Presenting : two videos of me reading from my upcoming book. It’s an autobiography about my life as an intersex person with Bipolar Disorder and Complex PTSD. The majority of the book takes place before my transition. I am now living as a non-binary trans man. These two chapters take place in the 90’s when I was in high school. I will be showing the second of these two videos directly on Facebook and Instagram Monday night, to get ready for my upcoming book release, which will be somewhere in the next 3-25 days.
I was gonna add photos to the book, but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to, so instead, I’ll put a couple of the photos here, showing what I looked like at the time these chapters were written.
This first chapter I’m sharing is from the end of 1993, when I was fifteen years old and was first put in the psych ward after years of being badly bullied, abused, and giving up on life. I had already made my first suicide attempt a couple years earlier and was still suicidal while also trying to get sober from my early addictions, so my church told my parents to put me in a notorious psych hospital I call “Claymore,” and I dropped out of public school and went in-patient. That is what the first chapter here is about. I made it psychedelic looking to go with the theme, and I decided not to put this one up on FB and Instagram since it is incredibly triggering. Just be warned there is talk of all kinds of triggering shit in this chapter. It’s about an adolescent psych ward, and it’s real.
This is a photo of me at the age I was in the psych ward. Technically, this photo was taken a few months after I got out, but it’s still pretty close to that time.
If you choose to watch both videos, this is the one that comes first. They are around 23 minutes each.
This second chapter, which will be up on Facebook and Instagram, was about a year and a half later, when I was attended my alternative high school. I try to use them as an example of a better functioning, although still flawed system than the main public system.
It’s called Rumors because it starts off with me talking about some of the rumors I heard about myself and why I left public school. I also talk a lot in this chapter about the things I loved at alternative school, including being part of the Boston Pride celebrations as a newly queer person, and finding the LGBTQ world that was still so taboo in the mid 90’s.
The picture was probably a few months before this chapter took place, but still that same time period. I was 16. That photo is from my 16th birthday party.
My book will be out soon. Thanks for your interest. I hope you enjoyed the videos!
I’ve been living with Bipolar Disorder and Complex PTSD for most of my life, and one of the most common things about people with Complex PTSD is that we’ve often been given at least ten other diagnoses, and I have been…
The other day when I went to the doctor over my high pulse and stress, she asked me if I was ever diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. She was very nice and was asking a number of questions, so I told her, yes, that I have been diagnosed but that I don’t believe I was born with a personality disorder. I do think BPD is real and there are people who have that, and I do know I have a few of the symptoms, and used to have a lot more, but that’s the thing… a person with a personality disorder can’t really recover, yet with DBT, I believe the majority of us who are misdiagnosed as Borderline as a result of trauma CAN, and I have in most ways, but I’ve been extremely stressed and triggered lately because the way things are going, my needs are being put last and forgotten about, as per usual because I’m a poor, trans, mentally ill, unemployed person on disability and section 8 who’s at the bottom of society with no money or power or anything giving me any upper hand. I’ve spent my life as a professional lab rat and psych patient and I’ve been destroyed in the process.
