Trans on the Internet Part 1
Posted: May 26, 2015 Filed under: Writing | Tags: gender, gender identity, genderqueer, identity, internet, lgbtq, non-binary, queer, technology, trans, transgender, writing 7 CommentsLast July, I submitted a proposal for an essay to a new and exciting anthology all about the ways transgender identities inform the internet and vice versa. My proposal was accepted, and I submitted my piece for editing in December. I was stoked! Unfortunately though, I just heard word that the editors are not moving forward with the project (due to workloads and paid work vs. passion filled but unpaid work). So I figured I’ll publish it on my blog. Not nearly as exciting, but still something! (I’m breaking it into two parts because it’s pretty long).
I am right on the cusp of Generation X (slackers) and Generation Y (millennials). I’m on the borderlands of a trans identity. I’m on the verge of grasping/rejecting technological innovations. I’m comfortable right where I am, hanging out at the edge of all these precipices. Due to my age , gender identity, and complex feelings about technology, I find myself neither here nor there in terms of what feels best. I continue to mix and match as I go, remaining critical along the way.
I was born in 1981, which means I most definitely did not grow up with cell phones or internet access. Even though they were available in the 80s, we didn’t have cable television, a microwave oven, or a portable telephone either (picture a tan rotary telephone mounted to the wall, with a long, coiled cord). I have always been wary of new technologies as they slowly embed themselves into our collective landscape and my individual lifestyle. The transitions never feel seamless. They always impact me greatly, imprinting upon my memories…
The first time I used a microwave: I was a kid. I was at the grocery store with my dad, and there was a station where you could microwave your own bag of popcorn. Like many people do all of the time, even after 20+ years of practice, we burnt the popcorn, popped open the microwave door, and let the stench waft out, affecting shoppers within a 100ft radius. I felt mortified and ashamed. My dad seemed unfazed, but we didn’t try again.
The first time I used a cell phone: It was 2003, and I was a senior in college. My parents had given me a cell phone during our visit with no further discussion really, other than it was covered under their family plan. I buried it somewhere within my apartment and continued to use my landline (however infrequent that was). My mom later commented to me, “We can never get ahold of you! Why don’t you answer your cell phone?” Honestly, I can’t say. It just felt anxiety inducing. At some point, I must have gotten the hang of it – of being forever accessible – because I now am the proud owner of a Samsung flip-phone and I carry it everywhere. I see the benefits of this, but I’m only partially on board. I rarely text, I keep my phone on vibrate, oftentimes I let a call just go to voice mail, and I call back when I am ready.
The first time I used the Internet: We had a super slow dial-up server called Prodigy. It was 1998. Again, I can’t recall any discussion amongst my family about what the Internet is and what can we do with it – suddenly it just was. I recall going on a message board to talk about music. I talked about REM with a stranger for a while before he abruptly asked me what size bra I wear. I felt a mixture of complex emotions before simply replying, “an A cup, I think. I don’t really know.” He replied, “Oh, that’s alright sweetheart, that’s enough for me to work with.” How did he know my gender? How did this space for nerds and fans devolve so quickly into a space for pervs to jack-off? I didn’t engage; just signed off. I don’t remember going back on the internet much after that until I got to college; my usage was very limited, and remains, in many ways, fairly limited, even today.
The ways I use the internet has definitely progressed and shifted, but I am far from the seamless IRL/virtual world many people appear to inhabit. I do not have a smart phone nor do I plan on ever getting a smart phone. I have “online time” and “offline time,” and I need those two to be separate. You’ll never see me walking down the street, seemingly talking to myself or staring at a screen.
