thoughts on unmothering, anger, frustration, disability, familiarity, boundaries, sharing (information), intimacy, and family (lol)
cw: SA mention
I’ve got a headache because I’ve barely slept in 48 hours and am off food and meds schedule. I don’t know where my metformin is. but it’s okay, we gon do with what we got.
for very many days I have been trying to manage frustration and anger with gratefulness and appreciation. I did not expect graduation celebrations to go down like this. within a few hours of being alone on a plane chock full of (mostly) unmasked strangers, I have been (slowly) dissipating the anger and getting to a place of clarity. I’m not completely there yet (imma need a helluva more time than four hours) but lucky for me I’m on a 15 hour flight to another continent 😎 (smiling with sunglasses emoji) so time we do have.
My mother and sister wanted to celebrate me, but what I’ve learned from this experience is that they are very very far from understanding me (and my people) and that there are huge gaps and understanding of what blood family should mean to each other.
and I’ve written a bit about blood family before, but in my eyes, being blood is not a full access pass to who I am or my life. connection to me is earned through trust, which we do not have with each other. not on my end.
I wanted a disability friendly gathering, and it didn’t happen. the details are important in sorting out our issues, but not relevant to the words I need to write out in this moment since I cannot vent about it to a trusted friend or partner, so they won’t be here. I know the effects of this on my people and I’m really sorry that happened to all of them.
I know my twin will say that I was lying, and I was lying to my mother in the car, but that lying is what keeps me safe. What my twin and my mother didn’t understand (and still don’t) is how important the way things need to be done for me, or my reasons why. Which I understand is also difficult for them to know because I am not open about sharing, but that’s because they have proven to me in the past (and also in this current situation!) THAT THEY ARE NOT FULLY LISTENING TO ME.
I’m going around in circles, so let’s start with the mother wound. I came across this concept in a class, Writing About Family, I took summer 2020 online with Professor BriAllen Hopper. I believe it was a queer Latina writer, Vanessa Mártir, whose work we read about unmothering. I know my mother loves us with all of her heart, I know life circumstances weren’t fair and my dad was an asshole, but truth is, she was not directly in my life for about 10 years (longer, if we think about queer time…ah, my not finished thesis). She moved from Philly when I was 7 or 8, and the last time I saw her in person was summer 2010. And the same things that was true when we saw her at graduation 2018 are true now. I understand that for her this was the first time she was seeking her kids again in so long. And she thought/thinks that because she gave birth to us and was there in our early years that she knows everything that there is to know about the foundations of who we are. but she missed out on formative experiences. there are 8+ years of things she has no idea about and will never know about unless she hears it directly from me. and this part of what I told her in the car today was true. the best way to understand me is to know the people I surround myself with and choose to be in community with. and I tried to do that the best way I knew how, by telling her about the two most important people to me at that time. And she wanted to reflect on the past and why had I never sent her a Mother’s Day card or why I didn’t include her in my graduation speech. And it all boils down to this fundamental misunderstanding: she thinks she already knows me, and I know she needs to get to know me. I saw our re-connection in 2018 as establishing a new relationship, and she saw it as continuing a relationship she already had. this will be very hard for her to hear one day but that relationship was dead by the time we reconnected at high school graduation. She was a literal stranger to me. She just happened to be a stranger that I had a blood connection with and because of that reason, I was willing to share so much more of myself than I typically would have. But she needs to understand that for me, that was the opportunity for a beginning, not a continuation of something.
I tried my best for two years with the skills I had at the time to share who I was and who my people were. I am a much more effective communicator now. I definitely could have done better. But by 2020 I realized that things were not compatible for me. So walls permanently went up as protection until I got to a place where things could be sorted through. And actually, now was not the time. I was not ready. But the stupid thing about being a queer gender-fluid person having to exist at the intersections of queer/trans/crip/AND straight time is that sometimes I have to do things according to the straight time world, like celebrate occasions like graduation with bio family. And so things were forced to happen at a time when I was not ready.
To get into some specifics that are not insignificant but also not central—disrespect came up on the last night we were together, and that also comes from how we see our relationship. My mother believes that because she gave birth to me she has a certain level of authority over me. And when I enter her space/her household, for sure. But in MY space??!! Fuck no lmfao. I have been managing my own money since I was 16 (younger than that really) and living on my own, paying my own bills, since I was 18. I had to mother my two siblings and other people’s kids since as young as 8. I literally got sat down at 8 by my aunt and told that because I was the oldest I had to be responsible for everyone. I’m doing homework help and making breakfast and dinner and remembering doctors appointments and making sure everyone’s clothes and medications and whatever else are in the duffel bag that we lug around from auntie’s house to stranger’s house because we slept in a different place every night because my father had no one to take care of us. We all grew up too fast, and that is the byproduct of growing up poor in a metropolitan area in an immigrant family in the U.S. I have been on call for mental health crises and have managed my health emergencies and continuing disability ON MY OWN. I have been sexually assaulted and provided support to other survivors (including my twin). I provide housing and food for trans people, I support unhoused folx. I’ve travelled internationally on my own. I’ve had to learn how to become an advocate for myself. I have been doing so much shit solo and AT MY BIG AGE nobody is telling me what I can and cannot walk outside wearing. No one can tell me how to wear my hair. No one can tell me it is unsafe for me to be walking around outside at midnight. If you don’t like the way I do things at my place, get out. You don’t have to be here. My mother told me we are more alike in ways I don’t even understand and that is not true. I actually know quite a lot about the ways we are like each other. But that does not mean she can order me around at my spot. That’s not how things will work. And so what she saw as disrespectful because I did not follow her wishes was only the tip of the iceberg. I could’ve said fuck outta here, but those words were nowhere on my lips (or on my mind) because i DO have respect for her.
Writing this part made me more agitated so going to try and decompress by watching something (though I wish I could be reading smut 😭😭😩)
I’ve never been the type of person to “hate-watch” or “hate-follow” someone. I do the exact opposite—I block and delete and avoid so I don’t have to come across people I don’t fuck with anymore. I don’t know how anyone gets any sense of satisfaction from getting news or content or information about a person that draws up feelings of hatred. Not how I want to be spending my time.
But I accidentally found myself doing that exact thing this evening, hate-watching a show for a dance group I kinda-sorta-used-still am (?)-a -part-of. I had volunteered to be an usher so that I could watch the show for free. I had signed up for this specific showing because it had ASL interpretation (which could have been better integrated, accessibility was definitely an afterthought at times in this production, but that is not the focus of this piece) which I thought would be cool and was really excited to see (I am learning ASL and as a hard of hearing person ASL access is becoming increasingly important to me). I left this dance group at one point for two reasons. One, because it was failing at its mission to be truly inclusive of dancers from all backgrounds and levels of experience, including no experience. The board that had been voted in at the time was unfortunately a clique of friends and they were more concerned about making sure all the pieces were well-put together and that they got to star in as many as they wanted, and so it became not fun if you weren’t already an established dancer or connected to one of the board members. The second reason was that there was a man, a cis queer white man, who I had trusted and who caused me a lot of interpersonal harm that I felt incredibly unsafe around. Unfortunately for me, not only was he a part of the clique and the executive board, and having the privileges and power that comes with being a normatively gendered cisgender white man, but he was incredibly charismatic and the type of person that people who tend to not look too deeply into a person’s character (say, shallow college students for example) would never think to question his “goodness” or “niceness,” especially not from the angry darkie genderqueer negro. Who would ever choose me over him?
He is not the only man to make feel unsafe on this campus. While most of them are gone now, the spaces they used to occupy are still associated with the tensions and anxieties the thought of them bring up in me. I avoid dining halls, extracurriculars, former mutual friends, dorms, and hangout spaces, all in an effort to protect myself from them, or memories of them. And as this university has long kept me on the margins, most of the time I am successful. But then there are nights like tonight, and I begin to question all over again if I can ever be safe here (the answer is no, btw. it’s not possible, ever).