When my doctor asked me that the other day, I started asking myself “Why did she ask that? What did I do that made her ask that? Was it my tone of voice? My mania? The fact that I talked so openly about my trauma like it was nothing?” I felt like I’d done something wrong and fucked up for her to ask that. Sometimes I wonder if I DO have BPD since I feel like my life has been a challenge since day one and that people have always been working against me, and that type of belief is common in people with BPD, but let’s examine MY Day 1 in this world. What happened to me that day? My fucking dick was cut off! Okay, so if that’s not traumatic enough, from that very moment on, I was basically brainwashed by my family and society to believe I was a girl, which never felt right, and when I came out about being trans, my family said I brought shame on them and many of them wanted me dead. Then, when I began getting locked up against my will for asking my family questions about my intersex condition that they didn’t wanna answer, they called the cops on me just for asking questions and had me locked up where I was tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted by staff members who wouldn’t allow me to use the men’s room. Then, when I began saying that I thought there were gangs working in almost every type of position throughout the system (because I know for a fact there are) I was given the diagnosis of Borderline, and when I started pointing out who was actually working for the gangs, I got diagnosed with Schizophrenia, and yeah if you don’t know what I know you probably think I’m crazy to say these things about gangsters in the system, but the best way to explain what they do is basically Matt Damon’s character in The Departed. In that movie, he is working for the police, and there are absolutely gangsters working for the police, but the police in and of themselves are a gang to begin with, so that’s not the best example…. but the same way the Mob payed Matt Damon’s character to work as a cop to get inside information, there are secretaries, social workers, hospital staff, janitors, nurses, doctors, security guards, teachers, and others inside the system who are being paid extra to do some illegal inside investigating along with their jobs. I’m not crazy to think this and I’m not a liar or delusional, but I’ve been given these diagnoses to take away the power of my word. All anyone has to say is “he’s crazy” or actually, they often say “she’s crazy” just to piss me off extra, but that is all they have to say. It’s been used against me when I was beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, & harassed. I tried to report it as they said was my right but the staff who did it said I was crazy and that was that. Their word over mine. The police do it to me too. I have absolutely no power except to tell my life story, and that’s what I have done in my books, and why I’m a little paranoid for my safety and afraid to go out. I’ve been scooped up off the street by cops for no reason except that my parents were looking for me and I was locked up for months and nearly sent to a state hospital for two years… so to be asked “Have you ever been diagnosed Borderline?” has me buggin’ the more that I thought about it. Like, I was literally born both male and female, which is as common as being born with red hair. Did you hear that? Yes, it’s THAT common, and yet we have been completely erased from society. Our existence is not acknowledged and when we start to question the extreme corruption going on and the fact that wars are being fought over this issue without it ever being talked about or acknowledged and I’m in the middle of it all, and was born into it, hated by so many from the day I was born, as if I had been marked by the devil, but IIIIIIII have a personality disorder????? I’m sorry but I just don’t agree.
In other news though, here are some photos I took today. I’ve been trying to slow myself down and not do too much so I don’t explode, but it’s been a rough ride lately and I can’t help but feel a bit angry.
This last picture is me cheering for the Red Sox who I can’t watch right now cuz I don’t have cable, but I’m hoping to watch them in the playoffs and World Series.
I haven’t made a blog entry in about a week. It’s been a rough one. I believe in my last entry, I tried to keep the focus on what I was grateful for, and I don’t wanna get carried away with the negatives now either.
I’ve been very busy; so much so that I’m kind of concerned for my mental and physical health. It’s been a real challenge, and lately my health CARE has been the main cause in making my health WORSE, and seeing how I have a history of that, like being sexually assaulted, beaten, tortured, experimented on, drugged, lied to, laughed at, etc. by my health care workers at times over the years, I find it very triggering when my health care is the cause of my stress. To be a professional psych patient for thirty years is not a great life. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to be blessed with many amazing people in my life who help bring me some joy, just as I am blessed to be the type of person who is easily self contained. Give me something to write and draw with, an instrument to play with, a book I’ll like, a good movie, or access to a variety of music, and I’m good for entertainment for awhile. A combination of all those things, and you may never see me again, as has been the case this year. Unfortunately I do need a lot more social time than I’m getting. With as much stress as my old friends used to cause me, I hardly had any rage for all those years when we were hanging out, other than a few times here and there. It seems like so much more the last few years since I kicked them all out of my life and began to put my own life together.
I guess being an artist in a gallery can be extremely stressful for me unfortunately, and all the other stuff I’ve taken on since choosing to give my life an honest shot. Plus, I had a full blown psychosis breakdown just a couple years ago, not long after the art gallery moved from Medford, which was accessible to me, to Allston and Cambidge, which is not. The fact that we may be losing the new gallery in Somerville which is extremely accessible, and forced back into the space in Allston is not helping my stress. The fact that everything regarding our space at The Armory went to shit right before the show I spent five months preparing for and putting a lot of my stimulus money into didn’t help my stress either. Speaking of which, please sign and share this petition.