My trans identity has shifted along with the ways I view the Internet, over time. It has blossomed and bloomed, halted and shriveled, sputtered and shuddered and begun to bloom again. In terms of deep soul searching, the Internet has never been my go-to place to glean information. The library was that place. I spent countless hours (hours enough to rival Internet time) in the “HQ” stacks of my college library. Specifically HQ 71-79: “sexual deviations, bisexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, transvestism, transsexualism, sadism, masochism, fetishism.” For all that time spent searching, I didn’t do a whole lot of actual reading – many of these books were so dense and research-centric. I would often just go there to try to clear my head. Just sit. One particular book does stand out above the rest though: Loren Cameron’s Body Alchemy. Filled with stunning photographs and personal stories, I could find glimpses of myself amongst these pages.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I flesh out these ideas, fill in some gaps, and really get into my trans-identity a lot more.
100th post / We just paid off our house!
Posted: February 19, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: adulthood, androgyny, gender identity, genderqueer, homeowning, hormone replacement therapy, lgbtq, mortgage, non-binary, trans, transgender, writing 6 CommentsThis is a 2 for 1 celebratory post – the title says it all!
I started this blog a year and a half ago, largely inspired by Micah’s blog, Neutrois Nonsense to start writing my own story. When I started testosterone, I was overly concerned with the physical changes, and I couldn’t find an answer to my question anywhere. That question: is it possible to be on T long-term, at a dose high enough to make a difference yet low enough to not induce physical changes?
The answer, I’ve found out through personal experience, is YES. Of course everyone is different, but this is a great option for non-binary people who feel more-or-less OK with their appearance yet feel like something is off, something about their world might be improvable. Testosterone could be that thing that makes a world of difference. It was for me.
To celebrate my 100th post, here’s an excerpt of some jottings-down I did before starting this blog:
“I wanna start a blog. I already have a name for it and an address on WordPress. But I have yet to make my first entry. I suppose I’m unsure of how to approach it. I want it to be attractive and interesting to others. I want it to be long lasting. I wanna keep coming up with things to say, but as of now, I can’t envision that. It’s just one step at a time though – I shouldn’t worry about mapping the entire project out…”
And that’s how it’s been. I don’t have a backlog of ideas or drafts started. I just take it week by week, and see what’s out there (or just in my head) to write about. So far this has worked out for me. There is very little pre-planning. I don’t think it’d be sustainable, personally, if there were. I am obsessive by nature, and this is one of the few things that I’m not stressing out about. That’s why it works.
Like the title suggests, I’m also celebrating having paid off our mortgage! I bought this house we live in 8 years ago, and now we own own it. Feels good! How did we do this on two working-class salaries? It wasn’t through help from anyone or an inheritance or lottery win. It was through prioritizing, saving, and strategizing.
1. We live in a city with a low cost of living: One of the reasons I like where I live is that things are affordable. I don’t make much money, but it feels like my money goes far.
2. I am a cheapskate: This is, honestly, the biggest factor in having been able to save so much, and it’s just part of my nature. I don’t tend to buy a lot of new stuff. I get clothes from thrift stores, mostly. We don’t go out to eat a whole lot – my partner mainly cooks at home. We don’t go out to bars or coffee shops all that much, unless it’s to socialize. Socializing at other peoples’ homes is so much better anyway! Coffee, tea, beer, etc. is so much cheaper in-house. You can, in fact have really high quality coffee, tea, beer, etc. at home if you avoid stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts daily.
3. We lived with housemates for years: From the time I bought the house, to just a year ago, we always lived with 2 other people. Those people changed over the years; it really helped aid in a sense of community with others, and also financially. We would have group outings and dinners once in a while. We did a holiday photo and newsletter every year. We hosted a Kraftnite every Sunday evening. I wouldn’t trade in those experiences for anything. At the same time though, it’d be so tough to go back! Now that it’s been just my partner and me for a year, I feel spoiled. It’s nice to feel like we have the house to ourselves. It helped us pay down the mortgage all that much quicker.
In addition, my partner is learning how to drive, and she just purchased a car. We are entering “adulthood” like never before, lately. I cannot wait to be a passenger in her car! (I kinda dislike driving.)
