Buddy story · PCOS
Two decades of being told to try harder
Martha and Rin between them have about thirty years of being told the problem was effort, and a shared wariness about being pleased too soon.
- Paired
- February 2025
- Cadence
- Fortnightly
- Status
- ongoing
The wariness is the theme. Both had been given a great deal of advice over two decades that turned out to be wrong, and both were, in the first year, braced for this to be another round of it.
What they do for each other is mostly permission to be unimpressed. When something changes, the other one says "that is good" and then neither of them builds anything on top of it. Martha describes it as having somebody who will not celebrate prematurely on her behalf.
There is grief in this correspondence too, mostly about the years and about what different advice at twenty-two might have meant, and neither tries to talk the other out of it. The pcos circle is where they met.
Twenty years of being told to try harder. You do not stop bracing for that just because something works.
She never celebrates on my behalf. She says "that is good" and then leaves it alone, and it is the most restful thing.