But maybe I should tell you why I first joined this dance group. When I got to college, I was looking to explore myself. I grew up in an authoritarian household and self-expression (among other things) were limited. I wanted to be an individual, and try new things. I auditioned for dance groups and poetry groups and didn’t get in. But this was the largest dance group on campus, no auditions, and it had a beginner friendly dance! My choreographer was from Zimbabwe! Getting to dance with other queer people, with other Africans, to “our” music, was really fun! Exciting! I was still quiet and reserved, but they made a place for me there. I got to rock it out to Beyoncé with a bunch of people cheering me on no matter what. It was a very positive and supportive environment, and I’m glad I had that space and opportunity my first year.
As much as I really enjoyed dancing with this group, it was really hard to maintain. People at my university basically compete for who can be involved in as many different extracurricular or projects at once. I was limited by my mental health, undiagnosed disabilities, and my academic struggles. And also, my family trying to control me from afar. so my sophomore year, I lost access to that dancing space, unwillingly. And that is what spurred the feelings of hate as I watched the show tonight. because it reminded me of how I had to quit all of my extracurriculars because one of the medications I was taking made me randomly black out and the other made me sleep 14-16 hours a day. I barely had time to attend class, let alone do home work and show up to dance practice. I was forced to take a reduced courseload, when I really shouldn’t have been enrolled in school that semester at all. But I was homeless, and school gave me (temporary) housing, and so I was stuck being isolated and lonely. I couldn’t really socialize because my eating disorder was so extreme at that point that eating in front of anyone gave me severe panic attacks, so I had to eat alone, in my room, out of sight. It’s no fun to only be able to hang out with a friend 1-1 in their dorm room, the only space they cannot be triggered, between the hours of 4pm and 8pm on Friday or Saturday evenings. I couldn’t go out to parties, late night hangouts, or do anything spontaneous. I couldn’t get lunch or dinner, and when I wasn’t in class, I was studying. And even with such a strict schedule I was mentally unwell, rapid cycling, binging and starving, hurting myself. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t actively a part of the dance group anyhow, because it had become a bunch of white and non-queer people voguing because it was “trendy” or five Beyoncé songs in a row. The shows were kind of a mess. But there was still the feeling of missing out.
Then the pandemic hit, I took time off from school, and when I returned, nothing was the same. the pandemic was various levels of hard for everyone, but I think it was a particular level of hard as a disabled genderfluid kid living in a city where I knew no one, in an apartment I couldn’t afford, with someone who didn’t understand me. I came back wanting to bring jersey music and afropop into the dance space, but nobody knew enough about it, and didn’t care to listen. I wanted to bring in accessibility, but no one cared about that either. I tried to lead a workshop combining both of those interests, but had low turnout due to my studio reservations time being changed at the last minute. It didn’t matter.
then we had a new board voted in, one of the presidents being an international student who revolutionized the group and made it a worthwhile space to engage with again. i personally wrote him an email thanking him because i felt like the group was returning to its center. and then, tonight’s show, while mostly full of good acts, had an all non-Black group dancing to Lil Nas X’s “Call Me By Your Name,” and other songs by Black artists. The group always borders on cultural appropriation in the way that they are obsessed with Black music but most of the dancers are non-Black, or don’t have even a single Black dancer.
Another aspect of the show that stirred up unpleasant feelings in me is noticing the role of Black women in these performances. I really love to see Black women being their most beautiful selves. I saw many people who I know would never be able to remember that we were ever in the same original class being confident and sassy and beautiful on stage. and it reminded me of how exclusive Black women are on this campus. The relations between Black students of my original class and above was not great, there was mad beef, mad sexism, mad colorism, mad transphobia, mad classism, mad elitism, and I couldn’t fuck with any of them (or, more aptly put, none of them could fuck with me). I don’t speak often on my identity as a Black woman because it is contentious. It is contentious first of all because I never had access to black girlhood. Dark skinned girls are always masculinized, but being noticeably extremely hairy from the age of 6, I was constantly tested and taunted and referred to as a “man” or some other non-woman entity, like frog. my fatness, my hairiness, my lack of social skills made me the odd one out and so I could never be a black girl. I was an it. This happened at home, at school, at church. When my high levels of testosterone (which would eventually turn into PCOS) had me growing a beard at 14, my Black feminity was irrevocably removed—there was nothing I could do to change that fact. While I have always been genderfluid, the gender I ironically feel the most insecure claiming is the one that I was assigned on my birth certificate. Because even though that’s what that piece of paper says, I was never treated like a Black girl or a Black woman.
I’ve always had trouble identifying with and relating to Black women and girls, especially within my age range, because I have a lot of jealousy. Some parts of it is colorism and texturism, but most of it is the fact that even if the validity of their gender was ever to be questioned, there would be someone to back them up. But no one has ever come to defend or affirm my womanhood. I’ve been ridiculed multiple times, but no one has ever respected my womanhood. And if I can not be in community with Black women, then there is no viability of community with women of other races.
I wanted to change my experiences when I got to college, but it was hard to be in community with other Black women when I’ve been told that I’m “letting myself go” because I don’t walk out of my house with a full face of make up and my body dared to gain weight. For the Black girls who had gone to boarding schools or private schools or just really well-to-do public schools, this majority white institution was the first time they had ever experienced Black community—and it was with a bunch of other Black women who were considerably lighter than a Hershey’s bar, and came from economic privilege that I had never imagined. But I got called out for being divisive by naming class divisions, or an alternate experience of this place—the shock of coming from a place where everybody is Black and migrating to a place where most people are not. It didn’t help that my Black womanhood made other Black women uncomfortable because it involved he/him pronouns and a beard, that it was not static but temporal. In their eyes I was better off with the whyte gays who got “that complicated gender shit” instead of trying to complicate their space and detract from it. And that made me further isolated and angry, creating emotional roadblocks that I don’t think ever can be worked through (especially as my time here comes to an end). When the former BMU president was charged with sexual assault allegations, I found myself feeling numb and disengaged, unable to drudge up any scrap of support for cis Black women on campus being harmed, because nobody cared when it was us genderqueer folx experiencing harm from people who are supposed to be community. It was not a grudge per se, I just felt like I could not be connected to that fight.
I’m writing these words here because I don’t know anyone else who would specifically get it. Like, I came to college with a lot of hopes and dreams and aspirations. But because I did not have the support and care that most other people have (to some degree) I had to settle with the fact that I was never going to fulfill my full potential here. And the closer I get to graduation (which I am not going to, for all the reasons stated above and more) the more real that gets, the harder it hits home for me. Like, that dance group is not accessible to me because of my disabilties, and it was never going to be. It never wanted to be. Black women never wanted to be in relationship or in friendships with me, and they were never going to. I am not one of them, they never saw me as a community member, and they aren’t looking to include me. I am not desired by them or by that dance group. And that goes for almost every social scene on campus, whether I tried to actively engage or not. I saw part of a reel the other day that was like, you do not have imposter syndrome, you are an imposter. This place was not created with you in mind, and you were not meant for it. It does not want to make space for you, and it’s not going to. It wants to kick you out. That has been my entire college career. I am not wanted or included anywhere, and I am met with considerable pushback when I try to create spaces for myself or force myself in. I am not prioritized or valued. And it really sucks to sit with that. Because rejection is one thing, but to spend 5 years of my life somewhere and to not feel accepted anywhere I go? I don’t even feel accepted in my own home because I have a shitty ass relationship with my housemate. I tried to follow what would give me joy, to avoid or to leave what was making me miserable, but everything has brought me back to misery one way or another. And that’s unfortunate, depressing, but also my reality. And that’s how I ended up accidentally hate-watching a 90min dance show.
I don’t have any advice or suggestions about how to cope with this if you find yourself in a similar position. I can say that I recognize you, I feel you, and we can be in solidarity in our frustration and grief (because I am definitely grieving what I lost coming to this university. It was at a great cost).
