“Where in your life do you feel validated, affirmed, and recognized,” asks Jill Filipovic, obviously and understandably unaware that this might be something of a sore subject for me right now.

While maybe I am “more interesting than any number of page requests or likes [or PayPal tips -ed.] could represent”, in a life where I have been self-insufficient both pre- and post-diagnosis and which as we speak hurtles toward the end of its fiftieth year (did I mention that today I’ve already had an anxiety attack during bar breakfast and a brief sobbing fit at home?) those things—those irrelevant things to which I’m not even entitled—are the only validations available to me.

Filipovic presses: “Are you able to tell yourself that you’re hard-working / smart / attractive / kind / doing a good job / good enough?”

No. Not at all.