From whimsical musings to invasive ruminations on transitioning, Pt. 2
Posted: January 29, 2015 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: coming out, gender identity, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, lgbtq, non-binary, queer, testosterone, therapy, trans, transgender, transition, writing 7 CommentsSince I have a lot of extra time on my hands right now, I thought I’d read through some of my old blog entries. I came across a couple of pretty good ones that didn’t get read by many people, because I was just starting out. It takes time and energy to build a readership. I thought it’d be fun (and self-indulgent, which I could use right now) to “re-blog” one of my first posts (and edit it lightly). See if it still holds up; maybe make a commentary at the end. This one in particular was my 10th blog post, and it’s from a year and a half ago. I had been on T for 6 months at that point. It got 4 views. I think it’s of interest to more people than that!
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For over a decade, I had been going back and forth thousands of times in my head about whether transitioning, or partial transition, was right for me or not. At some point not that long ago, I seemed to come to the conclusion that no, I wasn’t going to move forward because if I were, I would have done something about it by now. And I haven’t, so I’m not. I must be lacking some internal drive, so it must not be something that I need to do. I settled on identifying as genderqueer and trans* but not planning on medically transitioning in any way. But I was not quite satisfied, not at all actually. Because it was still on my mind. Sometimes just as whimsical musings in the back of my brain. Other times as pervasive/invasive body-dysphoric consistent ruminations.
I thought it had to be all or nothing. I thought I had to have a case ready about how I need to transition, in order to access testosterone. But I don’t need to transition, and I really don’t like to lie. I thought I would need a letter from a therapist, and to jump through all these hoops, to access testosterone, at least in my town, locally. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted it! Eventually I reached a point where I just knew that I needed to try it, just so that I could know. So that at the very least, I could think about it differently or think about it less often, as it relates to a decision about something I should or should not do.
I have this awesome therapist. She doesn’t know much about trans* identities. I’m fairly certain she had not previously had a trans* client before, although I could be wrong. I’d been talking to her about this stuff, and she’d been following along, more or less, in stride. When I would say I need to try this out, she would say, “then why not!” I asked her if she’d write me a letter if need be, and she said she wouldn’t be comfortable doing that; she doesn’t have enough knowledge about it. Still operating under the assumption that I would need a letter, I started also seeing another therapist, basically for the purpose of getting a letter.
This second therapist gave me the name of a doctor during our first session. Turns out that, apparently, I didn’t need a letter! Turns out I didn’t need to convince anyone at any point that I wanted to transition medically. I never once had to lie to get my hands on testosterone. And once I did get my hands on it, I was given the freedom to experiment with the dosing, basically use as much or as little as I wanted. Turns out I want to use as little as possible. Turns out I might be able to stay on it for the rest of my life without looking any more masculine than I currently do (this has yet to be proven, but it’s been 6 months now, and so far, so good). And the internal effects, with this super low dose, are significant and pretty much better than I could have even hoped for.
Basically, for all those years of wondering and second-guessing and processing and feeling anxious and obsessing and daydreaming and doubting myself and ultimately sort of concluding by default that I wouldn’t take any steps forward, actually doing something about it has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
And in retrospect, it isn’t like there’s no turning back, to some extent. Testosterone is a slow-moving substance in terms of long-term changes… I’m really enjoying the internal forward momentum though.
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Now that it’s been close to two years on testosterone, I am at a new normal. I have used the gel every single day, and the benefits have been astronomical. BUT, I forget now; I forget what I used to feel like. I can feel myself approaching a new stage, a stage where I look like someone in between, more so than I already am. This new stage might involve shaving (or plucking chin hairs at a faster pace than I currently do.) It might involve a lot more explaining and coming out. It might involve top surgery and a name change. This is my transition, in process.
Getting to know each other #3 / Year end
Posted: December 28, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blogs, emotions, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtqia, non-binary, queer, trans, transgender, travel, writing 4 CommentsThank you PlainT (Queering the Nerd) for choosing me for the chain-style Very Inspiring Blog Award!
