Eppi Girl was an overachiever. Eppi Girl was also a people pleaser. That, along with capitalism, were significant factors in why Eppi Girl could be found in an artificially lit box from Monday to Friday, even if it was against doctor’s orders.
In her box, sandwiched between others, they called her Eppi Girl, the one with the stroller, even though she hadn’t used her stroller at work in three months. And she hadn’t even used it at work more than five times. She normally uses her cane. It conveniently gets fewer looks and painful conversations with strangers. It also took up less space physically and metaphorically, which again was much more convenient as Eppi Girl was always reminded of how much space she was taking up.
It might surprise you to know that Eppi Girl had seizures. This of course needed to be disclosed to the corporate world. Because of her moniker, people assumed she had epilepsy. This was Assumption A. Assumption A was one of the favored assumptions but others preferred Assumption B, which was assuming something completely different since epilepsy isn’t often associated with mobility aids and clunky leg braces. Assumption C was to assume that every disability includes seizures. This option was a corporate cult classic.
Eppi Girl didn’t always have the spoons to explain that seizures can have a million causes and that it goes beyond epilepsy. She thinks this. She wants to say this. She internally screams this. Lupus, MS, alcohol and/or drug withdrawals, tumors, Parkinson’s, Functional Neurological Disorder, traumatic brain injuries, meningitis, Alzheimer’s, fevers. She lists those from the top of her head. Eppi Girl knows it’s in her best interest to be as vague as possible. Each little detail she shares just adds to the fire. More questions, insults, jokes and more reasons why she’ll never catch up.
The louder voices respond that the questions and jokes that upset her come from a good place and that it is the intention that matters. Eppi Girl hesitantly nods, bringing out her Emmy-snubbed tight-lipped smile. The one she’s mastered. They dismiss her call-ins as they proudly smile back at her. The best realistic outcome of this is them accepting Eppi Girl’s resigned silence as broken down complicity and gratitude.
She’s informed that a senior — someone older and wiser — is an alcohol connoisseur. Eppi Girl did not know this. The first conversation she had with them was them disclosing that their friend had MS and then asking Eppi Girl what medications she was on. They assumed that Eppi Girl had the same. Eppi Girl will not confirm or deny this assumption. Why? Because she does not want this conversation. Eppi Girl would rather talk about literally almost anything else.
It’s the usual type of Wednesday. Eppi Girl has a seizure in the bathroom. This is not the one she’d broken her nose in though. Some people stare or comment. She knows she doesn’t look well. She never does. She doesn’t feel well. She never does. And she’s always reminded of this. Eppi Girl’s brain is fried.
Eppi Girl is subjected to another painful joke about her existence. She awkwardly, uncomfortably laughs at the joke because she doesn’t know what to say. She’s fighting back tears. This is the most digestible response that could come from her that isn’t a visceral scream. Some act like they’re making a joke with Eppi Girl but they’re really making jokes at her. A lot of jokes are made at Eppi Girl’s expense. Especially between 8:30 and 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Eppi Girl is once again told that she’s nice. It’s a small comfort. She’s nice and she can be funny. But she has become tired of those adjectives. They’re all she gets. She knows that they’re better than when nothing is said (to her) or what could be said or what is said behind her back. So, she lives for them like little crumbs of worth to mold her into the right silhouette of the impossible, good type of disabled. If she advocates or vents any more, she’ll be categorized as emotional, troublesome, problematic and radical. The label will become thicker than it already is.
It comes up again and this time she’s salty. Eppi Girl freezes. Is this the point where they burn her alive? Has she complained one too many times (let me translate this for you: timidly attempted to raise an issue)? You can now offer her as a sacrifice for your complaints that will benefit you while putting stones in her pocket. You may use her as a punching bag, metaphorically though, of course, because you’re too nice of a person to hit a woman, and you would definitely never touch a disabled one! While, taking this weight, being the butt of jokes and serving as a disability consultant are naturally unsaid job responsibilities, her contract is being amended to include these. Naturally, it will not be considered in her salary. If anything, they should shrink it to take into account how much space she takes up in the world.
Do you want the moniker origin story of Eppi Girl? How she found herself as the tragic, disabled protagonist? Of course, my apologies! On a Wednesday Eppi Girl is shyly asked by someone else if she needs an epi-pen. She’s taken aback by it but she knows why she’s being asked. Eppi Girl smiles politely, another tight-lipped one—she could teach a masterclass in it if that was ever a thing. Eppi Girl was called high-strung, salty, dramatic and crazy but Eppi Girl wasn’t cruel. But Eppi Girl politely says no, she’s never used one and doesn’t need an epi-pen. Her questioner quickly nods and changes the subject of the conversation. How polite. It’s a couple of days later when somebody else brings up the moniker and epilepsy.
There’s always another aspect of disability to shine a light and comment on. Eppi Girl would never be able to hide behind her mobility aids, appointments, and flare-ups. No matter how hard she tried. Thus, she is colloquially called Eppi Girl. And Eppi Girl doesn’t even have epilepsy. She’s said this about a dozen times. To a dozen different people. But it doesn’t change anything.
Eppi Girl treads carefully around the mountainous, mind-fuck terrain of the corporate, adulting fishbowl that’s now her world. Her childhood and teenage years in colonized, rural, small towns and haunted homes made her think that maybe she was too big of a fish. But now Eppi Girl is no longer a fish in a fishbowl or pond or whatever this is meant to be. Eppi Girl knows that she’s now a whole other creature, one barely surviving in the wrong environment. What Eppi Girl is asking for is basic and she shouldn’t be called radical for it.
Eppi Girl wonders if she really is a whole other creature … A new type of fish that’s evolved from where all the others are right now. A metaphorical marine time traveler that’s ahead of her time. Or, is Eppi Girl ironically a Tiktaalik? The first, different, the past. The one that is being left behind because she is not enough. She is the one they say has failed evolution, but Eppi Girl wonders if she’s the one failed by this evolution.
It might surprise you to know that I am Eppi Girl. Eppi Girl is me and you could even be Eppi Girl too or one of her cousins from the same line of barriers. The next time I have a seizure or flare-up, I will convulse because of the disruptions in my nerves and brain. I will seize in disgust and inaccessibility as you wonder one more time if Eppi Girl has epilepsy or not or if you should even be wondering about that. I’ll leave that as a mid-seizure gift for you to think about. Because I do not owe you a diagnosis, a medical history or an itemized list of my prescriptions. And, not a single Eppi Girl does.