If you couldn’t tell by the title, I’m holding some uncomfortable emotions right now. let’s start with what has me angry/frusrated.
on top of the general anger I feel during Pisces season, I decided to fulfill the urges of my Femme Moment by buying some skirts online. after spending hours reading reviews, looking through size charts, and sorting through the buillshit created for unrealistic body types, i found two skirts that i vibed with, and was pretty confident that the largest size available would fit me well. while clothes not fitting happens to everyone, it was the degree to which these didn’t fit which pissed me the fuck off. there’s a difference between something being a little tight, and not being able to get something on your body at all. i was fuckin pissed as all get out. i spend all this energy and money, just for the damn thing to not fit 🙄 (rolling eyes emoji). being poor and plus sized has permanently made clothes shopping exhausting and traumatizing for as long as i can remember. i typically only buy clothes when i need/want it for something, like a funeral or a job interview. i mostly live out my days pantless (cuz i be in my bed) or in yoga pants and a hoodie if i leave the house (sometimes jeans to make it seem like I’m a real, corporeal entity lmfao). i hate clothes shopping.
most folx tend to think that i hate clothes shopping because of gender dysphoria, but it’s actually because of body dysmorphia. dysphoria is secondary, and is mostly a response to how other people react when they perceive me. I have been bullied my entire life for being ugly. In first grade, a fourth grader obsessed with telling me that i looked like frog that I was the ugliest person she had ever seen. My family and peers have always bullied for my weight, and I got comments that my legs were “too hairy” and I shouldn’t wear skirts/dresses cuz I looked like I man since I was 7 years old. I had ugly nappy hair that no one wanted to braid (and hair stylists still complain about my hair and i am often encouraged to get a relaxer). I was too darkskinned, “mannish,” i had ugly hands and toes. No wonder I always wanted to cover up my body and developed an eating disorder…
People were constantly pointing out the ugliness in my body that I recorded those voices in my head and now they’re part of my personal, everyday mantra. I am obsessed with all of the things that are “wrong” with my body, and also feel like there is nothing in my power I can do to fix them, and so of course that leads my brain to suicide. Society is also constantly reinforcing for me that that is the correct and only choice—every time someone is roasted for their looks, I know that those words are aimed for me too. You think that my weight, and facial/body hair, and my dark skin, and my nappy hair are ugly and deserve to be laughed at. You think I’m undesirable, and I know that.
Clothes not fitting me, and clothes shopping, are constant reminders that I am not important enough to be included, and also that people like me can be easily discarded and ignored and no one will give a shit. But I have also been here enough times before that this kind of situation typically isn’t enough to derail me off the tracks of semi-mental stability. Yesterday, I was supposed to go get a free professional headshot, but because of dysmorphia, and me not having much “professional” clothing because i am poor and fat, I didn’t go, and that got me down. prior to that, i had a couple of interactions with people close to me (who are tiny in stature/build) who made some offhand comments about clothing that got me really aggravated. one of them was that because an item was made out of a material that was stretchy and too big to fit them it would automatically fit me. i knew looking at that “couldn’t be no larger than a medium” sized piece of clothing that there was no way in hell that tiny piece of shit was gonna fit on my size 20+ body. and them trying to defend their point, even though i know my body best, was midkey aggravating. i really hate clothes shopping or discussing clothes with anyone who is smaller than me or has never been thick. they know nothing of my experiences and seemingly don’t register a gotdamn thing i ever say about clothes.
on top of this, writing anxiety is kicking my ass, some niggas just won’t let a mediocre thing die out and we can stop bein friends, I’m overwhelmed with school, people think it’s funny and cute to not respect my position around my death anniversary, and whyte women stay bein disgusting and throwing that bullsht in my face. I’m tired. want to be left alone.
and it is in moments like these that i just want to take the way out. this is not a crisis situation, cuz this is the everyday bullshit. but i think when I’m ready to go, it will be something along the lines of, I’m tired, so i quiet before i burned out even further. there may not be a letter/note, or an outward reaching out for help. I feel like I’ve done that enough times now lol. Now I’m just exhausted. tired.
cw: death, suicidal ideation mention, discussion of grief, me saying a bunch of shitty things
last week, a cousin of mine passed away. that same week, a kid from my college access program passed away. my mother has covid, and her intentionally homeless self is relying on her two in-college children halfway across the country to take care of her from afar. the first two weeks of the spring semester have been incredibly stressful. my body is hurting, and i don’t know what to do to take care of it. i am not able to be present in the ways i would like to be right now, and I’m saddened by that. on T i physically am not even able to cry, so there is no sense of catharsis for me. I’ve kinda interpreted this as emotionally managing this tumultuous time period in my life, but as my most recent suicidal ideation episode has reminded me, not being able to express my feelings does not mean i am coping well. i am only alive because i am determined to die at the age of 25 like my nigga Tupac. in the meantime, i carry the numbness in my joint pain, anxiety in my tensed shoulders, my anger and frustration in the pins and needles of my feet. this is the best that i can hold grief right now. grief for me is the cousin of anger but cooler, wispier, and she stays around a lot longer. i hide my grief in all the words i can’t say out loud—i’m sad-do you miss me? my heart hurts. you’ve hurt me. i can’t do this-can’t do life. she needs me, but what can i give her? i don’t have much left of me to give. where have my shadow people gone? i don’t like the winter sunlight. she’s cold, foreign, empty of warmth. this is not surviving. who will take care of me? my soul is not mine own—neither is mine body. what are my ancestors’ tongues? who am i searching for? iam not worthy. i am not valid. i have no words to contribute. no stories to tell. grief is the palace that my depression haunts. grief is the draft in the windows, the radiator whistling at night, the sound of my bones cracking, breaking, splintering. grief is another year of not knowing where i come from, who my people are. grief is not knowing my family names, not knowing my name. who am i?yɛfrɛ me sɛn? what is my name?
grief is the water i spill filling up the brita pitcher, my hands giving out on me just like everything I’ve ever set as the foundation of my life. grief is the imaginary tears rolling down my face as my knee locks up in the middle of the night and it cannot bend and i cannot scream. grief is feelings of emptiness held in my limp wrists when i wake up in the morning after a night of tortured dream after tortured dream, a million times better than the nightmare that is my actual waking life. grief is the wanting to hide in the imaginary, in the make-pretend, in the memories that never really existed. grief is trapped in the scars permanently etched onto my body after years of unmothering.
when i die i do not want a virtual service full of people telling lies about the beautiful life that I’ve lived, because there is nothing radiant about my pain, nothing glorious about my anxiety, nothing rich in my uncried tears and dark poetry. nobody will say that the impact I’ve left in the world can be remembered through my beautiful smile, because i do not smile. i grimace, in pain. my mouth says horrible things about half as often my brain. remember me for being resentful. for my bitterness. for my anger. if you must speak of me at all, talk about how i never wanted to accept love, of how i always knew i was going to die young because i plotted my death every day. tell the story of the time i cussed a bitch out, cussed you out, cussed the world. remember all the times i said it was okay to be shitty, to not be perfect, to hate love, to be toxic and manipulative and bad. hold onto the pain you felt every time i crossed your boundaries, when i told you i had no friends, when my actions told you that you meant nothing to me. don’t forget about how i made you responsible for my pain, when i told you that i would forever hate the fact that i had grown to trust and love you, that i feel embarrassed that i ever let someone see me get so low, get so vulnerable. remember my anger, when i told you i could never take you back, how i could never go back to you, how you never actually could have loved me. remember every time you told me you loved me and i told you i wanted to die. read my words over and over again: your love will never be enough.
if you must grieve, grieve the time, the seconds, days, weeks, months, years, that you wasted on a person that never dreamed of futurity. grieve the poetry i would never write for you, the songs i would never share. grieve the intimacy we never had.
i don’t live for anyone, not even myself. my love has limits, and it starts with me. i am not perfect. i do not exist to do good work, i exist to take up space. to make someone else’s life hell, use up resources, complain, throw rocks, cuss out whyte people, tell people to go to hell. i am here to be bitter, and get joy out of ruining the mood. i want your souls to burn, for your body to be consumed with sadness. i want to say the ugly shit, the mean things, the terrible stuff, to be awful. i want you to go home and cry every time you think of me, i want you to wish i was never in your life, i want you to feel the unloving i feel.
i wish for your undoing like i wish for my demise. i do not owe anyone anything.