I’m going to move it along by selecting a bunch of blogs I’ve been enjoying lately. If I chose your blog, and you’d like to make a post following all the rules of the award, they can be found in PlainT’s post, here:
The rules of this award are…
Then I’m going to write a few facts about myself, sort of in the vein of a year end summary. I made a similar post last year; it is here:
This year felt different… in a good way
These community-driven awards are super important because it’s a chance for blog writers to connect with different blogs they might not know about yet. I enjoy seeking out new blogs regularly, and I find myself feeling invested in the lives of other blog writers. Sometimes I get bummed when a blog starts off really strong and then disappears! Here’s to the coming year, and strengthening this online community through mutual support and inspired blog writing!
A few blogs to check out (some are mainstays, some are more sporadically written than others, some are brand new)!
John’s Thoughts
Changing Faces
Tea With Ess
Gender Drift
Casbalog
Queer Asterisk
Tangled Web
ftmfml
Dawn to Don
Musical Transparent
A Yellow Crayon
2 Women to 2 Men
Next up, here are some things about me / some things I did and felt this year:
– Overall, it was a pretty rough year for me. I continued to settle into a new and improved place with hormone therapy and talk therapy, but I’m finding I still have a LONG way to go until I really am where I see myself. I want to be out as non-binary in all areas of my life. I want to go by a different name. I want all the people who know me to use male pronouns in reference to me, not just most of the people… I might want top surgery…
– I felt a growing closeness with my partner, newer levels of comfort and ease, which is great. At the same time, she kinda had to put up with a lot from me. Lots of bouts of crying. Lots of insecurity-fueled jags. I had a rough summer. And fall. And just in general, lately…
– We celebrated our having-gotten-married (this occurred in November 2013) over the summer with friends and family!
– We went on some fun trips. To Massachusetts and Maine, to Toronto, To Philadelphia for the Philly Trans-Health Conference.
– We attended a foraging workshop with some friends, which was totally fun! We learned about edible plants you can find in our region, and how to prepare them into meal-like food items, over an open fire in the middle of the woods. We did that – everyone helped cook this food we’d found, and then we all ate it!
– Outdoors times were probably some of my favorite times this year. Just going for a hike or going to a lake. My partner and I got snowshoes recently, so we can keep getting out there, even throughout the winter.
– My pet rabbit passed away, and my co-worker retired. These have both felt like HUGE losses. Work has been tough and more drama-ful than need be, lately.
– I worked on 3 submissions for anthologies this year! One is already published, and two have been accepted and are in the works, the editing stages… This feels AWESOME!
– I got involved in a local group that is putting a new radio station out into the airwaves. Currently I’m helping out a lot with their facebook page, and within the coming year, I will be a weekly radio DJ!
That was, more or less, what 2014 looked like for me.
Janitors in pop culture #3 / awesome film about a transwoman
Posted: November 4, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: film festival, gender, gender identity, getting published, janitors, lgbtqia, movie review, mtf, queer, stereotypes, therapy, trans, transgender, writing 4 CommentsI recently was at an LGBT film festival and specifically planned ahead to catch a film from Finland called Open Up To Me (Kerron Sinulle Kaiken). If you want to see it, this blog post is going to contain details you might not want to read about in advance, just a heads up!
Super highly recommend this film. It follows the life of Maarit, a transwoman, for a few months, starting at the point of her last appointment with her gender therapist – the tone of that first scene, the therapist’s farewell message, is: now spread your wings and fly. Maarit had been forced through a lot of sacrifices in the process of becoming who she is. She is separated from her wife and estranged from her teenaged daughter (we get the sense the daughter is open and figuring this out for herself; it is the mother who is standing in the way.) She has moved away from where she once lived and worked as a school social worker. She now leads a lonely existence and works as a janitor within a huge office building.
There are only two or three scenes where she is depicted at her work (and it’s just her coming and going. Loading a van, pushing a cart full of supplies). The story is not about that work, other than utilizing it as a plot device for somewhere she has landed and is unhappy about. She (understandably) yearns to get back into her chosen profession of helping people as soon as possible. She wants this so badly that she ends up posing as a therapist (through a series of misunderstandings) while on the job.
