There is a specific kind of loneliness that comes with chronic illness. Not the kind that comes from being unloved or unseen, but the kind that comes from being surrounded by people who are trying their hardest and still can't meet you where you are. You know that loneliness. You've been living inside it.

I have too.

I spent time in women's circles before my health changed everything. When it did, I went looking for one built for women like me, chronically ill, disabled, navigating motherhood while my body had other plans. I searched for circles for sick women. For disabled mothers. For anyone holding both a diagnosis and a baby at the same time.

They didn't exist.

Building something takes energy, and energy is the one thing our community has almost none of. So the gap stays open, and we each sit alone inside it.

I'm Lisse. I'm 34, I have Secondary Progressive MS, and I'm a first time mother in the thick of it. My daughter Effie is almost two. I became her mother and lost my body in almost the same breath, and I've been learning ever since what it means to parent from inside a life that didn't go to plan.

Disabled mothers are one of the most isolated, overlooked groups there is. Motherhood is supposed to be instinctive, embodied, natural. And it is, your body knows exactly who it's supposed to be. But when your health hijacks that, you end up watching other mothers do effortlessly what costs you everything. Nobody talks about that grief. Nobody holds space for it.

Defiant Healing exists because that space should exist. A place to be honest about how hard this actually is, to be held by women who don't need it explained to them, and to know we are not alone in this specific, invisible, exhausting loss.

You're early. Come help build it.

Welcome to Defiant Healing.

Start reading here.