[image description: dark purple to purple ombre background. Lines of text in the center alternate in the color lavender to deep purple with a white outline. Outlined words are in all caps. To be/ BLACK/ a/ WOMAN/ and/ ANGRY end image description]
TW: self harm, eating disorder, manipulation, discussion of violence
what you should listen to/watch before reading: Angry Black Woman by Porsha O
I have never held anger well, especially not at this point in my life. In many ways I have been conditioned to think that anger is something that I am not entitled to have, and so I rarely experience it in its purest form. it’s usually mediated through my personality disorder, codependent traits, or Black womanhood, and transmuted into a more palatable (to society) emotion or self-destruction.
Dependent personality disorder (dpd), at its core, is driven by a fear of being alone. Since the consequence of displaying anger can often have that undesired result, anger and dpd are incompatible. I do not want to express anger and the person I’m dependent on decides to leave me (or temporarily shut down) as a result. I do not want to express anger and be labeled as ungrateful and forced to leave. While my dpd is a mix of people-pleasing and emotional manipulation, manipulation is only used to remind others how much I need them and to guilt them into supporting and enabling my toxic behaviors. I am the most fearful person in every situation, and do not have the capacity to use my anger to make someone else fearful of leaving the relationship. In dpd, anger is a sign that I am doing something wrong—I am not committed enough to this person, I am putting myself and my interests above them and their needs, I am the cause of whatever behavior they have exhibited that caused anger inside me. The only valid kind of anger is anger on their behalf. Otherwise, I am in the wrong and am deserving of punishment. Anger then becomes self-hate, urges to self-harm, disappointment in myself, and guilt. My eating disorder may be triggered and I will stop feeding myself. Even with people I am not in a dependent relationship with, because I have this behavior pattern of turning anger into self-harm, almost any kind of anger I experience follows this trajectory, and I have strong associations with anger and self-harm. My only coping mechanism has been to hold the anger and slowly release it like letting the air out of a balloon. I almost never act in anger, even when justified. While this does protect my relationships, it also keeps me from processing my anger and advocating for myself, because after the anger has left me I have no motivation to do anything about the circumstances that caused the anger.
Anger and codependency are similarly difficult to reconcile. For dpd, the dependency is typically one way—I am extremely dependent on another person, but they are not necessarily dependent on me. In codependent relationships, however, the knowledge that someone feels beholden to me very readily leads to abuse of power on my end. Here, I have the option to internalize anger and take it out on myself, or express/display anger as it was taught to me by my father—violently. When I was younger, I would display anger in a verbally or physically violent manner (exclusively in codependent situations). Nowadays the worst I might do is cuss a nigga out, as I generally believe that nonviolent solutions to issues are preferable (this does not mean I do not have violent tendencies or urges, because I most certainly do). with other POC this is typically fine, and Black people in particular are accustomed to niggas sayin fuckshit to each other. The dynamics with whyte people are incredibly different, as I am ashamed to admit that I do afford the few whyte people I have close relationships with more grace than I would non-whyte chosen fam and comrades. To this day I have never expressed anger to a close whyte friend of mine, especially not anyone I’m in a codependent relationship with. However, I feel like it is important to acknowledge here that is incredibly difficult, if not almost impossible, to unlearn ingrained, toxic behaviors (addiction, codependency, etc) without some kind of support—a 12 step program, individual or group therapy, religious counsel. for those of us who live lives of instability, accessing support is sometimes not possible and I refuse to place blame on myself or other non-whyte peoples for existing and relating with the coping mechanisms that keep us alive. It is not our fault that it is more difficult to stand up to and hold whyte people accountable than non-whyte people because we are not the ones who put the societal structures in place that mete out more dangerous punishments for calling out whyte people than our non-whyte kin.
Then there is, of course, the Angry Black Woman/Angry Black Girl (ABW/ABG) stereotype that has been smeared on the image of every dark skinned gworl to ever have graced the internet or spoken a single word. I have been called an Angry Black Girl for so long that i no longer correct people on the fact that I am not a girl, because it is futile. My experience with Black womanhood is that it is always wrong no matter what I do, so I’ve resigned myself to a lifetime of being called “bitter,” “uptight,” and “ugly,” by hoteps and fellow “Melanin Queens” alike. The ABW/ABG trope has been used to disqualify the thoughts, opinions, emotions, and lived experiences of Black women and Black femmes, particularly those of us who are dark-skinned, seemingly forever. Our positionality as Black women denies us the right to a valid opinion on anything, as our Blackness is always angry and our womanhood always wrong. To express anger as a Black woman is to be told that you are threatening, that you make other people uncomfortable, that you are too loud, that you are intentionally disruptive, to be seen as a troublemaker, to be delegitimized in so many ways. This costs us friendships, jobs, opportunities, safety. We feel trapped into not speaking our minds so as not to offend others or calling it how it is and losing support. Who are the allies to the angry Black women that are not cis, that are disabled, that are poor, that are queer, that are non-heteronormative, that are hedonistic? To be the Angry Black Girl is to have patience for those who cannot take the two seconds to learn how to pronounce your name correctly but can take two seconds to call you a bitch for having the audacity to be Black, and Angry, and a girl/woman, all at the same damn time.
[image description: digital drawing of a dark-skinned Black woman from the shoulders up with black hair in a high puff against a black background. Instead of a mouth, she has a closed zipper across her face. White text beneath her, enclosed in a white box, reads “Angry Black Girl”. end image description]
On a personal level, anger is so difficult for me to deal with. Since I’ve left all Black spaces for majority whyte and non-Black spaces I’ve had to account for racial dynamics of anger. Whyte people like to portray their anger in an “im purer than you” type of way. People are more quick to list out my shortcomings in an expression of my anger than actually listen to my statements. My anger is held more in the tension of my body, as I cannot risk upsetting the whyte people who have control over my stability (namely, administrators at my university). Other factors, such as my bp2 or being low-income, have people view me as out of control/dangerous or selfish/ungrateful whenever i am angry. Very often I feel like my anger has to be hidden or that I have no legitimate place to share it, as the world is so quick to invalidate me.
Im angry, and have been for awhile. But because i rarely let myself feel it, i was unable to recognize it for weeks. Perhaps months, even years. And I have to work through that because I refuse to let anger be the reason why i don’t die at 25 like Tupac. I’m exhausted and tired of being commended for my resilience and ability to work through shit, but as this year is the year of the hood nigga, this is the year a nigga learns to be mad as shit. learns to embrace that shit, channel that shit into calling in comrades and putting penny niggas in they places.
anyway, was listening to a sad boi playlist i made for a whyte boi that is no longer in my life as i was writing most of this (never told him i was angry at him either…), here is me exposing the fact that i listen to whyte ppl music sometimes (lmfao). listen here.
what I’m listening to as I’m writing: Bloody Samaritan by Ayra Starr
TW: discussion of su*cidal ideation & death
On Monday I went to the bank to update my name. I legally changed it a few months ago, but there seems to be an infinite amount of places for me to update. While this experience took longer than expected, I realized it was also my first real interaction with a Black person in a long time.
When I met the Bank teller at the desk and told him my name, he immediately responded in a shocked voice, “You changed your name from that?!” When I clarified that no, that was what I had changed my name to he was immediately elated. And this began an over an hour long exchange with a sweet Black man named Mario who told me endlessly how beautiful and precious and amazing and gorgeous and powerful and…I have no idea how he didn’t run out of adjectives, but somehow he didn’t.
