My initial recollection of experiencing symptoms indicative of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) dates back to the eve of my fifth birthday. I distinctly recall experiencing distress as I grappled with the concept of aging, a concern that revolved around the perceived inevitability of losing loved ones in tandem with my own maturation. This psychological episode unfolded contemporaneously with my parents’ tumultuous divorce proceedings, marked by my father’s departure from our family home. Given my tender age of five, my cognitive faculties were ill-equipped to comprehensively process these complex emotional circumstances. Consequently, I found myself unable to rationalize the apparent loss of my father and the underlying reasons for this disruption in my familial structure. 

I experienced several recurring episodes of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) before ultimately deciding to seek professional help. Initially, I became preoccupied with the unwarranted fear that my hair was falling out, leading me to adopt two distinct coping mechanisms. On one hand, I would refrain from brushing my hair altogether, and on the other, I meticulously counted the hairs that would accumulate in my hairbrush every time I attempted to groom myself.

However, the predominant intrusive thought that haunted me was the persistent dread of dying, particularly in my sleep. To mitigate this fear, I developed the compulsion of staying awake until the early hours of the morning, often disregarding the necessity of waking up early. In my mind, this self-imposed vigilance was rooted in the belief that if any adverse event were to befall me, it would inevitably transpire by 3 AM.

Regrettably, these intrusive thoughts extended to include distressing visions related to harming my beloved cat, prompting me to entrust her care to my sister temporarily, as I grappled with my own well-being. Similarly, I experienced intrusive thoughts revolving around causing harm to my mother, leading me to diligently lock her bedroom door each night to prevent any potential actions stemming from these distressing thoughts.

As the severity of these OCD episodes escalated, I reached a point of profound despair, contemplating suicide. Paradoxically, the fear of dying itself served as a deterrent, rendering me unable to act on these distressing impulses. This tumultuous period underscored the urgent need for professional intervention and support to address the debilitating impact of OCD on my life.

The reason for my initial diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), as opposed to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), can be attributed to a combination of factors. Firstly, at the time, I lacked a comprehensive understanding of what OCD truly entailed, leading to a profound fear that the distressing thoughts I experienced reflected reality. This fear of potential consequences, such as being institutionalized, compelled me to keep my struggles hidden.

Secondly, my compulsions did not conform to the stereotypical external behaviors often portrayed in the media or typically associated with individuals displaying Type A personalities. Instead, my compulsions primarily manifested as internal mental rituals, making them less conspicuous to others and potentially less recognizable as classic OCD symptoms.

Lastly, many healthcare professionals are not be fully aware of the complexities and varied presentations of OCD. This lack of awareness can lead to the condition being overlooked or mistaken for something else.

It was not until I reached the age of 28 that I finally received an accurate diagnosis of OCD. The moment I began to educate myself about the disorder was both bittersweet and enlightening. I experienced a profound sense of sadness for my past self, who had endured the torment of OCD without understanding it, and frustration at the prevailing misunderstandings surrounding this condition. The belated recognition of my OCD was a pivotal moment, allowing me to access appropriate treatment and support, and fostering a greater appreciation for the importance of mental health awareness and accurate diagnosis.

I am genderfluid, but I was still born in a female body. However, I didn’t learn about different genders until high school, and for most of my childhood I presented as and was viewed as a girl.  So of course, I was subjected to the horrors that come with living in a female body.

Especially in Catholic middle school.  I looked feminine, so everyone around me thought I must have a “feminine attitude” (as mentioned in “Throwing Like a Girl”), although it did vary from person to person.

The girls were kinda judgy. A lot of them wanted to straighten my hair, on account of it being “prettier” than my frizzy curls, but I always said no.  One day a girl asked to brush a strand of my hair.  I allowed her to brush a single strand, and she learned very quickly why you can’t brush curly hair dry. She was horrified.

Meanwhile, the boys in my class thought of me as the embodiment of innocence.  I looked feminine and I spoke in a high pitched voice, but I couldn’t really change that.  I also followed the rules, but that was out of wanting to avoid punishment.  I learned that the guys thought that I never heard a curse word in my life (I knew plenty).  One time they approached me by the lockers, giggling, and told me to curse.  I said “fuck”, and they went wild with shock and bewilderment.

So, girls saw me as a girl, but also someone who wasn’t doing enough to be a girl, or someone who needed to be molded into their form of femininity.  Someone they had to fix. The boys thought that I was some kind of dainty, clueless, innocent being  based on mannerisms that were out of my control, and fully intended on mocking me for it. 

