Where is my mind? Where is my mind? Wheeere is myyyy miiiind?
Once upon a time
I agreed to be a roommate with a woman named Bernadette.
She needed a tenant,
I needed an apartment,
and I always preferred renting from a private owner
rather than a management company.
I knew her through my volunteer job.
Several people I knew, knew her...
but I did not.
When I told people
they always gave me the same
"You're moving in with BERNADETTE?
Huh. Wow. Well.... good luck!"
I had thought I knew what they were saying.
She was a local artist
and art professor.
She taught bronze casting and metalwork.
She was large. Loud. Unusual.
Her art featured scratch-n-sniff dildos
and human teeth
among other things.
"I know she's... a lot.
But, I'm not worried."
And I wasn't.
At the time I was working as a graveyard concierge
to 150 people with various aberrant behaviors
mostly suffering schizophrenia.
My mom is bipolar,
and
I myself am strange and unusual.
One time a friend said to me,
"I never know who you'll bring to a party,
you bring the weirdest people."
Yes, yes I might.
I think I lived in Bernadette's attic for 2 months
before I raced out of there
finally convinced
I could not get along with her.
She is still one of the most unhinged people I've ever met
(and I worked in a mental institution at the time)
and I didn't want to be AROUND her,
but I still kinda liked her.
I still don't have anything against her,
despite how difficult she was to be around.
In my teens,
me and one of my more Alpha Friends
tried to understand why
I kept being stalked.
By men, but also by the occasional woman,...
people would become obsessed with me.
She said it was because I couldn't discern
who was "weird",
and who wasn't...
fast enough.
She herself was the sort who had trouble getting along with people.
Aggressive. Condescending. Pointed.
But also extremely intelligent, a good speaker, and a clear thinker.
Her positives and her negatives
were related,...
like most people's are.
I treat almost everybody I meet...
like they were important,
special,
interesting,
and worthy of attention.
Because....
to me, they are.
And I am not put off by strangeness or social challenges in others.
And so people who are often ignored/bullied...
find a fast friend in me.
Same with people who are the bossy captains of the world
used to turning people off with their aggressive self-possession.
They like me,
because I like them
for being
THEM.
When I am invited to other people's family gatherings,
you'll often find me sitting with the oldest matriarch or patriarch
who is tucked into a recliner in a quiet corner somewhere -
to the side of the party.
We'll be playing card games,
or I ask them to tell me stories the family has heard 1000x
but are new to me.
Or with the spectrum kid,
who is too overwhelmed
and just wants to play/read quietly
away from the hubbub.
Or the sneak-a-toke cousin
who is tired of being asked when they'll get a "real" job
or how their divorce is going.
I am with whoever feels
their individuality is being ignored
in the traditional gathering
of traditional people.
I WILL find the black sheep,
and I will befriend them.
I was reminded of this when I got a random call yesterday,
from an acquaintance from 15 years ago.
She pops up every few years to say 'hello'
by which I mean
invite me over to drink bad beer
and talk abstract nonsense.
She is a naturally funny person
and also the sort of person whose life
has been, and probably always will be
harder, and more painful than yours.
This is not contestable.
She also has no pretenses
and is casual about her horror stories.
She says that I am a "safe space" for her
because I am not offended,
comparative,
judgemental,
embarrassed,
or skeptical
because I, too, also lived a life of
body/mind/sex/health/emotional/violent/abandonment trauma
and intergenerational horrors
that others find....
terrifying,
uncomfortable,
and/or
suspect.
She doesn't hide her pain,
like others do.
Like you're supposed to,
to maintain social elegance.
She likes that she can share her stories
without me trying to unpack my own baggage
just because she's unpacking hers.
I appreciate that she will listen to me after she says,
"No one understands!"
and I can tell her a story that shows
"Yes,... I can understand."
and so she can continue.
My own experiences are heavy,
but they don't seem to dominate me,
somehow.
They aren't wrestled into my carry-on
replacing important shit I actually need
like chapstick and self-respect.
I learned to check that baggage
somewhere along the way
so I don't have drag it personally into every room I go.
I learned it has my name on it,
and I can trust that it WILL follow me
everywhere
anyways
so I learned I don't have to carry it
and that has eased my path in this life.
What does any of this have to do with anything?
Unsure,
but I'm trying to show you anyways.
For the last couple years
there has been a cultural push
to profligate
and attach labels to ourselves.
I first saw it in the LGBTQ+ community in the 90s,
when I was spending a lot of time at the local gay youth club
.... but it comes in many forms
covering many very personal internal topics
ESPECIALLY.
Which is fine, if that's your bag.
