Month: December 2020

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The Great Depression of 2020

Depression Meme Dump #3 - Album on Imgur

I had my 21st birthday in the middle of Quarantine, meaning my 20’s have already started out as depressing. As I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what to write, I think it’s very important to recognize what we as a world, and especially as a country, have gone through over the past year. 2020 has been the worst year of many people’s lives, with maybe less specific tragedies numerically, but definitely including one of if not the longest lasting tragedy in recent years. COVID itself has ruined lives and left people broke and begging for help just to survive. I’ve gotten very lucky so far. I haven’t gotten sick, I haven’t had much problems with money, but this year has been tough on everyone.

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Am I Faking It?

I have chronic migraines. I got diagnosed when I was probably around 13 or 14, but I’ve never felt like I could call myself disabled or claim identity with the chronic illness/pain communities. It’s not that I feel put off by those labels– I’ve done plenty of introspection on that, to make sure that the reason I didn’t feel comfortable with those labels wasn’t because of some subconscious bias. Rather, I feel like my migraines just aren’t bad enough, don’t affect my life severely enough to “count.” I feel like claiming those labels would be exaggerating, or speaking over someone who “fits” better than I do. 

Which is stupid, by the way. I essentially live my daily life with a near-constant headache clocking in between 1-4 on the pain scale, with occasional spikes to higher levels. When it escalates to a migraine, I get nauseous and can’t eat or drink for a day or more, until it goes away. Before a migraine hits, I often get visual aura, which looks like TV static taking up most of my vision. During a migraine, I become extremely sensitive to sounds and smells, and I get so photosensitive that, especially combined with the visual disturbances, I can become effectively blind for several hours. Depending on weather patterns, stress, and other situational factors, I average between 3-10 true migraine episodes per month, with other severe headaches in between for spice. This has impacted my academics, my work life, my social life, my mental and physical health and development, etc. Everything. Like, what part of that experience doesn’t sound disabling??? And yet, I struggle to feel justified in identifying as such.

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When Failure is Radical.

Affirmations from an unreliable drop out –

I have failed to work with a system that prioritizes productivity over personhood.

I have chosen moving forward over suffering

I will accept myself to spite a value system that does not want acceptance – but always striving for “better”. If I internalize it, that I am always striving for “better”, then I build a comfortable place for the belief that I will never be enough, to rest upon. Instead, I will build space within myself to be less than ideal. 

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Bedroom.

A view from my bed [ID: Hazy photograph of a window illuminated by vibrant red and purple lighting. In the center there is an electric candelabra sitting on the window sill, slightly obscured by sheer curtains.]

2011 was the year I began distancing. By which I mean, I began a life lived from my twin bed, fueled by goldfish crackers and electrolyte drinks, seldom able to access the outside world. It wasn’t mine to call home anymore.

I was drowning in conditions that these doctors hardly knew about. I had no choice but to become my own doctor, nurse, and historian. More than anything, I became my own community.

The outside world was stolen from me by sickness, uncertainty, and administrative violence – this world was never built for my survival. Such predicaments were met with constant calls to push through – go into the world anyways, risk it all for a “normal” life. They said adapting to it would make me better. It wrecked my body and my mind. Being bedridden was extraordinarily taxing and painful in a way that cannot be understood by those who have not been fully immersed in it in this way, yet. But I am inseparable from my bedroom life, I am made of soft pillows and the world I built among them. 

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The Irrational Male Fear of “#MeToo Era” Dating

TW: Sexual assault

Take my phone away. Just take it. Because every time I lurk on social media, I see something that just irritates my soul. First it was people shamelessly salivating over leaked celebrity nudes, then it was people being ahistorical about beauty standards and body trends. The silver lining is that at least it gives me content to write about, but at what cost…?

On today’s installment of What’s Got Me Pissed Off, I’d like to discuss an uncomfortable (to put it generously) sentiment that I’ve seen creep up within a sector of the male population online in pertinence to dating in today’s cultural climate they’ve aptly named “The #MeToo Era.” It goes something like this, and my exaggeration is actually not that far off from the truth, sadly:

“dating in the #metoo era these days is literal HELL. i cant breathe, blink, or shit around a female without being afraid that she’s gonna think im a creep. and then falsely accuse me of rape or something even though i literally did not fuckin touch her. and then i get jumped by a rabid mob, lose my job, have all my friends and family hate me, get exiled by society, and then i GO TO JAIL FOR 2438295742032380 YEARSSSSS!!!! any of you fellas feel this way, too?”