My teachers (all women), shared a similar if not more intense sentiment of the girls.  One time in class, I was sitting the way that a bored student with undiagnosed ADHD would sit.  The teacher looked at me and told me to “sit like a lady.”  Then there was the dress code.  One time we had a free-dress day (otherwise we wore uniforms) and I was wearing thick, snug pants.  At lunch my teacher called me over, and calmly explained to me that my form-accentuating clothing could distract the boys or give them ideas, and I couldn’t wear anything like that again without getting a conduct referral.  I almost cried on the spot.

My teachers shamed me for not being feminine enough and for being too feminine.  They saw me living my life in my body and wanted to police that.  I learned that no matter what I did, I would be shamed for not acting the way I was “supposed” to.  This was even more confusing given my complicated feelings on my gender identity, but not even knowing about genders off the binary (Catholic school education).  I felt uncomfortable in my own body.

It was hard for me to learn to be comfortable with my own body.  After realizing my gender identity, I had to work out how I really felt about my body.  I had to figure out which uncomfortable feelings were from body dysphoria, and which were from all the gross, sexist ideas that I was bombarded with.  

And after that, I felt a lot more comfortable.

Much of my academic day is spent in observation of the environment I am in. While I am capable of diligently taking notes and tuning into the main themes and key points of the class, my brain is also taking notes of the people sitting around me, the mannerisms and postures of the professors in front of me, and the general feeling I get from being in this world. More often than not I wonder: do I belong here? 

Why do I feel this? 

Believing one has the capacity to freely take up whatever space they occupy is a luxury, a privilege, seemingly designated only to those who have not spent their entire lives hearing that they take up too much space. I donʻt even think they were necessarily encouraged to exist in this way as much as there was the absence of actively being discouraged to do so. I marvel at what that must be like to not feel the internal burning shame that revs up my pulse and creates a subtle dizziness in my head anytime I open my mouth in class. My entire childhood surges forward in those moments and my nervous system is immediately dysregulated in anticipation of being made to feel like nothing I have to say ever matters. 

Itʻs silly, I know. 

Of course what I say matters. Of course I have contributions to make to important conversations. Of course Iʻm allowed to take up space, especially in a college classroom where ideas are meant to be exchanged and explored. Iʻm a human being with a beating heart and a curious mind, like most here. But could somebody please tell that to my central nervous system? It always seems to forget this in moments when I need to remember it most. 

This is my reality. It is my phenomenological experience. What are the enabling conditions that allow for this? Well certainly my childhood is a large component – how I was taught to behave as a child, how I was taught to view myself, and how I was taught to move through the world. But beyond the formative programming and environment that laid the foundations for my current configuration, I have found that Academia as a whole, systematically infused with patriarchal and racist ideologies, plays a part. 

There is a competitive expectation here, that if you do not speak fast enough, cleverly enough, articulately enough, then you are exposed for who you are not – intellectually superior. That to showcase intelligence automatically assumes others want to hear what you have to say. That if you are a member of the prioritized categories of social being – in particular, white and male – then the gravitas of what you speak is appreciated before you even speak it. This pressurized environment all the more draws out the deep-seeded fears and insecurities surrounding my internal question of intellectual capacity. Can I take the wellspring of thought and insight contained within and adequately give it voice so as to give myself the appearance of competitive intelligence? Can I do this all the while fighting against the belief that the space I am taking up does not belong to me? 

To this, I have no answer. Only a sense of “I guess weʻll see” and the burning desire to crawl into bed and get lost in the latest reality dating TV series, where I can freely exposit to my laptop why I think everyone is an idiot.  

I sometimes miss how disconnected I was from my body when I was younger. Though not a monolith, I think most adolescents feel some degree of invincibility when it comes to how their bodies move throughout the world. The carefree attitude of “nothing is going to hurt/stop me or slow me down” is one that accompanies a life lacking experience (and might have something to do with an underdeveloped frontal lobe). But I think it’s a necessary part of the growth process that allows us to have lived experiences with a certain degree of fearlessness that encourages us to explore the world. 

The older I get, however, the more my body’s limitations prevent me from living as fully as I’d hope. For one thing, sleep doesn’t come as easily as it once did. As a child, I’d often fall asleep in random places whenever I got tired. As a teenager, I’d sleep for 12 hours at a time. No insomnia, no nightmares, no getting up twice to pee. Now it takes pharmaceuticals and magnesium and turning off screens in order to clear my brain long enough to fall asleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.

In 2018, I started to experience intense pain in my shoulder, swelling and pain in my fingers and toes, and debilitating fatigue. The pain would come and go and I would sometimes go weeks feeling totally fine, so I ignored it for a while. I’ve been tired since I had my first child in 2000, so fatigue has never been a good barometer for my health. After the shoulder pain woke me up in the middle of the night, I made an appointment to see my doctor the next day. Many, many blood tests later, I was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases – one of which is called rheumatoid arthritis. There is no cure for RA, and the causes are unknown. Left untreated or if my body does not respond to the medications, the disease can cause organ failure and severe deformation of hands and feet and other parts of the body. My life, and by extension my body, was forever changed with that diagnosis. Every decision I make is now governed by how it is going to affect my disease. Food that I eat, alcohol that I consume, stress that I experience – all of these things can cause a flare of the disease. 

