Proof of Pain: When Survival Requires Paperwork

There is a cruel irony in how much paperwork it takes just to prove you’re struggling.

To access housing? Paperwork.
To delay a court date because you’re caregiving with no support? Paperwork.
To get basic support for your children? Paperwork.
To explain why you couldn’t keep up with bills that the system helped create? More paperwork.

Each form asks you to relive your trauma. Each document requires you to explain why you’re disabled, underpaid, carless, or behind. And if you’re neurodivergent, this cycle becomes a closed loop of executive dysfunction, burnout, and despair.

I am tired.
Not lazy. Not unmotivated.
Tired.

Tired of a system that says “Black Lives Matter” — until that Black life checks all of the DEI boxes.
Tired of “All Lives Matter” — except when you need accommodations or fair legal treatment.
Tired of “Save the Children” — unless those children have complex needs and don't fit into a box.

The world demands that we show up, even as it continues to shut us out.

For the past (almost) year, I have been grieving the loss of my mother while facing a domino effect of institutional failures:

• Fired just 4 days after she unexpectedly passed.
• Retaliated against for speaking up for a mistreated Autistic child and his mother.
• Lost my vehicle because the system would not remove my abuser from the title.
• Denied housing help, medical care, legal aid, and justice.
• Now life continues to pile upon me, and I see no relief.

This isn’t a personal failure.
This is systemic neglect.

And almost every day, I must prove it to someone new.

The amount of documentation it takes just to survive is dehumanizing. It doesn’t give me time to heal. It doesn’t give me time to grieve. It barely gives me time to work on my business or raise my children, let alone dream of a future.

But here’s the truth:

✨ I deserve peace.
✨ I deserve stability.
✨ I deserve abundance that doesn’t come at the cost of my sanity.

And so do you.

If you’ve ever felt like the system is intentionally wearing you down — you’re not imagining it.

If you’re exhausted by having to relive your trauma to “qualify” for help — you are not alone.

But I believe that we are not here just to survive.

We are here to disrupt, to rewrite, and to rise.

This is not a sob story. This is a testimony in progress.
And I refuse to let it end here