That's just not my bag,
my bag is already being handled -
I know that much.
But what I don't like about this push,
is this involves an assumption...
... or unwraps an inclination...
to label *others*
with this newfound
power of labeling.
And I am more interested in the cultural context
of a push to label emotional aspects of a person as
"deficient"
"dysfunctional"
"disordered"
than I am with any other part of what is going on
in this game of names.
Do you wish to continue?
Click Yes
[Yes!]
To me, it feels like 100 years ago
with Freud pitying all womanhood
and his belief in their constant suffering of a pathetic subconscious penis-envy
because they were born with the unfortunate congenital deformity
known as being un-male... or in other words, female.
He was certain that
psychologically-speaking
it must be very hard
to not be a man.
His research proved this assumption was true,
as women do have many problems specific to womanhood
and luckily for him
(and all of the patriarchy at the time)
that our complicated female problems could simply refined down to
and explained as the inherent problem of
"not being born male"
rather than all the OTHER problems
with being a female
in a patriarchal society that believes
you are cursed for being born.... you
rather than not-you.
The problem of being born us....
.... rather than what we were *supposed* to be.
We're not talking gender dysphoria,
or sexuality,
or anything.
Just his strong belief
that men are a perfect Adam,
and women are an imperfect biological copy
made of bone, mud, curses, innocence, and distress called Eve.
This is how I see so many of our labels
especially around "inherently-difficult" personality forms,
mindsets, behaviors, habits, responses,
and so-called symptoms & variations of what we now call mental illness
or personality disorders
in our culture/language.
To me,
what I see is that there are these false ideals being held up
called "order", "function" and "sufficiency"
and deviation from this picture
(where everything is naturally clean, smooth, easy, uncomplicated, beautiful, and just enough)
is indeed
*deviant*.
When I was growing up in the 90s,
we were at peak focus on the body
as a *thing* to be *fixed*.
Objectification
to the point of self-objectification.
Having "bad" eyebrows or the "wrong" chin.
Too long of nose, too short of toes... whatever it is
from heads to toes, fingers to lobes, neck to dick
we are in a comparative contest for what is "right"
and we...
ALL OF US... are made to feel
we were probably "wrong" somehow.
And our wrongness is disgusting.
Now,
it feels like we are picking apart our minds the same way.
Everything we don't like.
Everything frustrating.
Everything we would wish away, if we could
in the assumption
perfect is not just a reachable goal
[it isn't]
but that
order/function/sufficiency in all matters is ordinary
rather than extraordinary,
despite all the evidence to the contrary.
That most of us are all mentally/emotionally-deformed outliers
cursed to struggle
like medieval peasants taught that their physical/emotional/mental illnesses
were an obvious product of an unclean or twisted SOUL.
Go to church, you cripple!
You will be healed
when you finally learn to please the All Father
with your observation of tithing and penance
for the sin of being imperfect
at some point.
Pray away the gay, your gray, and even that too saucy sashay...
it is all ready to be fixed
if you BELIEVE it can.
Have faith that you too... can be perfected.
The idea that every time we disappoint ourselves or others
every time we struggle and fight with ourselves
is a symptom of being
"deficient"
in some way.
I feel like I come to it from the perspective
of the disability-rights activists of the 90s
who so soon after [FINALLY!] getting the ADA passed in the 80's
had a subset who said, "I am not disabled!
I am differently-abled".
I can't do what you can do.
You can't do what I can do.
That it isn't a problem,
that's just a fact.
Don't judge me by your standards,
they simply don't apply to my life.
Several of my friends who have discovered during COVID via social media
that a series of DSM V chapters
explain, contextualize, and help them understand their own interior struggles,
(yay for them receiving explanations, context, and help!!)
and now seem intent on extending this explanation/context/help to me
since I, too,... am different.
Since I, too... struggle.
And this is where I firmly reject the whole thing,
for myself at least.
Because who ISN'T "different"?
Who DOESN'T occasionally find themselves
fighting themselves?
Being human is a trial.
Being alive is traumatic.
Being conscious is awe-ful.
Being conscientious is even harder.
And.....?
The point?
I'm different.
I struggle.
I disappoint myself.
I step on my own toes.
I get in my own way sometimes.
And I want to ask, "SO?"
Because, literally.... isn't that LIFE?
Are we all "ill"
just because we're not the romanticized version of ourselves
we wish we were?
This is my hangup.
But maybe it all stems back to the fact
that I can't TELL when someone is "weird"
exactly because I think our differences are interesting and lovable.
Even our problematic ones.