I’ve learned to manage my symptoms with the help of medicine and doctors, but it will never not be a part of me. I am who I am today as a result of the limitations of my body, and though it often frustrates me, it has shaped my resilience. I still would love to look at my young self and tell her to be more grateful for her sense of invisibility. Youth really is wasted on the young.

~Throughout the entry there will be songs I listened to especially when I was younger to cope~

People’s idea of being black is a mystery I will never be able to understand. From a young age I have always been referred to as an “oreo” or hearing my peers comment that certain people despite not being black acted blacker than me. I always found it strange how there was a specific idea of being black. I was constantly told who I wasn’t and not who I could be.

It made me feel hated and somewhat like an outcast because wherever I went I didn’t feel accepted. Even my mother would tell me how I should act as a black man but that only made me rebel even more. It made me hate who I was and I wanted to be different so badly that it caused others to denounce my blackness even more. I felt as though I couldn’t win with who I was. Of course throughout life I started to see how this affected my self-image and I have learned from that but the insecurities are still there. The saddest part is the image that people may imagine in their mind when they think of black people can come from television or media.

Many shows depict black people trerribly or the nuance of certain television shows is not understood by those that are young. Causing confusion and leading people to believe that black people act a certain way without explaining why some black people may act that way. The depictions of black people and their actions in these shows defined what it meant to act black for me. I would actively try to avoid those certain actions or make fun of those actions without understanding how they came to be. These things that black people get made fun of for such as improper grammar are effects of being enslaved for years. I was never able to understand these things as a kid and looking back at how ignorant I was genuinely causes me pain. These depictions still affect me today as I think “don’t act a certain way “to avoid any conflict. Of course now I’m very proud of who I am and how I look but the years of thinking that way is gonna take time to heal.

Am I really a girl? I sometimes feel like a boy? Am I trans or just nonbinary? Or do I just simply feel more masculine inside and uncomfortable associating it with my feminine appearance?

Since embracing my queerness and discovering different aspects of my sexuality and gender, I have learned more about myself and society as a whole. Despite my parents’ hopes, dreams, and attempts, I am undoubtedly a lesbian, albeit a very feminine one. I feel completely comfortable and confident in my femininity. I enjoy having long and glittery nails, voluminous lashes, and dedicating hours and considerable expense to perfecting my makeup. However, alongside this comfort in my femininity, I also experience confusion about my masculinity due to the societal constructs surrounding gender. Gender norms for both men and women are deeply ingrained in our culture, and everything we do seems to involve some recognition of someone’s gender. I continually struggle to find my place within these constructs.

For most of my childhood, I was constantly given the label of a “tomboy”. I can still hear my mom’s voice yelling at me for wearing slacks and a shirt to a nice restaurant instead of putting on a dress. I constantly fit that label until one day, I just didn’t anymore. I can’t recall why, but I know a big part of it was feeling out of place around my peers and other girls that I was surrounded by. I became so immersed in makeup, pink, nails, hair, and everything “girly”. I finally fit that label of a girl. I felt deserving of that description. I did come to fall in love with it, but as I’ve grown up, I have come to recognize that with it, I have completely disregarded the part of me that was fulfilled with masculinity. The part of me inside that felt hot in a button-down and slacks. The part of me that wanted my hair cut really short and a sleeve of tattoos.

So, while taking this class, among other philosophy and gender study classes, I have become more comfortable exploring that discomfort. Recognizing the systemic factors that play into my feelings about my gender and the self-expression of those feelings has opened my eyes. It allows me to not only slowly recognize and break away from the constructed “masculine” and “feminine” roles pushed among individuals within society but also recognizes that everyone has both. Everyone experiences them at different degrees and finds different ways, but everyone experiences both. And there is no need to fit oneself into one or the other. Not one box will fit at all times, and that is OKAY. Some people might recognize both sides and discover they are trans or non-binary. Others might just recognize that they conform to their assigned gender at birth best. Others (like myself) might just not know and still be trying to figure it out. No matter what the case is, it’s okay. By the end of it, does it TRULY matter since it is just a social construct? I don’t know, but it’s starting to really not seem like it in the grand scheme of things when taking society out of it.