He was very much in love with my name in a Black Power kinda vibe, like I’m in love with the dark chocolate richness of it all, like this was the perfect name for a Black Queen. He wasn’t hitting on me, just affirming my Blackness and my Black womanhood. Which is precisely what I desired in choosing my name—for my culture and heritage to be present on everyone’s tongue, for it to be imposible to speak about me and to me without speaking to my ancestors, my roots. While I did have the mild anxiety of my Black womanhood being called into question if he looked too closely and saw the facial hair peeping out from under my mask, I mostly just felt validated. Here was another person who saw my African-ness and Blackness and was here for it. And he made damn sure to get the entirety of my name on my new debit card. Thank you, Mario, for the good vibez and gentle smiles.
But today, to support a friendly acquaintance, I attended their acapella show and recognized/re-realized how on the margins of my school’s existence I am. I engage with folx almost exclusively in work or class/academic-related contexts. I have a couple of individual relationships on campus, but I most certainly am not a part of any communities and I don’t really have friends, not in the negro sense of the word. I don’t have homies that I can be like “can I pull through and play mad loud music for an hour, watch Black gay shit, or just vibe?” While I have a couple of Black folx that I am friendly with and care a lot about, I don’t have a Black community. I don’t have anyone to send funny african tik toks to, no Philly bouls to talk about the pain in my home community rn, no Ghanaians or Africans to talk about the queer and trans activism going on there, no one to talk about Water & Garri or Tems’ latest album. No one who understands my hair journey, who vibez with Madam Muse on the same wavelength as I do. I only hear nigga when I say it in the mirror, or hear it in a song.
And don’t get me wrong, my sister sends me shit, sometimes I hit up a couple of folx I went to hs with, and those are valuable and meaningful connections for me. I’ve just always been someone who wanted to be a part of a school community and I really value community building. But not once have I been in a community space on this campus that I did not play some role in shaping/creating/spearheading. It was only with other folx on the fringe that I felt any sort of welcome, and all of those folx are gone now.
I say quite often to a friend of mine that I don’t have any friends, and they say not true and remind me that they’re here for me and so are others. But as an African, this series of individual relationships just aren’t it for me. I’ve always existed in collectives, in circles, in homes. Institutions like universities aren’t meant to create or hold those kind of spaces, but most others have a place they can “return to” and feel validated in that way. I don’t have that. Even me and my very lovely housemate, don’t talk very much—mostly because I am always exhausted and low spoons and they are very busy. and idk, perhaps in part quarantine took away my bandwidth to socialize with others, but I felt similarly before the pandemic began.
And while I do not *need* Black or African or Philly community at college, to be completely community-less is hard to exist in, unsustainable, and anxiety inducing. Without the virtual QTPOC support group I am a part of, there is no place where I can be all of myself.
I wonder sometimes how many doors have been closed for me because of my anger. Sophomore year I was barely touchable because I was so angry. These past couple of days I have been extremely angry as well, mostly at the fact that I have to be constantly explaining myself to be legible in spaces and yet still gatekeeping keeps me out. This feels differently than the isolation and desperation I experienced in my teens. I feel misunderstood, yes, and like no one is really trying to understand, but I’m starting to feel like there is no one in this space who can understand me, and for that the only response I have is anger, because without rage I would maybe have to confront the reality that I cannot exist here because I wasn’t meant to be. I have battled with this thought for months, perhaps years—how can I justify continuing to exist in spaces that were not made for me and do not want me here? And what do I do when that space is every space I enter? Perhaps this is the source of my suicidal ideation and suicidal fantasies.
Sometimes I think about writing about how my brain fantasizes and romanticizes suicide and death, but I think I have a fear of it being oversimplified as the result or consequence of my depression. To talk about pleasure in death is very taboo I think. Plus people would completely miss the point and just become further frustrated with me that my goal is not wellness, that I am not interested in “optimizing” my mental health or even achieving stability. I would just like the world to meet me where I’m at, exist on this plane with me, and not expect any extra labor.
This lack of understanding of my relationship to suicide and death is also why people fail to understand what I live for. I’m a negro, and so sometimes when I talk my words be extra, but I am very literal when I say that sometimes I live (or exist) to take care of my digital farm, to hear a song on repeat again, and again, and again, to relive the memory of the smell of my Auntie’s jollof.
Talking about loneliness is surprisingly hard even though I have been lonely my entire life. Though perhaps that is because I don’t know what to say that I have not already said. Sometimes I wish to retreat into the deep recesses of my severely mentally ill mind and lose contact with reality but then I am reminded of the body that I want to maintain agency over. If only I could preserve him, in like a cryo freezer or some shit, for hundreds or thousands of years, until the world ends and I can watch it all burn. and then burn with it.
It’s ~Pride~ Month, and I’ve been having complicated feelings lately, mostly centered around my exhaustion and erasure, and the exhaustion and erasure of other poc and disabled queer, same-gender loving, trans, nonbinary, gender diverse folx.
but also, im a teeny bit angry. and by a teeny bit, i mean im only thinking of setting one or two people on fire. so really, not that angry at all.
jk, im pissed as all get out it’s just that i don’t be havin the time nor the energy at the end of my days to say or do anything about it. sounds like im being overworked by capitalism again, such a fucking shame *rolling eyes emoji*
The first thing that has me angry is that people are joking about “rainbow capitalism” AND THEN STILL GIVING THEIR MONEY TO CORPORATIONS like what the actual FUCK. Especially cis people (queer or hetero)–who often have more resources than trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer folx–my mind can’t comprehend. If you’re looking to purchase pride merchandise, there are a plethora of LGBTQ+ folx who make literally anything you can think of! And it makes me so angry to see people caring more about buying rainbow cereal or rainbow chips than the actual biggest needs of our community right now–how so many LGBTQ+ spaces still are not accessible (especially Pride events!), the ongoing housing crisis, mental health/rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide of LGBTQ+ youth, anti-trans laws across the country…I’m just wonderin’ if niggas fell off a cliff or some shit and lost they memory, cuz im still strugglin’ erryday so im kinda confused what these rainbow colored social media posts is supposed to be doin for my physical safety, my fellow poor ass siblings, for food insecurity in our communities.
Bruh the next jawn that be gettin me mad pissed lately is the grace ive been asked to give for “allies.” Listen, I don’t fuckin care if this is your first time with they/them pronouns, if you misgender someone i am going to correct you and i don’t owe you “niceness.” Whyte people especially expect me to be “nice” because anything else scares them off or is perceived as aggressive. And so??? Yes bitch i’m being agressive wtf get your act together lol. I’m aggressive cuz I’m angry and frustrated because I have been forced to spend the majority of my life to make sure whyte people feel comfortable in spaces, with nobody giving TWO FUCKS about me lmao. That’s why I’m thinking of lighting your pasty asses tf up. Stop telling me my name is too hard, stop telling me you don’t know how to adjust to me using “pronouns you wouldn’t expect” just stop TALKING. I don’t wanna hear it lmao.I am already dealing with so much shit, I am not going to also carry the insecurities of cis whyte women.
And while there is a lot of patience and space in my heart for people who are questioning or coming to terms with their identity, I am also really exhausted that people within the community erase me. I have been hurt too many times, and have been through, and continue to go through, so much, that I refused to be erased by those whom I call community members. I am done coming out–coming out is for people who have a level of safety and privilege that I will never have, not as a Black person. Coming out is dangerous and puts me in harm’s way. But I really love the term inviting in that David John from the National Black Justice Coalition explains in the hyperlinked video. Inviting in centers my agency–Inviting in is intimate, it is a shared experience. I am letting someone into my world, my lived experience, into my being. This is a privilege, and it must be respected. No one is obligated to invite anyone in, ever.