Which brings me to a reason I loved this film… It falls back on some unpleasant tropes common to trans characters in the media, but it ends up twisting them and rising above those ideas, to portray Maarit as a very human, very real, complex, well… person.
Transperson as deceitful: Although Maarit deceives someone about her profession (and she quickly comes clean), she never once is attempting to deceive anyone about her transgender status. She is proud, self-assured, and upfront with those around her (on an as-needed basis), even in the face of speculation and slander, discrimination, and violence.
Transperson as hypersexual: Maarit is not portrayed as a hypersexual person. It is clear that she is looking for intimacy, emotional connections, and a long-term partner. Instead, some of the characters around her are hypersexualizing her, and that seems more about them and their own issues, rather than who she actually is as a person. The film makes this very clear.
Transperson as dangerous and/or tragic: Maarit is in a very difficult place (there are other aspects of her life that have fallen apart. I won’t give away every detail!) and there are certainly scenes where she is in over her head, where she is compromised, where she seems desperate. It feels realistic – it very much seems that some choices she makes are due to (and only due to) being pushed so far into a corner, and she’s just trying to find her way back to where she can live her life. Those choices are not about who she is, inherently. It’s circumstantial. Some of these scenes, although hard to watch, feel triumphant at the same time. For example, at one point, she is attacked by an ex-lover. She ends up punching him in the face and ending the attack. Awesome.
I’m so glad LGBT film festivals exist – opportunities to get out there and see films I wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. This year, I saw this one, and another trans-specific one (52 Tuesdays – sadly, I didn’t enjoy this one all that much. It felt overly melodramatic, the characters didn’t feel believable.) My partner and I have gone to other films over the years, and it’s interesting that it always seems like there’s films for men and films for women. We’ve been to films before where we’re the only ones in the theater who are not cis-men (that’s an assumption, of course, but over and over again, it has been very much divided, and it is so bizarre to me.) At these two films (which were both well attended), there was a very diverse cross-section. I liked that.
Also, the film festival puts out an annual literary anthology, and this year’s theme was personal pronouns. I submitted, and my piece was accepted! I’m now officially published, in an actual book with an ISBN # and everything!!!
The piece was a re-working of these two blog posts:
While I was “out,” part 2 – partly out of the closet, fully out of the loop
While I was “out,” part 3 – coming back
Hey Halloween! (how costumes fit into our lives)
Posted: October 29, 2014 Filed under: Writing | Tags: anxiety, college, gender identity, genderqueer, Halloween, lgbtqia, non-binary, queer, relationships, trans, transgender, women's studies, writing 5 CommentsHappy almost Halloween! I thought I’d celebrate by digging deep into my writing archives to see if I could find something festive. It may not be all that festive, but it does seem apt – I found something I wrote 12 years ago, on Halloween day, that touches on gender identity, costumes, and anxiety.
A little back story for what is to follow: I was a Junior in college, and I was taking an awesome class called Imagining Herself, a cross-class between Women’s Studies and English Literature. The book list was from some Gender Studies Dream Team (for 2002, at least):
Leslie Feinberg – Stone Butch Blues
Riki Anne Wilchins – Read My Lips
Zora Neale Hurston – Dust Tracks on a Road
Kate Bornstein – Gender Outlaw
Audre Lorde – Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
And others that I can’t remember anymore. Unfortunately, I didn’t read these books (well, I’d already read Stone Butch Blues on my own). I couldn’t. I was having some major depressive issues, which really put a damper on what I was capable of doing. I hadn’t told any professors I needed help yet, but I would be doing so in the very near future. The professor’s name was Katrina (not her real name). I sort of had a girlfriend at the time, whom I’ll refer to as “girlfriend?” Question mark, because I was never clear on whether we were actually together. Girlfriend? had been in this class the semester before me, so the professor had a clear memory of her.