Earlier this week in the shower, I was racking my brain on what I could possibly write for my blog that tied into themes of phenomenology. I had been looking for a topic for a while but I felt as though all of the topics I had brainstormed were not good enough then boom💥, it came to me. Honestly, it was kind of an Eureka moment. As mundane and repetitive as showering can be to some, I usually get enlightened with the best ideas when 100-degree water is sprinkled on me. Since showering is something I do every day (except on the rare occasion when I go camping), it is a mindless activity that I ABSOLUTELY love. Sue me, I’m a shower enthusiast.

Daniel Zender

I stopped scrubbing my body and thought to myself, “How do I know how to shower?” I remember taking baths as a kid but who taught me how to ensure that I actually clean myself in the shower rather than just letting the water drip on me? There was a time during my pre-teen days when showering and homework were the two most tedious tasks that I could do and I would simply stand in hot water for 5 minutes and call it an “efficient shower”. I believe the answer to these questions is that I had multiple resources that informed me how to shower which I applied either consciously or unconsciously. This then led me to ask myself, “Do I have a specific routine in the shower that I utilize every time I shower, and if so what is it?”

This question prompted me to observe myself every time I stepped foot into a shower henceforth. It was a very surreal feeling as I was so used to showering without thinking much about the showering part. The quick answer is yes, I do have a routine that I follow aimlessly every time I shower without fail. It took a lot of concentration for me to pay attention to where I was gliding my loofah and how long I spent scrubbing each part of my body. I felt like a voyeur to my own flesh; paying too much attention to agonizing detail. I would be lying if I said that there weren’t some points of these various showers where I fell back into the groove of letting my body clean itself without my brain being truly present. I have to admit, that it takes an immense amount of brain power to observe experiences while still being or participating in them.

I find it hilarious how my “shower thoughts” manifested into thoughts about showers. I highly recommend this exercise to everyone as it shifted my understanding of self which is always important.

Ah, to be a woman.  Where do I even begin?  I read a text for class about embodiment and the author made the point that women’s bodies are a burden in that women have to put up with monthly menstrual cycles, hormones, pregnancy and labor, menopause and so on.  That doesn’t even address the societal issues women face just by being women.  Having periods and experiencing menopause can’t be helped.  From walking down the street to walking around a college campus, women constantly have to practice caution and must always be aware of our surroundings.  That in itself is another burden of being a woman.  Please, don’t get me wrong– I am glad and proud to be a woman, I’m just tired of living in constant fear of being sexually assaulted… again. 

In addition to the aforementioned biological burdens, I also feel my very body is itself a burden.  I hate my body.  For too long have I hated catching glimpses of myself in the mirror.  There is no such thing as thin enough.  So what do I do?  I refrain from eating.  If you don’t eat, you can’t gain weight, right?  Don’t eat all day so you can “deserve” dinner, exercise every single day, go for long walks, and when necessary, take laxatives when the number on the scale just won’t go down.  For a couple of years, I would stick my fingers down my throat but I wasn’t seeing the results I was hoping for.  So I started to deprive myself of soda and sweets; I couldn’t tell you the last time I drank a soda.  I always decline cake when offered but I do so in a very polite way so as not to offend.  I check myself in the mirror several times a day: before I eat, after I eat, when I’m exercising, before I shower.  I weigh myself twice a day, which I’m told is excessive.  Even when I’m not physically doing things or refraining from doing things for that matter, the thoughts are ever present.  Can I eat this and not hate myself tomorrow morning?  How many calories?  Don’t do it, you will end up angry at yourself.  This is what I say to myself all the time.  I often restrict myself to 500 calories a day.  It is mentally draining to constantly be nagging yourself, if I eat this, I can’t eat that.  When I get my period, I get bloated and gain weight and as a result, I cry and panic.

Why do I feel this way? Why do I do what I do?  I don’t know…most likely because I feel it’s the one thing in my life I can control.  That’s what the doctors say.  All women have the same struggles and frustrations of having to look at how women are portrayed in the media, how women are “supposed to look.”  We see it in magazines, on television, in films, we read about it in books.  This doesn’t help anyone.  Know that much of it is fake, photoshopped.  Alright, let me wrap this up.  In short, don’t starve yourself.  Don’t stick your fingers down your throat, you’ll only rupture your stomach doing that.  Healing from a disorder like this takes time and patience.   

Getting an official diagnosis gave me something to call it, which was a good thing I suppose.  There were times when I really thought I was going crazy, actually losing my mind.  I love to perform on stage in plays and musicals.  I always made sure to be as thin as I could before the curtain went up.  This of course meant laxatives and anything else that would do the trick.  I am ambivalent.  On one hand, I’d love to not obsess over food and weight every second of the day.  On the other hand, I want to be thin and I can never seem to attain it.  It’s never enough.  As an adult, the lowest I have weighed is 87 lbs.  I freak out and panic if my weight is over 93 lbs.  Like I said, it is a gradual healing process and it only works if you want it to and truth be told, I’m not sure if I’m ready.