Caveat for egregious assholes and generalized evil
which I will clarify I use to define people
who look for and use opportunities
to damage other people
for their own personal benefit/enjoyment
Because I see the painful spectrum of human diversity
and internal AND external morphology as beautiful in its totality.
Each difference has a reason,
a story,
a point,
and is a gift AND a curse.
Why is our Western culture so transfixed by "fixing" ourselves
[and each other]
- believing our affliction is we have the disappointing habit
being ourselves
instead of somebody else... someone LIKE us,
but who is *better* than us?
People want all their strengths and none of their weaknesses.
Of course we do.
OF COURSE WE DO!
But to what end?
Where does it end?
When are we finally "good enough" to just be... ourselves?
Warts and all?
And WHY reach out to label my warts?
Those are MY warts,
I will decide their fates.
Point out and name thine own if you wish to name warts.
Cover them up if you prefer,
but they are/were still yours
even if you have them removed.
Is it really so shameful
to be.... ourselves?
Cover yourself in all the labels you wish if they help you
understand and love you.
But why also pursue my individuality with the same personal gusto,
telling me I could/should label it,
diagnose it, and even fix it
without asking
whether I WANT to be "fixed" this way
whether I believe
I need fixing... at all.
Why is it an argument when I point out
that I don't hate myself or my warts, my failures, or my problems?
That I see more of you than you may THINK
behind your overt coverups and masquerades.
That the fact I am not recoiling,
is not because I am tricked into believing your makeup face IS your natural beauty.
I just see the individual magic spell that is... you
and I love it.
Because when I look at you?
Whoever you are....
I don't see someone who needs fixed.
You might need help.
You need need support.
You might need medication,
or could use therapy
or a device
or a coping mechanism,
or a different situation,
or a change of mindset...
or a million other things...
but you don't need FIXED.
You are not broken
just because you are human
which is synonymous with being inevitably imperfect.
We are not broken just because we are imperfect.
We are not ill
just because we aren't always our healthiest best self.
Just like women aren't tragically deformed men -
our individuality is not tragically-failed perfection.
Our troublesome mixed-bag individuality
IS
perfection.
Even people like Bernadette,
who is one of the most individually unpleasant
(yet not-evil)
people I have ever met.
(And I have met evil, which is another topic, by the way....
see CAVEAT above)
At least, that's my take.
Did I make a point?
Or am I still pointless?
Only you can know.
I'm just over here,
loving you
and loving me
and wondering why
you're so mad about it.
I agreed to be a roommate with a woman named Bernadette.
She needed a tenant,
I needed an apartment,
and I always preferred renting from a private owner
rather than a management company.
I knew her through my volunteer job.
Several people I knew, knew her...
but I did not.
When I told people
they always gave me the same
"You're moving in with BERNADETTE?
Huh. Wow. Well.... good luck!"
I had thought I knew what they were saying.
She was a local artist
and art professor.
She taught bronze casting and metalwork.
She was large. Loud. Unusual.
Her art featured scratch-n-sniff dildos
and human teeth
among other things.
"I know she's... a lot.
But, I'm not worried."
And I wasn't.
At the time I was working as a graveyard concierge
to 150 people with various aberrant behaviors
mostly suffering schizophrenia.
My mom is bipolar,
and
I myself am strange and unusual.
One time a friend said to me,
"I never know who you'll bring to a party,
you bring the weirdest people."
Yes, yes I might.
I think I lived in Bernadette's attic for 2 months
before I raced out of there
finally convinced
I could not get along with her.
She is still one of the most unhinged people I've ever met
(and I worked in a mental institution at the time)
and I didn't want to be AROUND her,
but I still kinda liked her.
I still don't have anything against her,
despite how difficult she was to be around.
In my teens,
me and one of my more Alpha Friends
tried to understand why
I kept being stalked.
By men, but also by the occasional woman,...
people would become obsessed with me.
She said it was because I couldn't discern
who was "weird",
and who wasn't...
fast enough.
She herself was the sort who had trouble getting along with people.
Aggressive. Condescending. Pointed.
But also extremely intelligent, a good speaker, and a clear thinker.
Her positives and her negatives
were related,...
like most people's are.
I treat almost everybody I meet...
like they were important,
special,
interesting,
and worthy of attention.
Because....
to me, they are.
And I am not put off by strangeness or social challenges in others.
And so people who are often ignored/bullied...
find a fast friend in me.
Same with people who are the bossy captains of the world
used to turning people off with their aggressive self-possession.
They like me,
because I like them
for being
THEM.
When I am invited to other people's family gatherings,
you'll often find me sitting with the oldest matriarch or patriarch
who is tucked into a recliner in a quiet corner somewhere -
to the side of the party.