And so it is incredibly frustrating to have invited people in and they “forget” or make assumptions that are not accurate about your identity. I hold all of my identities unabashedly, and I do not owe anyone an explanation for them. But I think people have not yet fully realized that there is a difference between speaking about a community as a whole and speaking about individuals. This is the root cause of most of the erasure I experience, as people are trying to not “insult” me but they still invalidate me. I am a Black woman. I have explained countless times over how my Blackness and my womanhood are not separate entities. While I am not a ciswoman or even a cis Black woman, I am still a Black woman. I was socialized particularly as a Black woman, and it is a part of my identity, the experiences I have, and how I see the world. I think womanhood in general, and Black womanhood in particular, should be expanded to inclusive of those of us who identify with Black womanhood and are not cisgender. I am not a man. Just because I primarily use he/him pronouns in most spaces, I do not owe anyone manhood or masculinity. My identity is just as valid regardless of the pronouns being used for me. I always identify as a Black woman, but only partially identify with masculinity, to varying degrees, and only some of the time.My gender changes over time, but I still identify with Black womanhood. As a genderfluid person, it is incredibly frustrating to me that people see gender as stagnant. My gender is a shapeshifter, and he doesn’t give a fuck about rules. Call me a boi, dude, handsome. Maybe sometimes “girl” or “sis” is okay, mostly from Black people speakin AAVE. There are no hard and fast rules to these things, but that’s why I invited you in, yah?
I am queer. My attraction is complex. It is vast and varied and deviates from the norm. I am Aromantic and Asexual but i am notaroace. I Identify as Aroflux–For me, I spend about 60/30 of my time identifying as aromantic/greyromantic and 10 percent of the time as quoiromantic/pan(allo)romantic. I also identify as both demipolysexual and asexual. I am romance-repulsed sometimes and desire romantic relationships/relationships with a romantic component. Most people hear that I am asexual and assume aromanticism, and even when I explain those two kinds of attractions are separate for me, there still tends to be misconceptions around my orientations, and people don’t want to do the work to educate themselves. I am sex positive, sex-indifferent, perhaps sex favorable, can experience sexual attraction sometimes, and I do not want a sexual relationship and am very uncomfortable when people make sexual statements regarding me, my body, or potential relationships.Experiencing sexual attraction does not mean that a person wants to have sex or to have sexual relationships. I can experience romantic and sexual attraction, and neither of these are my primary forms of attraction. The attraction that occurs the most often for me is actually aesthetic attraction. I also experience platonic/queerplatonic attraction, alterous attraction, and sensual attraction. I identify as straight. I am heterosensual–I only experience sensual attraction to men/masculine of center folk, particularly Black men. I am Aromantic. I am going to write a piece on this later, but as a Black Aroflux person, I have had a difficult time claiming the label of Aromantic, even though I identify most with Aromantics (outside of Aroflux people anyway) in the Aro community. And while I am pretty sex favorable, I am romance-repulsed a good deal of the time and can find romance boring and uninteresting (even though I am capable of experiencing romantic attraction).
I felt like it was important to mention all of those things, because people tend to use the complexity of my identity as an excuse for their bullshit (i.e, erasing me). I’d really love for queer community to get to a place where we don’t have to try and make ourselves smaller like we do for the outside world. Or at least, where people stop erasing me in the offhand comments that they make.
what im listening to as im writing: Spell My Name by Toni Braxton
i think one of the more interesting things about me as a person is that i seem to have never ending limit in the love that i have to give to others, but have almost no capacity for self love.
I grew up in a household that expected perfection of me when it came to academics and “good behavior.” Being a twin in an african family, I had a built in person that I was always compared against, in addition to the cousins and other community members my father had a not-always-so-polite rivalry with. The constant comparisons did take a toll on my relationship with my twin–she was constantly seen as an inferior to me intellectually because she wasn’t as “dedicated” and “invested” in her studies as I was. Resentment definitely brewed between us.
While my twin sister was able to semi-carve out her own identity as “the middle child” and the jokester of the family, the only defining identity characteristic i had was what my family expected of me: perfection. and while my family (namely, my father) was quick to brag about my talents and accomplishments in front of strangers or anyone whom they felt needed to be put in their place, rarely was that praise and affirmation ever directed to me. I was a “failure” in many ways. I had terrible handwriting, I couldn’t cook, I was fat, I had hair growing all over my body which was “unbecoming” of a woman, I never played nice with my cousins, i was careless, I was lazy, I was messy. i was always off by myself, reading a book, daydreaming, mentally escaping.
So the single thing that defined me–being the “perfect” child–i was constantly being told I was a failure at. There was always some kid in Ghana who could solve math problems quicker than me; I was always 30+ pounds too heavy and a burden on the family’s finances as new clothes had to be bought for me, because I was so heavy; I always ruined a good picture or a funny moment, because I hated evidence of my ugliness and I didn’t know how to take a joke.
This is all to say, that I have seen myself as inadequate all my life. And I think that’s something that might stay with me forever, a part of the trauma lines i used to draw across my skin.
These feelings of inadequacy also came with anger. There was anger towards those who had put me in this position–you have these expectations of me, but don’t give me the tools to succeed, the space I need to breathe. I was living in a space that told me to hate my body, hate my personhood, hate my life. That told me I would never be desirable to those who mattered. My one aunt told me that if I were to go off to college with all this disgusting hair on my legs I would disgrace the entire family. It took her over two hours for her to tell me that. I had to listen to her dissect my body, piece by piece, and berate me.
There was also anger, stemming from the fear that maybe everyone who was telling me this right. Maybe I was inadequate. Maybe I was inadequate, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I was destined to be a failure, and was going to have to live with that.
It’s this history that makes it difficult for me to accept it when people try to reassure me that it is “okay” to make mistakes, that my insecurities are valid, that I am not a failure. Because by my family’s standards, I have more than failed. Failure implies that I was not able to complete a task or a goal. I am failure. I’m no longer going to school for a STEM degree; I am mentally ill; I’ve “taken time off” from school (read: left school because i couldn’t handle it, because i am “inadequate”); and am now so poor that ive resorted to doing what no Ghanaian with any level of pride would do: begging for money on the internet.
What recently has me feeling inadequate is my “queerness” and gender. I feel very much like I don’t “belong” anymore, like I don’t “count,” like I can’t be queer, cuz I’m failing at it. Along with this comes a lot of anger and frustration, because I’m tired of feeling like I don’t have any identities or communities that I can claim.
I look back on my life, especially the past three years, and just feel a lot of embarrassment and shame. I look at my life in the present, and just feel extremely inadequate at EVERYTHING. I can’t even really think of my future right now, because I’m in the midst of this cycle of inadequacy and depression. But I lowkey have no respect for the person that is me. Because what has xe done? Nothing.
[image description: angery dog meme. slightly blurred image of a tiny dog with an angry face. the image is tinted red. overlaid red text reads: (((ANGERY))) ]
there’s a lil bit of anger in my spirit rn, yeah. a bit of frustration. a part of me is accustomed to feeling this way during this time of year. seasonal depression has been hitting, holidays and family gatherings may forever feel like traps to me which trigger moments of wallowing in the past. it would be an interesting exercise if I were to channel that energy into thoughts of the future and what that might hold.
one of the things angering me are people who are having “Thanksgiving” celebrations, for two reasons. the first being in that it is lazy and performative “allyship” to “celebrate” colonizers and genocide but also “be committed to decolonization.” I am not against giving or acknowledging gratitude. but I’m not seeing any critical thinking going on here. I’m not seeing any denouncement of what the origins of this “holiday” stems from (greed and colonization) and a re-educating of ourselves and our kids. yeah, my moms gay white friend hosted a conversation about Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist and I guess that’s a start of…something. But I don’t even see people sharing/posting cutesy performative stuff on Instagram. all of my cis “friends” and “community members” were mad silent on Trans Day of Remembrance. Are people so tired in their roles as “allies” (when they really should be accomplices) that they’ve checked out for the rest of the month? year? season?
some of us Black and Brown and Indigenous folk can’t check out. particularly those of us that also live at the intersections of gender minorities, disability, and poverty.
I think what I would really like to see right now is people articulating why they are “celebrating” this upcoming weekend. What re-evaluating have you been doing? What are you doing to thank, acknowledge, and bless the Native people’s whose lands you are currently on? Are you reading about their history, culture, and community needs? Are you pausing to reflect and give thanks for the multitude of blessings you have received this year, first and foremost to still be alive during this hell that has been 2020?
the second thing angering me relating to “Thanksgiving” is that people…are actually gathering. like what the actual FUCK.