Here’s what I wrote on Halloween, 12 years ago:
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More than ever, I became terribly anxious in Imagining Herself today. I think because we were discussing Stone Butch Blues, and I felt like I was supposed to be adding to the discussion, yet I couldn’t say anything. I’m one of five people in class who are potentially VERY focused on issues raised in that book. These other classmates all contributed a lot. I contributed nothing. I just couldn’t. Katrina even brought attention to me because of the zines I’ve been handing in for my project. She wanted me to talk about some of the stuff.
“[Janitorqueer’s] been doing these amazing zines,” she told the class. I felt like I was in elementary school again, simultaneously hoping for and fearing any kind of attention. “Can you share with us your thoughts about what you’ve been writing about, after reading through Stone Butch Blues again?” I hadn’t read through Stone Butch Blues again. I hadn’t yet read ANY of the books for class. I feel guilty and like a fraud. I stared straight ahead. Said, ” … um … ” in almost a whisper. My mind was totally blank. Why does this happen? She acknowledged my discomfort by asking me if we should just move on. I said, “yeah.”
I thought I might cry. How awful would that have been. I tuned out completely to avoid that scene, and that worked really well. I came back to reality within a few minutes. But for the rest of class, all I wanted to do was grab all of my stuff and run out of the room … go and hide. I have this urge often in class, but it’s never been THIS intense. Sometimes I want to slip through the edge of the floor, but not today. I just wanted to explode out, to escape.
Girlfriend? was brought up during the discussion! We were talking about clothing and performance, and Katrina asked me, “You know [your girlfriend?], right?” I nodded. Because I referred to girlfriend? a few times in my zines, she must have made the connection. Then she addressed the class. “Girlfriend? uses clothes as a performance all the time. She is always playing … she’ll wear goth, hello kitty, Ragedy Ann (girlfriend? prefers to call this one “Bag Lady”) … and when she came into class the day people were instructed to wear particularly masculine or feminine clothing, something different than normal, she said that this isn’t any different for her than any other day because she’s always playing. She feels comfortable dressing extremely masculine and/or feminine.”
A classmate asked, “Did she have pink hair for a while last year?” and I nodded, yes. “Oh, ok, I had a class with her. She is really interesting.” Katrina: “Yeah, she’s very bright.” Classmate: “Political Science major?” I nodded again.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of girlfriend?’s incredible attention to clothing as “playing.” I thought of it as this valley girl thing she does. This thing which is sometimes tedious and sometimes fun and goofy. (She is really excited about creating me as a goth girl for Halloween.) To look at it as a carefully planned out form of play makes me respect it much more. I feel proud that I “know” her. I feel especially tender toward her, or something, ah, I don’t know! Anyway …”
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I remember that Halloween. She dressed me up in her clothing and did my hair and make-up. I liked it. She was dressed as a school-girl gone wrong, or something to that effect. It was a really warm night, and we kind of just walked around a lot, stopping in at this party and that party, maybe acquaintances of hers. (I had no idea. As per usual, I was out of it, dissociating.)
It makes me think about all the things we can be expressing with our clothing choices, gender-wise and otherwise. And although Halloween costumes are extremes, all sorts of outfits can be seen as “costumes.” Getting dressed up in formal wear? Costume. Even business casual? Still, costume. Work out clothes? Total costume. If it’s not a t-shirt, hoodie, button-up shirt (mostly flannel), jeans, corduroys (or gym shorts, sweat pants for lounging around), hiking boots, or skater shoes, to me, it feels like a costume. Which isn’t a bad thing at all! Costumes have their times and places – I love costumes! But I will not compromise and wear clothing that does not allow me to feel like myself, when that’s all I wanna be.
Another blog writer covers some similar concepts, here – Becoming Hope: Masks
Oh, and completely coincidentally, this year I’m going as a goth boy for Halloween.
What’s your take on costumes?
