by Nina Ajdin Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing pieces of something that has been slowly taking shape inside me for years. At first, I thought I was simply writing about chronic illness. About topical steroid withdrawal. About grief, trauma, sensitivity, survival. But underneath all of those experiences was a deeper pattern, a…

by Nina Ajdin There was a morning recently when I woke up and couldn’t open my eyes properly. Not tired. Not groggy. Actually couldn’t open them. The skin around them had tightened overnight, crusted, swollen, the kind of thing that makes you understand, viscerally, what it means to be trapped inside your own body. I…

A letter to the little girl in the hospital bed, and to anyone still waiting to be told they deserve to be here by Nina Ajdin The Letter You deserved to live. Even though everything around you smelled like death and made you feel undeserving of it. Even though the sounds outside were gunshots and…