I understand culturally significant holidays and rituals. but SO MANY things have been put on pause this year, and this “holiday” is no where near significant enough to needlessly kill people over. stop being so GOTDAMN SELFISH and plan your zoom Kwanzaa or whatever tf. The fact that people are actually traveling across this country to go visit family is so angering to me. Everyone wants to see themselves as the exception to the rule, thinking that getting a negative covid test means that they are safe to do whatever the hell they want to. (is this @KatBlaque? lmfao. she was on that shit too.)
FUCK. NO.
I really have no other words to express how pissed the fuck off I am about this lmao. but I’m angry.
other things that got me angry (lol):
— performative allyship in general, but particularly from Black people. I don’t care about the whytes, they’ve always been useless and I’m not holding my breath for them to get any better. but how the hell are Black people still smoking on some fuckshit? for my university’s Trans Awareness Weeks I was on a panel “Uplifting Trans and Gender-nonconforming BIPOC Voices.” a solid three or four days after the gotdamn panel homegirl text me about a Natural Hair brand’s (that I no longer support) Black Friday sale. then also was like “how you doing, saw you was on a panel.” THE PANEL WAS SPECIFICALLY OPEN TO FUCKING USELESS CISHETS LIKE HER SO THAT THEY COULD BE BETTER INFORMED ABOUT THE NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITY. I could’ve had a blast just chattin it up with other cute trans and non-cis folk instead of airing my trauma for y’all to recognize our presence and humanity. but you chose to keep your head in your ass.
— dysphoria. and with her, the tanking of my mental health. cuz it sucks and why do I feel this way? because fucking cisnormativity. I just want to feel comfortable in my body already gotdammit.
— waiting for Black Friday. I live in a capitalist society and I am poor. I do not have enough money to get all the things I want, so I wish all the brands that I’m looking at would just tell me what their deals will fucking be already so I can figure out how much I’m going to spend and just be done with it already I don’t need all of this motherfuckin anxiety.
— my computer fell out of my lap while plugged in and so the charger is bent and finicky and you can’t just pop up to apple stores no more cuz covid and the earliest appointment was this saturday which i can’t go to cuz work so i can’t go in until next monday. and im pretty sure it’s just the charger that’s fucked up, not the USB port, but im not sure lol.
— my family. y’all don’t needa know why though
If you’re on insta, here’s a link to a post by Charlie Amáyá (they/she) for Trans Day of Remembrance. The last image panel is tagged with trans and gender nonconforming Black and indigenous content creator’s and organizations. Follow and uplift their content.
wasn’t really sure if i wanted to write this, mostly because im not sure if i have anything to write lol.
being ~mentally ill~ is weird. i remember in 10th grade when i first googled “depression.” i was kinda weirded out/felt uncomfortable reading into it, because there was definitely a sense of “that can’t be me!” i was looking for a reason to explain why i was tired out all the time, and maybe also-kinda-sorta concerned about how i kept wishing to get run over on my walk to school every morning.
and somehow i went from kind of being uncertain about being depressed, to actually claiming that shit. and that was beautiful! because once i had a name for something, i could finally work on it! i started reading articles and watching videos and generally just trying to work on “fixing” this newfound problem.
and in the moment i would be like oh yeah, damn, im depressed af. but once i got out of “i want to die 24/7” depression, i became incredibly insecure about my “status” as a depressed person. was i actually depressed, or was this just a temporary depressed mood? i was getting scared that i was too comfortable with depression…where would i be without it?
and so while my thoughts were up and down about depression…i then had to reckon with anxiety.
and i tried aaaalllll the ways to distance myself from “anxiety.” i couldn’t be anxious, that was for white people. anxious about what? money? haha no. that people would see that my world falling apart? that i would get caught sneaking food in the middle of the night? or eating paper towels? or reading and watching videos about trans people? (i did get caught once. was a fucked up and scary moment in time lol). but yeah. there was no reason to be anxious at all, not like i had an authoritarian father who’s presence could be enough to make my soul shake. (i’m going to have to write more about my father at some point in time. a lot of what i write about and talk about him is centered on the pain, trauma, and fear that i felt in his presence and household, but that does not define or even fully encompass how my life was when he was directly in my life. but i’ll get there when im ready to lol).
but for some reason, the biggest barrier for me accepting that i had anxiety…was that i was depressed.
how could i have depression and anxiety at the same time? made no sense. they were complete opposites. in what world would it make sense that i would be too low energy to do work, but also being anxious about not getting work done? how are you going to tell me that my brain could be that contradictory??? impossible.
and i saw what anxiety looked like. anxiety looked like the white girl (one out of three that were in my grade sophomore year of hs) who’s family could afford for her to go to therapy and didn’t have to give class presentations because it would cause panic attacks. anxiety looked like sweating and nervously tapping a pen or foot.
how could i have anxiety if it wasn’t “visible?” if i wasn’t crying publicly, hyperventilating, pulling out my hair? biting my nails?
if my anxiety didn’t look like this, then was i really anxious?
except, i was anxious af. my body was so fucking tense all the time. i constantly had headaches and stomachaches. i constantly, constantly, constantly, had to go to the bathroom. it got to the point where my body was just sending me signals of me having to pee, but i was out of liquid to flesh out (sorry not sorry for that imagery lol). junior year of high school, i was so jumpy people would tap my shoulder just cuz they know i would freak the fuck out.
i didn’t like being touched. no one could touch me AT ALL. my hands were always so sweaty, i hated handshakes. i would run to the bathroom and just stand there like….what? i hadn’t realized how much energy it was taking from me just to BE AROUND other people. walking in the stairwell, sitting in class or the auditorium…the only place where my breaths weren’t super shallow were the five minutes i would hide in the bathroom stall, confused about whether i actually had to pee or not.
but somehow, i still refused to believe i had anxiety. just like i had refused to believe that i was depressed, and would later refuse to believe that i *actually* had pica and general disordered eating, and now….that im bipolar 2.
and i think verb choice is important here. there is a difference between using “to have” and “to be.” and i mean, not an english major, can barely speak this Godforsaken language, but to me, personally, “have” is more like something i own, or a characteristic, an attribute. “to be” is intrinsic, an identity. ser vs estar, i guess.
i mentioned earlier, that i was afraid of becoming “too comfortable” with depression. if i let depression stay around too long…would it become a part of me? and i couldn’t let that happen, because that would be a bad thing right?
but the real truth of it is, not only is my depression not going away, but it influences my outlook on the world, impacts my relationships and how i function as a human being. my depression is a part of me. and kind of like people say there was a life for them before and after marriage, before and after kids, there was a life before depression became an identity characteristic. and no, there wasn’t any specific moment in time, no date, no event. but looking back on my writing during that time period, there is clear evidence that my depression probably became a significant force in my life when i was 15.
i know people like to shy away from diagnosing kids with shit, but i without a doubt believe that ive been depressed since i was a kid. ive had “inexplainable” headaches and stomachaches since i was four–my depression has always had a physical component. and then i was so angry, so explosively angry.
my anger being expressed outwardly probably came to its height in 9th grade.
i will never forget the moment that could’ve changed the trajectory of my life forever. i was angry, angry, ANGRY about being pushed into boxes. my father’s anger translated to my anger in school. and there were many white women to direct it at.
i was tired of being othered from my peers, someone who was “on track to succeed” because I had a single father that wasn’t from this country, excelled at my advanced classes (and also hiding years of trauma??? or maybe everyone else was excelling at ignoring the signs of mental health crises of a poor Black kid. idk, idk, idk).
and so in one of my many displays of anger, i threw my note book in 6th period english composition. it was early in the school year, we were reading of mice and men, and i can’t remember the specific context, like whatever made me so, so, SO angry, but i do know that i knocked over a table, threw my notebook at a wall, knocked over some other people’s papers and textbooks and notebooks to the ground (sorry jailynn and kayla) said something like “fuck you” to the teacher, and walked out.
