Something that has been bugging me about the anti-Kamala backlash to her mental health plan is the narrative of “centering caregivers.” No one is ever centering us. We don’t center ourselves. We lose and lose and lose and lose and lose trying to get help for our loved ones.

Our loved ones don’t have voices and we are the only people in this world who are qualified to speak for them and who will speak for them. I don’t even speak of my own mental illnesses because my life is consumed with my child’s mental illnesses.

The blue checkmark Twitterati most certainly doesn’t speak for my child. You have no fucking idea what we’ve been through and continue to endure, and most importantly, you have no interest in learning about what severely mentally ill people are facing.

You have never been stuck in the purgatory where CPS says you will lose custody of your minor child if your mentally ill child lives with you and doesn’t get help, you can’t make her get help, housing wait lists are two years long, and when she gets housing, she gets kicked out.

It’s offensive that people who are not facing the things that my child is facing—homelessness, the ramifications of constant police contact, few options due to insurance and money constraints—have the audacity to tell me I have no right to have a voice here.

The most offensive thing is the blue checkmark Twitterati who want a woke excuse to not vote for the Black woman have the goddamn audacity to tell me that I need to shut up and listen to people who do not face what my daughter and our family are facing.

I want you to know that I see right through you. You might be fooling your friends, you might be fooling yourself, but you’re not fooling me. You’re using mentally ill people as tokens to excuse yourself for voting for a mediocre candidate over the more qualified Black woman.

And you’ve tokenized all sorts of marginalized people to give you the excuse you need to vote for your white and/or male fave. I see you. I’m disgusted by you. And I’m done with you.