, like through targeted harassment, through medical, um, harassment as well, like, uh, and gaslighting someone who's coming back over and over with chronic pain, those same practices that were in place with ICBC, um, kind of studying and surveilling me, trying to prove that I was not injured. All of these things feel like, uh, symptoms of the same, uh, illness, which is like this thing in society where, where women are just crushed and where like we… whereas it would be better if we were like stretching out in our full power and beauty because women are amazing, you know, and we, we do so much and like, we're funny and cute and cool. And so I can't help but notice the similarities of like, like I was saying earlier, like, you know, ICBC trying to diminish my injuries, like something interesting about that is that like, you know, my sexual function changed from impact and the lawyer that I was dealing with, she, she was saying that her male patients that were also, you know, dealing with these, um, dealing with ICBC because of their injuries, you know, and trying to get, um, accident claims for justifiably so for their injuries, they were able, the male, um, clients were able to get these massive settlements because their reproductive malfunctions are visible in that like they couldn't get an erection anymore because of brain injury, because of impact. And, but women, because our sexual function is so nuanced, we were not able to like, I was clearly advised not to bring my sexual problems that came as a result of injury into my claim because I would, be my claim would be discredited as histrionic. And that's fascinating to me.
And that's what I mean when I say like, it all seems like the same thing. Like wanting to squash people, in this case, wanting to squash women through legal functions and actions, through the function and actions of community members who are surveilling and excluding through the functions and actions of doctors that are diminishing and discrediting women's pain. So I'm at a juncture in my life where, you know, I've been kind of left behind in terms of my career abilities because like, you know, I sustained a brain injury right? When the digital world was like really accelerating. Like I don't even know how to use Spotify, for example, I have an account, but I can't really open it. Like I don't know how to make a playlist. All those things. Um, and, and nor do I want to like, I want to use my cognition for the greater good. I don't want to use it to learn how to make playlists. But this moment of time that I'm in where I've been able to access medical care after being diminished and basically just told to go home and take pain pills for a decade, it's very interesting to me, and I'm very grateful for it because I'm, I'm very, well, I'm motivated to try to put this experience into words and action. You know, as time progresses and the months go by and I start to feel more and more strong. But I'm also very interested in my own stabilization as a human being after a decade of, of, of losses, of my brother and my father and harassment and stalking and, um, surveillance by ICBC and all of these things, which I do feel would have broken many people, but I feel like they have strengthened my character and I feel stronger in who I am. I was raised in advocacy, like my father was a criminal defense lawyer. My mother was a guidance counselor. My mother's mother went back–she had a grade four education and went back to school to get her high school; what's it called? GED–at sixty-something years old. Um, I have like these teachings that are not like they they're obviously not traditional teachings, like from a community standpoint, they're, they're teachings from my own family in terms of advocacy. And I think it's really wonderful that I am turning those teachings onto that. I have turned them towards myself and self advocated when I was diminished and discredited and bullied and, um, harassed for a decade. And the result has been, uh, that finally, after all of this grief, like losing my little brother was, that is by far the worst thing that I have experienced in my life. And I've experienced a lot of bad things. But that part of my life, even that has ended up in something better because he is so much stronger as an ancestor than he was when he was in the physical plane. And so this action that I've taken in terms of. Not listening to the doctors in the in the north, in so-called Canada, taking my health into my own hands, entrusting my health, uh, to a country like Mexico and a hospital in Mexico to to allow them to help me to get the care that I needed and to use my own money for that and to use my own self-advocacy. And obviously, I had the partnership of one of my closest friends, someone I consider a family member, even though we're not related by blood. But family is not about blood quantum and blood lines. And I just feel so amazing. And I can't believe that the last medical visit I had with a. The specialist in the North that this man, even with a scan, I had a, you know, a rough scan at that point showing that there was this a mass pressing on my bladder. And even with that, he told me, just take antidepressants. He said a lot more than that, but I won't mention it right now. And, and I trusted myself enough to say like, no, I can't live in pain anymore. It feels like I'm pregnant every day. It felt like I was pregnant every day. And that was a mind fuck because I lost a baby in my car accident. You know? And. So.
There's so much more to say, but I just. I wanted to experiment with doing these really open hearted, um, voice notes similar to the ones that I send to my closest friends. But putting them behind a paywall structure in Small Winged ones so that–Small Winged ones or Small Winged Musings. My name Alida means small winged one. Small Winged Musings. Is this, um place that this corner of the uniserv that we are building. And so I want to experiment. I want to go back to remembering that fearlessness from before the internet, from before stalking and harassment became a game, from before surveillance culture became a game. And I want to practice some of my earlier values around art making, which is just personal expression and sharing whatever I've got in case it means something to somebody somewhere, you know?
So. Yeah, I'm celebrating. I, I am, uh, celebrating the fact that I trusted myself enough and the team around me at this incredible hospital, Angel Del Mar in, um, Escondido, And, uh, I trusted them. And I followed my instincts. My little brother, his, his spirit came to me several times along the way. He's very active in the afterlife. And, uh, I hope that somebody who's listening to this, if you're dealing with chronic pain, that you are able to see outside the confines of the North American allopathic healthcare industry, because I don't think it's working, and I know for sure it's not working for women because we're the last to be scheduled for, um, essential surgeries for reproductive malfunction and disorders and pain and fibroids, endometriosis, adenomyosis. But that doesn't mean that's right. And so I want to encourage–what I really want to do is develop, um, a petition to petition either provincial or federal governments to create resources for women to be able to get the help that they need. Now that we know that in Canada, waitlists can be as long as ten years for women's essential surgeries. So that's for later. But right now, anyway, this, this is a little bit of a yeah, it's almost twenty minutes. So I'm going to try and keep doing this for Small Winged Musings.
Today is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026.
AKS
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