– u/[deleted] via r/AskMen
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Who is she???? No really, I’m asking

As an afab nonbinary person who feels most comfortable dressing in “feminine” clothes, I am often misgendered by others. I don’t really mind being perceived as a girl by strangers, personally– I am lucky enough to not experience dysphoria, but I do still want to be visibly genderweird so that other queer people know I’m friend shaped. That doesn’t mean I like being misgendered though, obviously. Like everyone still has to use they/them pronouns for me, but I can’t beam that into strangers’ brains telepathically (yet) so it is what it is. 

If you were curious, a few of my favorite ways to describe my gender are “girl adjacent,” “girly girl but there’s something definitely wrong with me,” and “oh you know, just, like, the color pink.” One could accurately say that I have a relationship with girlhood in the same way that the toons in Roger Rabbit have a relationship with the laws of physics. That is, it’s only there when it’s fun or funny– which brings us, finally, to the real topic of this blog post. I misgender myself a lot for the purpose of comedy, and I am definitely not the only trans person I know who does this. And oh boy is it funny. Cis people just can’t be on our level, sorry. 

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Genderf*ck.

I have learned so much about gender since I have been at UMBC, including outside of class. Before my first GWST class in the Fall 2019 semester, Introduction to Sexuality Studies, I had never even heard of the basic distinction between gender identity and assigned or biological sex. I am happy to say that I have come such a long way, although it is a lifelong time of learning, as gender and the language use to describe it is constantly evolving and changing.

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Locs — Not Dreads!

So, the other day, I was at work, minding my own business and one of my Caucasian coworkers came up to me and said, “hey, did you know that up until about six months ago, you couldn’t work here if you had hair like yours — dreads, hahaha”. Now, first of all, I’m not sure what was so comical about the topic of  “dreads” being banned within the workplace. But when my coworker uttered his statement to me and laughed, it kind of really offended me. I think it bothered me so much because it’s still completely absurd to me how a certain hairstyle can be dubbed “unprofessional” or “unkept”, to the point that it’s legally able for employers to discriminate against…. in 2020! As a current “loc goddess”, yes, that’s what I am, I think this needs to be done away with, immediately!! I say this for two reasons, with the first being, hair CANNOT be illegal; in no way, shape, or form does it make sense for hair to be deemed illegal. I mean… we literally all grow it. On the other hand, locs aren’t unprofessional, nor unkept, solely because they’re locs. Now, don’t get me wrong, some free-form locs, which are beautiful to me, can sometimes come across as looking “unkept” or “unprofessional”, I guess, but not all locs are. For instance, I keep up with my locs on a monthly basis. I’ve always gotten compliments on how I wear my hair and the many different elegant styles that I’m able to put them in sometimes, from curls, buns, colored locs to coily locs; not once have I ever heard somebody refer to my locs as “unkept” or “unprofessional” looking — not even by any Caucaisan people! 

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Another One

This week I really wanted to focus on drafting something insightful and interesting for this final blog post. However, I decided that instead of putting yet another bit of unrealistic pressure on myself, I am going to give myself the gift of just sharing my truth. And yes – that truth is undoubtedly the most popular topic this semester: being terrified, exhausted, and hopeless all at once while attempting to maintain any level of output & functionality in pandemic times.

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Serendipity

Artist: Alexandra Levasseur // Painting of a woman with fair skin, and white blonde hair in an updo, holding beautiful bouquet of flowers and looking away from them with eyes closed. Some flowers have fallen off of the bouquet, turned grey. Colors are muted with cool tones. This painting can encapsulate what it looks like to ignore a meaningful or beautiful coincidence–or a serendipitous occurrence.

As the semester is coming to a close and I’m so close to receiving a degree I worked for 5.5 years for… I find myself in deep introspection about my life. With this fast paced thing we call life, it’s hard to conceptualize it all–all of the things that happened in between then and now. Then being when I was a kid or teenager…from muddling through school, figuring out who I wanted to be and who I really am, building friendships and relationships–some ended and some flourished, making mistakes, making big decisions, accomplishing things I never thought were possible. To now: being a young adult, graduating college in about a week, living through a pandemic, thinking about my future (career, relationship) and my past (trauma and growth from that), the future of the world, thinking about who I’ve become and almost everything in between. After going through so much already, it’s scary to think about the future and to make plans for it. With this new step, I’m scared of failure and the unknown. But, I don’t want to not recognize the things I’ve accomplished, or what I’m capable of… or not recognize my worth. Despite the things that are out of my control, I should focus on the beauty of life and everything that comes along with it, right?

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