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Notes from the Mind Palace
Living with fibromyalgia and dysautonomia means inhabiting a body where the internal thermostat, the alarm system, and the volume dials are completely broken. The nervous system isn't just misfiring; it is shouting constantly. The chronic, widespread pain of fibromyalgia feels like an uninvited current humming beneath your skin, while dysautonomia leaves your autonomic functions—your heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature regulation—scrambled and unpredictable.
By Syl De'Vil20 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace
There is a distinct kind of exhaustion that comes from living inside a fortress of your own making. In the architectural layout of the mind palace, the walls are thick, reinforced by years of survival, hyper-vigilance, and an ironclad rule: protection above all else. But when you sit alone in the center of that fortress, the quiet reveals a heavy, frustrating paradox. You can want human connection, safety, and love more than anything else in the world, while simultaneously feeling your entire nervous system lock down at the mere prospect of being perceived or touched.
By Syl De'Vil20 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace
The house is dead silent, but inside my ribcage, the engine is still throwing heavy sparks. Everyone else gets to slip away into the dark, trading the weight of the day for soft edges, slow breathing, and effortless drift. For them, midnight is a curtain that drops cleanly, bringing an end to the noise. But for me, the dark isn't a relief—it’s a mirror. It is a wide-open canvas where the shadows start to take shape if I sit still for too long, a quiet room where the past likes to pull up a chair and wait.
By Syl De'Vil23 days ago in Viva
Cosmic Displacement
Beneath the silent canopy of the trees and the cold light of the stars, a lifelong outsider finds her true reflection. There is a heavy, ancient silence that only exists deep beneath the tree canopy after midnight. Out here, away from the synthetic hum of the house, the endless logistics of a large family, and the relentless demands of the daylight world, the air completely changes. I step out into the cold grass, pull my star-covered robe tight against the chill, and look up through the dark, jagged silhouettes of the branches.
By Syl De'Vil23 days ago in Viva
The Armor of the Metalhead Matriarch
Out here in the predictable daylight of the suburbs, a forty-five-year-old mother of seven stands out. People notice the sheer scale of a massive family and automatically file you away into a neat, conventional box. They assume your identity has been entirely swallowed by the endless cycle of groceries, laundry, and schedules. They think the story ends there.
By Syl De'Vil23 days ago in Viva
Rearranging the Broken Furniture Inside My Head
I often find myself thinking about what it means to simply not be here—not in this era, not in this body, not in this heavy, suffocating space. There is a persistent, quiet displacement in my chest, an exhausting sense that I was dropped into the world entirely out of sync, born either way too early or far too late. I exist permanently on the periphery. I don’t fit into the conventional puzzles of society, and I don’t fit within the familiar walls of my own family. When you are an outsider in your own home, alienation becomes your default baseline.
By Syl De'Vil23 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace
People see I am the mother of seven kids and think they understand the shape of my life. They see the headcount, the logistics, the noise. But the truth of raising seven children doesn’t live in the obvious places. It lives in the quiet moments—the ones that don’t make it into photos, the ones nobody else notices, the ones that change me in ways I never say out loud. There’s a version of me that only exists when the house settles and the day finally lets go. That’s the mother I want to talk about.
By Syl De'Vil23 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
There’s a strange transformation that happens when your kids become adults. You think you’re finally done with the chaos — the sticky hands, the mystery stains, the “is it POOP or chocolate?” or "why is this wet" moments. You think adulthood means peace, quiet, stability.
By Syl De'Vil26 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
I am a hopeless romantic. Not the soft,pink and glittery, “I love long walks on the beach” kind. I’m the kind who believes in soul-recognition — in that moment when you lock eyes with someone and something ancient inside you whispers, Oh. Him. I’m the kind who dreams of a man with steady hands and a voice that feels like home. The kind who wants to be carried, protected, adored, treated like a queen even though I’m built like a demon who learned to survive by clawing her way out of every hell pit alone.
By Syl De'Vil26 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace. . Content Warning.
Excavating Myself: A Field Guide to Rediscovering the Woman I Lost Somewhere Between Betrayal and Blanket Forts I want to find myself again, but I’m pretty sure she’s hiding under a blanket fort with snacks and what my kids lovingly call my “pillow knife.” I’m not that dramatic — but dramatic enough to sleep armed like a raccoon guarding a treasure hoard. I have other things, they just don’t fit under my pillows.
By Syl De'Vilabout a month ago in Viva
