Posts in True Stories
When the Weak Show Strength
When the Weak Show Strength

I step outside to enjoy the storm’s reprieve from the scorching August day. Suddenly, a wall of rain advances like an army, the wind its battle cry. Phone in hand, I start to video the drama, but when whole trees hurtle past me like javelins, I run inside and cower in the basement. It’s brief—five minutes, maybe ten. Then, chirping birds signal the army’s retreat and I slink upstairs. The first thing I notice is water streaming down the interior walls under the closed windows, sobbing to release their fear.

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True StoriesGuest UserMotherhood, independence, children Comments
The Perfectly White Dresser
The Perfectly White Dresser

The tires turned left into the driveway, just as my mind turned right. I never thought that I would have to pull up to another house, or rather facility, with luggage in the back of my car, ready to be unpacked into The Perfectly White Dresser. The Perfectly White Dresser recycled by dozens of girls with one thing in common: a parasite that has driven them far enough into misery that they must stay locked up in its drawers, subdued, away from the harmful society that is primarily to blame for their destructive race to perfection.

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True StoriesGuest Usereating disorder, body image, self loveComment
Love Like Mine
Love Like Mine

NOLA Pride Week 2018 was my first large pride event, and I was determined to get comfortable with my androgynous aesthetic ideals. My partner and I planned to meet up with a few of our queer friends and ride the streetcar to the Quarter to attend a fem party at the Coyote Ugly Saloon. Getting dressed was an exhausting undertaking. I fought off a spell of dysphoria triggered by my depression weight loss.

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True StoriesGuest Userpride, LGBTQIA, body imageComment
Twelve Ways of Looking Through a Window
Twelve Ways of Looking Through a Window

The word quarantined—when I hear it, I can’t not think of you. You were confined to your room for two years because of your illness, waiting. First for a miracle. Then for my visits, which were never frequent enough. Finally, to die. When you tired of waiting for death, you made death happen, by refusing to eat or drink. You didn’t believe in a god or a heaven, which made this final act even braver.

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True StoriesJulia Nusbaumquarantine, COVID-19, mother daughterComment
My Rat Year
My Rat Year

When I was a teenager, I learned from a Chinese calendar placemat in a restaurant that my birth year made me a rat. I was on a hot date in China Palace with Keith, my then-boyfriend-now-husband, and there it was, plain as day, on the placemat…I even moved the bottle of soy sauce to make sure I was reading it correctly and it was indeed clear: 1984, Rat.

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True StoriesGuest Usergod, Courage, familyComment
Emptied
Emptied

That late-February day I checked me and the triplets into labor and delivery, it snowed six or seven inches, the world outside our room on the high-risk floor like a green screen, blank and full of possibility. Chad and I paid little attention to it—to its icy chill and constant shower of white—once we were inside the clinical ten-by-ten square room where we’d become parents.

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True StoriesJulia Nusbaumpregnancy, motherhood, children, birth, self love, marriage Comment
A Long Goodbye
A Long Goodbye

This was where my family had recently settled after we became refugees for a second time during the 1974 war. On the 13th, one day before I departed for the US for my higher education under a private sponsorship, I packed my suitcase. Then, I carefully selected a few photographs of my family and of myself to take with me to America. The same day I was packing, my mother gave me a few gifts. These gifts became my most valued possessions, and I am proud to say I still have them.

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True StoriesJulia Nusbaumchildhood, growing up, traveling, travel, immigration Comment
Ned
Ned

In Starvation Mode, all I thought or dreamt about was food, even though eating terrified me more than anything. I didn’t care about anyone or anything except losing weight. It was like the line between human and animal had become so thin it collapsed. I was gone. I was starving. I was addicted to starving myself. I went feral for a little while.

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True StoriesGuest Usereating disorder, body image, painComment
What Only I Can See
What Only I Can See

I began losing my eyesight when I was three – a result of poor genetics and squinting at the television too often. My sight worsened until I was nineteen; by then, I was nearly legally blind and opted to have my vision corrected through surgery. Until that point, losing my eyesight afforded me both a gift and a curse – the gift of insight and the curse of knowledge. I saw the world in layers of truths and half-truths, of what people thought they knew and what actually happened behind closed doors.

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True StoriesGuest Userbody image, mental health, Storytelling, mother, mother daughter, momComment