it was startling, because no one had seen that kind of publicly displayed rage from me, but my whole core was vibrating with anger.
i don’t know what told me to go pick back up my shit, or that it was worth it to “stay in school.” can’t remember that moment. but what i can remember is that that outburst–that was depression.
and i didn’t have that word then, didn’t know that this world of psuedo-being an adult was fueling feelings of despair, didn’t know the effects of poverty that no one really talks about–the lack of stability, as my siblings and i slept on the floor of our aunt’s apartment the nights we had nowhere else to stay (which seemed to be every night), irregular meals, that seemed to be comprised only of white rice and stale knock-off cocoa puff bars, varying access to internet and computers–coupled with the death of an aunt i was extremely close to three weeks before ninth grade began, and the death of another one three weeks after school had started, and how clear it was becoming that me and my body were NOT desirable (i was told that i was too dark to date, and almost too dark to be friends with. so maybe i revoke my apology to kayla? hmmmm). this was a world of complex feelings that i didn’t have any idea how to cope with–i didn’t even know how to name them.
so yeah, ive been depressed forever.
been anxious for awhile too.
but senior year of high school…something changed.
not only had my depression become more intense…somehow, my brain had broken.
brain, body, and soul.
and yeah, i took ap psych, vaguely remember something about the amygdala and fear, but that wasn’t enough to explain the mood disregulation i was experiencing. something was very, very clearly wrong. and this was something i had no idea how to redress.
stumbling across bipolar 2 was harder for me to come to terms with for a different reason than depression. during what im guessing now were mixed episodes, i definitely felt like i fulfilled the “craziness” requirement (this not to dismiss the validity the experiences of people who are bipolar 2 or anyone else on the bipolar spectrum, this is just how ive learned to deal with bipolar 2 as a part of my identity. there’s a lot of stigma around “crazy” which is understandable, and i don’t like people who aren’t me calling me crazy. but, this is also my blog/thought space, so who am i even justifying myself to? stfu negro lmfaoo). but yeah, deadass had a hard time thinking my episodes “actually” counted, especially because i wasn’t having euphoric hypomania.
fast forward through a traumatizing year of mistreatment by the mental health and counseling department at my university, being hospitalized, and being officially diagnosed….i had a word. a name. and yet–still didn’t feel “valid” as a bipolar person.
this is not uncommon for bipolar 2 people. we don’t have the experience of mania that is sensationalized and stigmatized and is seen as the true embodiment of “crazy.” even in bipolar spaces our form of bipolar is seen as “less” since it is not as intense, or whatever. baby bipolar. not as deep. not as legit.
and for a lot of bipolar 2 people, our experience is characterized more by depression than hypomania. we’re under-diagnosed, misdiagnosed, and not worth researching into because we’re mostly women and women power through everything anyhow. lol.
and my bipolar 2 is not cute. i mostly have mixed episodes, aka shitty hypomania. my brain is full of thoughts, and the way they bounce around is incredibly irritating and unsettling. somehow the atoms in my body turn into little balls of fire and stones and spiky rocks and begin bouncing around inside my body, making me extremely irritable, quick to anger, and restless. i cannot sleep, i want to set the world on fire, i can’t focus. it quickly leads to a path of destruction, a desire to destroy everything, including myself. the longer things go on without intervention, the closer i get from reality and recognizing the consequences of my actions. it begins with not really being able to register my volume to not being able to think outside myself to feeling like i am on the brink of what it means to actually exist. lol.
ive only gotten that far, one and a half times. but just in general, it’s a shit all time. i want to be asleep, and i can’t. im not off taking up a bunch of cute little art projects, im up coming up with creative ways to hurt myself and getting stuck in my head. lol
and the unspoken “privilege” that many bipolar 2 people have, is that our hypomanic episodes don’t last that long. at max, a week (but more than 3 days is unusually intense). in that regard, i have to admit that to be bipolar 1 or to be someone who experiences mania or hypomania or mixed episodes for weeks, or even months, on end….that’s shitty af. sorry lol.
and so when i go months being depressed and only depressed…i wonder if im actually bipolar, or just depressed. and then when im hypomanic im like, am i actually bipolar 2, or am i just experiencing really fucked up depressed episodes?
and like my gender, or queerness, or aceness, or depression, or anxiety….hypomania is yet another identity that i feel uncomfortable “claiming” because i feel like i don’t “qualify.”
and i wonder if my “imposter syndrome,” if you will, when it comes to mental health, or anything else, stems from insecurity about my legitimacy of even being alive?? like, do i deserve to be a complex human being? is any part of me being “me” too loud, too outspoken, too needy, too noticeable? somewhere along the line, did it seep into my psyche that i am not deserving of a personhood?
having just come out of a really intense hypomanic/mixed episode, i can’t believe that i’ve ever sat down and been like, maybe im ~making~ this up. because, it’s terrible. every time. it’s terrible.
but that is the power of fear, i guess.
and so i wonder if God continually makes me engage with my queerness or mental health or Blackness or gender to get me to come to terms with it? to own it? to claim it? to love it?
and you might be wondering, why in the world would i want to love hypomania, when the way in which I described how i experience it sounds terrible? (if you think that shit cute, by all means, ask whatever energies you believe in to beset that kinda experience on you. not gonna hold my breath. lol)
but it’s not specifically about the hypomania. it’s more like, the diversity of my experience. because it’s easy to frame a lot of these things as making my life “hard,” as roadblocks to living a happy life, a stable life, of feeling safe.
but if i were to reframe all of these “marginalizations” as “unique characteristics,” then i could tell you that shit has led to a pretty interesting life. an appreciation for life, mine and others. i learn, every day, from my unique identities.
if i learn anything from hypomania, is that it’s time to take a break. she usually comes when my body has been stretched beyond his limits for too long. she’s a sign that things are not alright–i need to sleep, i need to eat, i’m overworked, i don’t feel safe, that there’s pain that needs to be addressed.
being bipolar 2 has also just made me really reflective on how people experience the world. of how so many of us have life experiences that diverge from this mythical “norm.”
and how i want to make space for that. i want to make space for all of us to live n shit n breathe and be, because that’s beautiful.
my psychiatrist always frames my hypomania as a bad thing, something she seems to be scared of even more than my depression. (which, tbh, is much more likely to kill me than hypomania, as i experience it more often). but my hypomania just is. she’s unruly and wild and that’s fine. i think the world would be a beautiful place if we allowed ourselves to accept the different ways of being. instead of being scared of my hypomanic ass, of my seemingly erratic behavior, what if people engaged with that chaotic energy, recognize that there was a need to redirect it? a friend helped me design my dream outfit, and i went from what white women who allegedly have medical degrees call a “crisis” to feeling special and recognized and (dare i say) gender euphoric.
did my hypomania go away? no. but i did get out of the “something is wrong with me” place for a little bit, and into “i am experiencing the world differently” mindset. and then proceeded to play 10!10! for three days straight. still on that ish. beatin high scores n shit. lol.
this was a lot of words, so i guess i did have something to say haha lol. i think writing and sharing these experiences is helpful in me learning to love sometimes-broken-me.
![[image description: dark purple to purple ombre background. Lines of text in the center alternate in the color lavender to deep purple with a white outline. Outlined words are in all caps.
To be/ BLACK/ a/ WOMAN/ and/ ANGRY
end image description]](https://idkjustwordsyameen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/poetic-license-mayaspoken.jpeg?w=1024)
![[image description: digitial drawing of a dark-skinned Black woman from the shoulders up with black hair in a high puff against black background. Instead of a mouth, she has a closed zipper across her face. White text beneath her, enclosed in a white box, reads "Angry Black Girl". end image description]](https://idkjustwordsyameen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/artworks-000513298965-kwict8-t500x500.jpeg?w=500)
idk just words yameen 