We'll be playing card games,
or I ask them to tell me stories the family has heard 1000x
but are new to me.
Or with the spectrum kid,
who is too overwhelmed
and just wants to play/read quietly
away from the hubbub.
Or the sneak-a-toke cousin
who is tired of being asked when they'll get a "real" job
or how their divorce is going.
I am with whoever feels
their individuality is being ignored
in the traditional gathering
of traditional people.
I WILL find the black sheep,
and I will befriend them.
I was reminded of this when I got a random call yesterday,
from an acquaintance from 15 years ago.
She pops up every few years to say 'hello'
by which I mean
invite me over to drink bad beer
and talk abstract nonsense.
She is a naturally funny person
and also the sort of person whose life
has been, and probably always will be
harder, and more painful than yours.
This is not contestable.
She also has no pretenses
and is casual about her horror stories.
She says that I am a "safe space" for her
because I am not offended,
comparative,
judgemental,
embarrassed,
or skeptical
because I, too, also lived a life of
body/mind/sex/health/emotional/violent/abandonment trauma
and intergenerational horrors
that others find....
terrifying,
uncomfortable,
and/or
suspect.
She doesn't hide her pain,
like others do.
Like you're supposed to,
to maintain social elegance.
She likes that she can share her stories
without me trying to unpack my own baggage
just because she's unpacking hers.
I appreciate that she will listen to me after she says,
"No one understands!"
and I can tell her a story that shows
"Yes,... I can understand."
and so she can continue.
My own experiences are heavy,
but they don't seem to dominate me,
somehow.
They aren't wrestled into my carry-on
replacing important shit I actually need
like chapstick and self-respect.
I learned to check that baggage
somewhere along the way
so I don't have drag it personally into every room I go.
I learned it has my name on it,
and I can trust that it WILL follow me
everywhere
anyways
so I learned I don't have to carry it
and that has eased my path in this life.
What does any of this have to do with anything?
Unsure,
but I'm trying to show you anyways.
For the last couple years
there has been a cultural push
to profligate
and attach labels to ourselves.
I first saw it in the LGBTQ+ community in the 90s,
when I was spending a lot of time at the local gay youth club
.... but it comes in many forms
covering many very personal internal topics
ESPECIALLY.
Which is fine, if that's your bag.
That's just not my bag,
my bag is already being handled -
I know that much.
But what I don't like about this push,
is this involves an assumption...
... or unwraps an inclination...
to label *others*
with this newfound
power of labeling.
And I am more interested in the cultural context
of a push to label emotional aspects of a person as
"deficient"
"dysfunctional"
"disordered"
than I am with any other part of what is going on
in this game of names.
Do you wish to continue?
Click Yes
[Yes!]
To me, it feels like 100 years ago
with Freud pitying all womanhood
and his belief in their constant suffering of a pathetic subconscious penis-envy
because they were born with the unfortunate congenital deformity
known as being un-male... or in other words, female.
He was certain that
psychologically-speaking
it must be very hard
to not be a man.
His research proved this assumption was true,
as women do have many problems specific to womanhood
and luckily for him
(and all of the patriarchy at the time)
that our complicated female problems could simply refined down to
and explained as the inherent problem of
"not being born male"
rather than all the OTHER problems
with being a female
in a patriarchal society that believes
you are cursed for being born.... you
rather than not-you.
The problem of being born us....
.... rather than what we were *supposed* to be.
We're not talking gender dysphoria,
or sexuality,
or anything.
Just his strong belief
that men are a perfect Adam,
and women are an imperfect biological copy
made of bone, mud, curses, innocence, and distress called Eve.
This is how I see so many of our labels
especially around "inherently-difficult" personality forms,
mindsets, behaviors, habits, responses,
and so-called symptoms & variations of what we now call mental illness
or personality disorders
in our culture/language.
To me,
what I see is that there are these false ideals being held up
called "order", "function" and "sufficiency"
and deviation from this picture
(where everything is naturally clean, smooth, easy, uncomplicated, beautiful, and just enough)
is indeed
*deviant*.
When I was growing up in the 90s,
we were at peak focus on the body
as a *thing* to be *fixed*.
Objectification
to the point of self-objectification.
Having "bad" eyebrows or the "wrong" chin.
Too long of nose, too short of toes... whatever it is
from heads to toes, fingers to lobes, neck to dick
we are in a comparative contest for what is "right"
and we...
ALL OF US... are made to feel
we were probably "wrong" somehow.
And our wrongness is disgusting.
Now,
it feels like we are picking apart our minds the same way.
Everything we don't like.
Everything frustrating.