Other stuff has been stressful too though, as I plan to put out another book that I’m hoping will have more success than The Godchild Trilogy which was not a total failure, all things considered, but I feel I have the potential to do much better, and this next book could reach a lot of people, and my family may not like it, similar to The Godchild, which I was afraid I’d be disowned because of. While that didn’t happen, and the world didn’t end, like I also feared, I don’t know if that was just because of how few people have read it so far. I don’t know if I do end up having some success and begin to get read, if that’ll affect things differently. I suppose things will probably be okay, but I worry. I also mentioned my sister was in the ER last week for a heart issue, and I’ve been having them too, and my pulse was extremely high when the nurse was here the other day. I’ve made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow though, as well as with my psychiatrist and nutritionist. I also weighed myself the other day and I’ve gone down a few more pounds in just a few weeks. I continue to be heading in the right direction with that on a slow but steady pace.
I realized that this month is 25 years since I graduated high school in 1996, from Beacon High/New Perspectives in Coolidge Corner Brookline, in a class of eleven kids, which was the record for the largest graduating class there at the time, yet was doubled with 22 kids the next year, I believe. There were only 44 kids in the whole school, and many never finished. I loved the school, but my last year there was rough after gaining over 100 pounds from psych meds, and a number of traumas and hospital visits and loss of friends and other difficult shit…
Here is a picture of me at my graduation party in 1996 where I was smiling because I was surrounded by friends and family who were celebrating me, but I was extremely sad and chronically suicidal, and on the right is a pic taken a couple days ago, when I was grumpy due to some recent stress, but am overall a much happier person now.
I got away for a few days of sunshine with the family this weekend…
Moo was demanding attention when I got home
I am grateful for my few days away, the good food, sun, fresh air, family time, and my dad got my car inspected for me with a new sticker before I even woke up.
I’m getting lots of work done on the web site, I’ve spent hours working on press kits, I’ve been eating mostly healthy but delicious food, I’m getting support from all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, and life really isn’t that bad, even with all the stress and the recent symptoms that have been bothering me.
One of the ways someone helped me this week was something that I didn’t even need, but I thought I’d ask for help if anyone didn’t mind. My friend Luke went to Newbury Comics and picked up a record I wanted from Record Store Day, and I am now the proud owner of a limited copy of “Peace Beyond Passion” by MeShell Ndgeocello who was one of the only openly queer artists in the 90’s. I love this album, and she is in my top 5 bass players along with Flea, Roger Waters, Victor Wooten, and Les Claypool.
I will leave you with a song from the album and wish you a good rest of the week…
There’s been some stress the last few days, but I’m trying not to let it get to me and I’m being as assertive as possible to get my needs met. There’s a skill in DBT to help with communication and getting your needs met and stuff. There are two sides with similar charts; “asking” for something, and “saying no” to something. On both sides, you evaluate what’s most important, getting your needs met, keeping the relationship good, or feeling a sense of self respect. Depending on what your biggest objective is, this can can change how you ask or say no. Like, if you need a favor from someone and you mention it and they sound unsure… if your objective with that person is to keep the relationship good, and you can find someone else to help you, then you decrease the intensity of asking, but if they are the only person who can help and it’s something you really need, then you increase the intensity of asking. There’s a lot more to it. It involves charts and acronyms and all sorts of stuff, and it takes a lot of practice, but learning to use it effectively can really improve your interpersonal relationships. I found myself using it a lot today, and am grateful for it because I’ve had some challenging moments with people and handled most of it a lot better than most people would have in my position. I was proud of myself, but at the same time, I feel a little guilty about “increasing the intensity of asking”; especially with my mental health worker. She’s the best though and I’m grateful. I’m just feeling overwhelmed by all I do in the world for almost nothing in return.