Getting to know each other #2
Posted: September 9, 2014 Filed under: Writing | Tags: award, beverages, blogging, blogs, chain mail, vegetarian, writing 5 CommentsA couple of chain-style blogging awards are currently circulating, and I’m gonna go ahead and take part! Thank you to Something Queer To Read, Tangled Web, and Because I’m Fabulous for including me! These community driven awards are super important because they help us connect to more blogs we might not yet know about, and they allow blog writers to step outside of their usual modes and share a little bit more about themselves.
So, adapted “rules” for the Lovely / Very Inspiring Blog award:
– Link to and thank the blog writer(s) who included you.
– Write a few facts about yourself. Maybe 4, maybe 7, maybe 10…
– Move things forward by including a few blog writers you really enjoy. Anywhere from 5 to 15.
– Make sure you let these blog writers know!
This time around, I’m going to point to (in no real order):
A Feminist Challenging Transphobia
butchcountry67
The Brighter Side of the Moon
Valprehension
Today I Am A Man
Captain Glitter Toes
Create Parity
Genderweird
Transcending Chaya
And finally, a couple of things you might not have known about me:
– I live 5 miles away from my parents. I live 5,000 miles away from my brother.
– I love beverages of all different kinds: especially coffee, tea, beer, fancy sodas, kombucha. I like trying new types! (I really should remember to drink more water.)
– When I was 17, I spent 3 weeks in a psychiatric hospital. I know I’ve mentioned it before, and although I don’t highlight it often in my writing, this episode greatly shaped where I’m coming from and how I write about my experiences.
– I’ve been a vegetarian for about 12 years. There was a brief foray into eating fish somewhere at the midway point. That didn’t last long. It felt weird. From time to time, I think about re-introducing fish into my diet, but I just can’t seem to do it.
Until next time (Getting to know each other #3)…
Why I’ve been writing here
Posted: July 24, 2014 Filed under: Writing | Tags: anniversary, genderqueer, goals, lgbtq, non-binary, privacy, publishing, queer, therapist, therapy, trans, transgender, writing 20 CommentsToday is the day I’ve been writing on this blog for one year. And… I really don’t see an end in sight – it doesn’t feel like I’ll be running out of steam any time soon. I’m gonna hope that this is true!
There are a bunch of reasons I started and a bunch of reasons I keep going. Some of them include:
- I’m an exhibitionist, in a sense.
- I really really really enjoy writing. And ideas keep popping in my head.
- The more I put into this, the more I get out of it. That has not been the case for a lot of endeavors I’ve undertaken.
- I’ve really been enjoying reading blogs by like-minded (and different-minded) individuals on a variety of topics, but mostly blogs about being queer and/or trans* in some way or form. The blogs I read help keep me going.
- It has helped me hone my writing / find a voice. I’ve had pieces accepted for 2 anthologies this year (the process of editing and publishing is currently ongoing), and I’m working on a proposal for a 3rd piece.
- I want to continue contributing to a body of information that is pretty obscure and hard to find, at least at this time.
Before starting this blog, I was writing epic emails to my therapist, generally on a weekly basis. For over a year and a half. I’m talking really really long emails. Although she always read them – and we often talked about them – she would never reply to me. She would also sometimes downplay how important they felt to me, referring to them as “notes,” when I would have chosen the phrase, “an outpouring of my soul,” haha.
I rarely ever write to her anymore (sometimes I cut and paste from my blog in an email to her, or ask her to look at a specific post). I think I was relying on her to fulfill this really specific need (collecting and organizing thoughts through writing, knowing someone’s reading those thoughts), and I’ve shifted it all into this incredible, creative outlet. She’s probably relieved about it – I know I kinda am, haha.
Before this, I’d never had a blog in such a public way. I’d had private online “diaries” and mostly “friends only” online journals when I was younger, just about life in general. But I’d never put this much about myself out into the internet in any shape, previously (my Facebook info and involvement is super sparse, for example). Sometimes I’ve second-guessed myself. Sometimes I’ve worried if so-and-so will find this, etc. But overall, those fears are quickly drowned out by all the positives. And ultimately, the type of anonymity / level of being out there publicly feels like it’s right where I wanna be.