Everything we would wish away, if we could
in the assumption
perfect is not just a reachable goal
[it isn't]
but that
order/function/sufficiency in all matters is ordinary
rather than extraordinary,
despite all the evidence to the contrary.
That most of us are all mentally/emotionally-deformed outliers
cursed to struggle
like medieval peasants taught that their physical/emotional/mental illnesses
were an obvious product of an unclean or twisted SOUL.
Go to church, you cripple!
You will be healed
when you finally learn to please the All Father
with your observation of tithing and penance
for the sin of being imperfect
at some point.
Pray away the gay, your gray, and even that too saucy sashay...
it is all ready to be fixed
if you BELIEVE it can.
Have faith that you too... can be perfected.
The idea that every time we disappoint ourselves or others
every time we struggle and fight with ourselves
is a symptom of being
"deficient"
in some way.
I feel like I come to it from the perspective
of the disability-rights activists of the 90s
who so soon after [FINALLY!] getting the ADA passed in the 80's
had a subset who said, "I am not disabled!
I am differently-abled".
I can't do what you can do.
You can't do what I can do.
That it isn't a problem,
that's just a fact.
Don't judge me by your standards,
they simply don't apply to my life.
Several of my friends who have discovered during COVID via social media
that a series of DSM V chapters
explain, contextualize, and help them understand their own interior struggles,
(yay for them receiving explanations, context, and help!!)
and now seem intent on extending this explanation/context/help to me
since I, too,... am different.
Since I, too... struggle.
And this is where I firmly reject the whole thing,
for myself at least.
Because who ISN'T "different"?
Who DOESN'T occasionally find themselves
fighting themselves?
Being human is a trial.
Being alive is traumatic.
Being conscious is awe-ful.
Being conscientious is even harder.
And.....?
The point?
I'm different.
I struggle.
I disappoint myself.
I step on my own toes.
I get in my own way sometimes.
And I want to ask, "SO?"
Because, literally.... isn't that LIFE?
Are we all "ill"
just because we're not the romanticized version of ourselves
we wish we were?
This is my hangup.
But maybe it all stems back to the fact
that I can't TELL when someone is "weird"
exactly because I think our differences are interesting and lovable.
Even our problematic ones.
Caveat for egregious assholes and generalized evil
which I will clarify I use to define people
who look for and use opportunities
to damage other people
for their own personal benefit/enjoyment
Because I see the painful spectrum of human diversity
and internal AND external morphology as beautiful in its totality.
Each difference has a reason,
a story,
a point,
and is a gift AND a curse.
Why is our Western culture so transfixed by "fixing" ourselves
[and each other]
- believing our affliction is we have the disappointing habit
being ourselves
instead of somebody else... someone LIKE us,
but who is *better* than us?
People want all their strengths and none of their weaknesses.
Of course we do.
OF COURSE WE DO!
But to what end?
Where does it end?
When are we finally "good enough" to just be... ourselves?
Warts and all?
And WHY reach out to label my warts?
Those are MY warts,
I will decide their fates.
Point out and name thine own if you wish to name warts.
Cover them up if you prefer,
but they are/were still yours
even if you have them removed.
Is it really so shameful
to be.... ourselves?
Cover yourself in all the labels you wish if they help you
understand and love you.
But why also pursue my individuality with the same personal gusto,
telling me I could/should label it,
diagnose it, and even fix it
without asking
whether I WANT to be "fixed" this way
whether I believe
I need fixing... at all.
Why is it an argument when I point out
that I don't hate myself or my warts, my failures, or my problems?
That I see more of you than you may THINK
behind your overt coverups and masquerades.
That the fact I am not recoiling,
is not because I am tricked into believing your makeup face IS your natural beauty.
I just see the individual magic spell that is... you
and I love it.
Because when I look at you?
Whoever you are....
I don't see someone who needs fixed.
You might need help.
You need need support.
You might need medication,
or could use therapy
or a device
or a coping mechanism,
or a different situation,
or a change of mindset...
or a million other things...
but you don't need FIXED.
You are not broken
just because you are human
which is synonymous with being inevitably imperfect.
We are not broken just because we are imperfect.
We are not ill
just because we aren't always our healthiest best self.
Just like women aren't tragically deformed men -
our individuality is not tragically-failed perfection.
Our troublesome mixed-bag individuality
IS
perfection.
Even people like Bernadette,
who is one of the most individually unpleasant
(yet not-evil)
people I have ever met.
(And I have met evil, which is another topic, by the way....
see CAVEAT above)
At least, that's my take.
Did I make a point?
Or am I still pointless?
Only you can know.
I'm just over here,
loving you
and loving me
and wondering why
you're so mad about it.