This is a painting I sold at an art show 3 years ago. Here’s a few other photos from that day…
Tom Tipton: Founder of Out Of the Blue art Gallery
I’ve been doing these shows with the gallery for a few years now. This was when it was located in a house in Medford. Now they’re at the Armory in Somerville, but they need help. You can read about that here…
Today could’ve been incredibly stressful. I won’t get into all the details, but often times, days like these wreck me, yet I chose to laugh about it and shrug it off today. Maybe my weekend away helped, maybe it was the “LA Confidential” weed strain which is good for Bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, and pain. Maybe it was seeing my family or being showered with hugs now that my parents and I had our vaccines. Maybe it was a little sun and fresh air or the somewhat inspiring movie Nomadland that we watched. It was likely a combination of it all. I also found out I lost weight, I got to eat some good food, be social, got some help with my blog, and all kinds of good stuff. Today I got a book in the mail that I thought would be kind of like a how-to book about how to self publish a children’s book on Amazon, but it wasn’t quite as helpful as I was looking for it to be. I skimmed the whole thing, looking for the specific info I wanted, and it wasn’t in there, but he did have a few helpful suggestions. Honestly, I was a little turned off by the fact that even though he kept giving his wife credit for ideas, he kept saying “women are always right” which just rubbed me the wrong way because it reminded me of something my father would say to imply “I don’t actually think women are even close to always right, but my wife makes me feel like I have to say they are or we’ll argue about that too.” I didn’t enjoy that part, but I got a little bit of helpful advice, and one of those things was to make a YouTube channel to use for the books, and so I made a video of myself reading my favorite chapter from my first book, “The Godchild” and uploaded it to my YouTube… Here is that…
I trimmed my beard after I made the video. It was getting a little wild…
better
And here is an interview a blog called TZSBlog did with me awhile back about my Godchild trilogy…
1. Tell us about yourself:
My name is Jymi Cliche. I’m a 42 year old intersex trans man from Boston, Massachusetts in the US. I’m a newly self published author, an artist, photographer, poet, rapper, and human rights activist. I’m Bipolar with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and more than ten other psychiatric diagnoses. I spent twenty years of my life in and out of psych wards. I studied Psychology and Art in college and am still interested in both, as well as popular culture, especially music, but also books, movies, and TV, even though I’ve hardly had time to watch anything lately, or read for fun. I collect vinyl records and listen to music in some form all night while I work on my creative projects. I sleep during the day. I have a cat named Moo who’s been living with me for over fifteen years and I come from a large, close, chaotic family, many of whom live in the Boston area. My art is hanging at Out Of the Blue Gallery where I regularly do art shows and perform poetry and hip hop. I enjoy cooking new and old recipes and doing local Open Mics which have moved to Zoom during quarantine. I spend most of my time alone, which is what I usually prefer, although I do enjoy seeing friends and family and I text people or chat on Facebook, so it’s not like I don’t like people. I’m just somewhat agoraphobic and have severe social anxiety, so not having to go anywhere the last nine months has helped me be more productive. I love swimming at sunset, looking at the stars, enjoying live music, and dancing to shake the bad energy off my soul. I don’t do those things enough though.
2. How did you get into writing and publishing? Was this something you always wanted to do?
Yes, I’ve pretty much always wanted to be a writer. It’s been my goal since I was nine years old, and while I’ve written almost every day of my life, it took a long time before I was ready to write my books. Technically I wrote my first book when I was nine, but it wasn’t very good. I wrote another when I was eleven, and that was terrible too. Both were hand written and were pure childish fantasies, but I enjoyed the hell out of writing them, and I think that’s what was most important. I loved creating something. I had many ideas for books and screen-plays I wanted to write over the years, but they were fictional and I’d come up with a bunch of ideas but not know how to get started and make it work. When I began writing “The Godchild”, it was different. I went through some life changing and eye opening experiences in 2008 and 2010 and I knew since 2010 that I had an epic story to tell… my own. I knew that if I could just tell my story with all the details I could remember, that I’d have mind-blowing book. I started writing it in 2013 and finished a year or so later, but I wasn’t ready to publish. I was scared of the world reading something so personal, and honestly, I still am.