To many more years!
Getting slammed by visions of violence
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anxiety, depression, emotions, obsession, pain, self-inflicted violence, self-injury, stress, stress-response, trigger warning, violence, visions, writing 5 CommentsTrigger warning: violent imagery (as the title suggests).
Last week, I was in high stress mode. It’s due to an annual drastic change in my work schedule (and really no other reasons, as far as I know about. I mean, I have other stressors going on, but nothing I can’t usually handle.) This happens every single year, and it really affects how I engage with summer. I can always predict it; simultaneously, I always conveniently forget how extreme it gets.
I wrote what follows last week, when I was in the thick of it. And then I just sat on it, because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to post it. Partially because it’s a departure from what I usually write about. Now that I’m feeling better, I find that, yes, I’ll post it. So, here’s what I wrote, only slightly edited:
My mind’s reaction to long-term stress is terrifying to me. I continue to wonder if this is really just how it is. (Why can’t I just grow out of this???). Some people get stress-induced migraines or upset stomachs or struggle with insomnia. Anything like that is, without a doubt, difficult to deal with. In a big way, I am glad I am not afflicted with those stress-responses. In some way though, a part of me wishes for something like that instead, but only because it’s relate-able and I’d probably feel like I could talk about it with others. “My stomach is in knots thinking about what I have to do.” Or, “I’m losing sleep over this.” These phrases are super common.
When I get stressed out for long enough, it feels like my brain is rotting away. I lose brain functioning (not a figure of speech – my cognitive abilities actually suffer in some big ways.) But more than this: It feels as if my brain has turned against me; I am bombarded by visions – images of violence being inflicted upon me. I do not know what I can do. I can distract myself. I can try stress reduction techniques. I can (and do) follow through with inflicting pain on myself in an attempt to stop the visions. None of these things have ever worked too well when I’m actually in it. When I was younger, I was “in it” on-and-off for years and years and years. It would become intolerable. It’d be beyond intolerable, but, of course, I had to keep waking up and living it, over and over again because there’s no getting away from your own mind.
Often, my brain would feel so rotten that I couldn’t read, I couldn’t make sense of things on TV or in movies. I couldn’t talk to people or follow a conversation. Eventually I couldn’t do any schoolwork at all. (And it wasn’t about concentration, which is a common issue with people who are depressed. It was specifically that synapses seemingly disintegrated.) I made it through because luckily I had a therapist at home and a therapist at school, and they helped advocate for me to get accommodations I needed to not flunk or drop out of college. I felt like dropping out. I “got by” with very high grades, because I couldn’t have lived with myself with anything less. ??? Does this make any sense at all? I was barely functioning, yet I somehow ended up with very high marks. If my grades had ended up slipping, I would have been even more abusive to myself. Maybe the people around me could sense that.
Somehow, I could still write, surprisingly eloquently. Although, it was limited to journal-style writing, not academic-style writing. Like what I’m doing right now. When I can’t seem to do anything else.
I get barraged with images spanning from mild (such as my face being slapped or my skin being cut) to morbid (such as being hacked away at with an axe. Or my head being whacked repeatedly with a 2×4. Or falling and hitting my head so hard that I pass out. Or my neck being held down as I am whipped over and over and over again.) These images are never sexual. They are disturbing and unwanted. I seem to have no control over them.
I have heard of some people struggling with urges to actively do something they do not actually want to do. Like inflicting pain onto someone else. Or stepping off the subway platform in front of a subway. Or driving their car off the road and down a steep ravine. There is an excellent graphic novel I would highly recommend that is largely about this compulsion. It’s called The Nao of Brown. What I’m talking about is so similar, yet strikingly different. I am never the one in control. I’m not harming anyone else or actively harming myself. It is always an anonymous person outside the visual frame, inflicting violence on me. I’m the object; I’m looking at myself.
Last week I told my therapist, “whoever made brains needs to try again.”
janitorqueer 