hello there ! haha my hands are shaking as i type, im so nervous... ive never publicly told my story before ;__;

so, you read the title. this isnt a joke! the recent release of gypsy rose from prison has made me feel confident enough to tell the world my story, and what better place to do it then here? i know i might sound way too happy, and the cute medical theme on this page might feel weird to some, but it honestly helps me cope a bit.

anywho, my story spans pretty much from as long as i can remember my grandmother taking care of me, all the way up to some sparse moments now. however, the bulk of the abuse ended sometime in my first year of middle school. i dont hate my grandmother, she is family, i just dont like what she did to me. for a HUGE majority of my early life, i pretty much lived at my grandparents house.

im not related to my grandpa by blood (my bio grandpa was *i think* a mexican immigrant (he was def mexican we do have the dna, we just dont know otherwise) who abandoned my father and grandmother when my father was an infant.), but i am related to my grandmother. i was also her first granddaughter! so she definitely enjoyed finally having a girl. my grandma,, is a strange woman, to put it lightly. shes very anxious and paranoid (likely where my GAD came from), and has a history of medical anxiety and stuff of that nature. she was also a bit delusional, and a bit histrionic. but i did, and still do love her.

when i was little, she always took me to the doctor. any time i would have the slightest allergy (im allergic to like so many things i have to take zyrtec every morning or else ill suffer) she would make a scene and (oddly in an eerily polite manner) insist i had something BAD. she wouldnt leave until they just gave her antibiotics or steroids to make her leave. in the car she would always tell me stuff like "those doctors are wrong, they dont know anything" and other things of that nature. ive always had kind of a weak immune system, but i know i didnt have some deadly serious illness like she always insisted. she never named anything either, she just said i had something nd needed allll these billions of medications. i remember i had some really painful, awful medication interactions back then. i was already taking daily aderall, so that was already doing things to my body. then you had me taking steroids, antibiotics, perscription strength pain medication, and just whatever else she could get her hands on.

but then this one time i had bad strep throat, and this time she REFUSED to give me my medication. this lead to me having PNEUMONIA. a really painful case of it, too. it was so bittersweet having the very woman who caused this illness hug me as i coughed up mucus for hours on end. my body felt like a furnace. i also think she caused the heart murmur i had at like, fucking 7 YEARS OLD. THATS NOT NORMAL! it hurt so bad, and i even had to have an ultrasound done.

another huge thing, i walk with my right foot tilted inward. this is most likely linked to my hypermobile ehlers danlos, but at the time nobody knew i had that. my grandma was DEAD SET on there being something physically wrong with my foot specifically. so much so that she took me to an orthopedic doctor 3 HOURS AWAY! and as expected, nothing was wrong with my foot. she was very polite to the doctor, but you could tell she was pissed.

i dont think i can even come close to counting how many times ive been to the doctor. yes, im chronically ill, BUT I DIDINT HAVE TO GO 100 TIMES IN ONE MONTH FOR SOMETHING THAT KEEPS COMING WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS BRO !! luckily ive only been to the ER three times (that i can recall) and none were related to this. although the 2 recent ones may have been some long term effects, not sure.

honestly, i think all of this did contribute to my mental health/general health issues i have now. especially my medical anxiety and resentment towards taking medication. as for my physical health, oh boy. my immune system is significantly weaker, im prone to anemia, and my body is just a fucking disaster-