“The Godchild” gets off to a slow start because I didn’t even know where to begin, and I decided to start with where I was, at and go back and forth. It takes about the first third of the first book before the story fully gets going. The majority of the publishers I sent query letters to only wanted the first five to twenty pages, and I knew that even though I was sure the book got better and was worth reading, that they wouldn’t know that. I’m basically a nobody, at the bottom of society, so I expected to be rejected by most, and I was, even though many of the rejections were complimentary. I debated on whether to keep trying, but I wanted the whole trilogy to be released by July 2020, so I decided to self publish and I don’t regret it. It’s still selling and getting great reviews. I just wrote another book this past year which I’m hoping will get the attention of a publisher.
3. How was the writing, editing, and publishing process like for the first book?
It took seven years to write the trilogy, and part of that was because it was written as a journal. In the first book, I went back and forth from current day and into the past to tell the story of my life, so it only took about a year, but the following two books were both about the current day as I wrote them, so I had to actually live my life to find out what was going to happen, and I had to wait until enough happened to make it worth writing down. It was kind of a trip though, because everything that happened was perfect for the story. The books just wrote themselves. Of course, as I was writing my third book, I had extreme anxiety. I had faith that the universe would give me the perfect, epic ending for my trilogy, but I had no idea what that would be. I drove myself crazy with fear about the end of my trilogy coming. Was it the end of my life? The end of the world? I started to fall apart again like I had before I wrote the first two books, but it ended up bringing the trilogy full circle, providing the perfect ending as I had faith it would.
4. How has writing and being an author helped you as a person?
As a person who lived most of my life as a professional lab rat with different psychiatric treatments and medications tested on me since 1993, in and out of psych wards for 20 years, and the last decade slowly recovering after being broken, it’s nice to feel like I did something big and important, and that I count. I’m grateful that my story is being told and heard, and that people get it. It’s given me the ability to say that I’ve got a job and show people that I’m not lazy or stupid or whatever they think when they hear I have mental illness. I didn’t waste my life. It may have been far from conventional, but that’s what makes it such a great story. I have far less shame about existing and sometimes needing help than I once did now that I’ve put out my books. I hope the books will help heal the world, but I’m grateful that they started to heal me first.
5. What advice would you like to give to aspiring authors?
Just write… and live. Don’t compare, just create.
6. How long does it usually take to write a book?
It depends on what kind of book. The book I wrote this past year only took about six months for about three hundred pages.
7. Out of the five books that you have published so far, which is that one book that holds a very special place in your heart?
If I had to pick just one of the five, it would be the first book of “The Godchild” trilogy. It works alone as just one book, where you can’t really pick up part 2 or part 3 and just read those without having read the first one. It was originally going to stand alone, but I realized I had more I needed to say and life provided me all kinds of new material, but the first book of the series is probably the one that means the most to me.
8. What is your favorite place to read and write?
As much as I’d love to sit out on a deck overlooking the ocean or something perfect like that with fresh air and the sound of crashing waves, I do my writing wherever I may be. My books were all mostly written on a laptop computer, facing a corner wall on an extremely messy desk with music playing and my cat staring at me. Similarly, I will read wherever, but last year I found a green leather chair and ottoman tossed out in the trash, so I took it and put it in my bedroom, which is where I like to read before bed when I get a chance.
9. What kind of books do you like to read?
I like a variety of stuff, but memoir is probably my favorite genre.
10. What are you currently reading?
“On Writing” by Stephen King
11. If you could recommend only one book to anyone which book would that be?
The DSM-5. That’s the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for mental disorders currently being used to diagnose mental illness in the US and other parts of the world. I think people would be surprised how many descriptions they relate to and maybe question what “crazy” even means anyway.
12. Are there any upcoming launches that you can share with us?
I’m getting ready to publish my next book, hopefully in September of this year, and then my first children’s book around the winter holidays. I’m also doing a photography and art show about my mental illness from May-June at The Armory in Somerville MA.
13. Do you have any message that you want to convey through this interview?
The world is struggling right now and these are some uncertain times. Almost everyone is questioning their sanity from time to time, and I hope that my story will bring comfort to those who are. It’s an inspiring story of survival and it’s my honest guts and tears. I put myself out there to help others feel less alone.
