got a bite on my book from a publisher but would have taken months to years so I decided to self publish again
found, created, and cooked new recipes
lost 50 pounds
visited with koda
went swimming
walked in the woods
went to Robin’s Farm Park to take photos
went to the graffiti spot a few times
created new digital art
sold a couple pictures and some stickers
participated in a spirituality group
practiced meditation
broke up with a sort of toxic boyfriend
better learned how I want to be treated
talked to a friend about maybe wanting to know them better
wrote a few songs and poems, including a poem about “The Godchild”
spoke up about mistreatment in a number of health care and housing situations
had my apartment inspected and rejected several times and dealt with the fear of having to move, which would have been a huge downgrade most likely if not homeless
visited my parents a few times
made many new friends
saw a few good movies and shows including “Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom”, “Kid90”, “Disclosure”, “Legend of Korra”, “Summer Of Soul”, “His Dark Materials”, “Cobra Kai”, “13th”, “Da 5 Bloods”, and now trying “Sweet Tooth”
tried all kinds of new delivery places I loved
learned to start wearing masks or face shields when i went places despite the anxiety attacks
got vaccinated
dealt with severe mental health symptoms and all kinds of extreme stress, daily triggers, and so on, and I am still here
started learning keyboard and got a little better at bass
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!
This time last week, I was settling in with my boyfriend on our first night together in two years when he came to visit for 5 days. It was a great opportunity for me to take a break from the stress, socialize, get out, do some fun stuff, listen to some of my favorite albums, watch my favorite movies, and eat my favorite foods…and share them with him, of course. We had a blast. At first my transition back into the daily grind was off to a difficult start and I had a meltdown three days in a row, but the Universe sent me a little sign at the very least, if not some great news, that one of the publishers I sent a query to wants to take a look at my full book. I don’t know if I’ll go with them or not, if they even choose to go with me, but if they do, it will depend on a number of things. I wrote down all my questions tonight, just in case, but I don’t know what to expect. I’m just grateful I got a letter back that wasn’t a rejection. That’s a good sign I’m doing something right.
The rest of this post will be the manipulated photos from my staycation… I took and altered all of the photos, except for the ones of me in the water, which were taken by Koda but altered by me…
I’ve been working on some promotional art and my book cover. Here’s what I have so far. The first picture is something I made using the art of the original book cover in which I decided not to go with, but I put a lot of time into it and thought I could still use it to promote…
āI Write the Systemā explores how society forces us into separate, binary genders. Intersex people and others who donāt fit into society often fall through the cracks and suffer great trauma, which for Jymi Cliche led to a life of dependence on the very system that abused him from day one, when he was operated on at birth and conditioned to believe he was female.
The book begins with Jymi at age four, exposed to the system for the first time through nursery school, where he knew right away that heād never fit into this world. The story follows him through school, friendships, addictions, the mental health system, and too much trauma to handle at times. It wasnāt easy for him to rise from the ashes of the constant disasters going on around him and begin to put his life back together. He has dreams of being successful one day, but is still fighting Complex-PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, and a number of other severe diagnoses, along with being a non-binary trans man in the binary system.
Using dark humor and inspirational stories to balance the trauma and struggles, Jymi offers ideas for change and a message of hope. His memoir encourages the idea that in time, things can get better, even if it feels impossible.
Here is the cover… It’s an androgynous baby photo of me in the late 70’s and the layout is meant to resemble a political campaign poster, as well as a classic rock concert poster, and the colors are meant to resemble the pink and blue on the trans flag, but I don’t really like pastel and didn’t want it to look like a baby book, so I darkened it. It is also sort of meant to loosely resemble the American flag, which really doesn’t mean all that much to me, so I am okay with altering it, but I am talking mostly about the American government system when I talk about “the system”.
I’ve done about 14 edits on it and plan to do one more before I prepare to upload it for its September 11th release date…
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…
I’ve been busy with a number of things this week. I had the art show Saturday, an appointment with Nikki Sunday, I think I cooked and cleaned Monday, the nurse came Tuesday and I had a friend stop by that night, I had a call with Nikki Wednesday, and yesterday I had a zoom with the nutritionist. Tomorrow I have Jen coming by for what I think is my last appointment with her, and then I was supposed to go up to see my parents this weekend, but it looks like that’s not gonna happen due to the weather, but they might be coming to see me, and then I’ll see Nikki again Sunday, yadda yadda. Time just keeps flying by. I made these stickers a couple nights ago and offered 6 for $10 and a new friend ordered a pack. I made a few more that I didn’t take pictures of and am sending them out later today.
Today is my boyfriend’s birthday, and we talked more of our plans when he comes to visit in July. I’m looking forward to that. I had fun with my friend the other night too. He is an artist I know who I relate to a lot and had a great time hanging out with him. There is also someone in my neighborhood I’ve been meaning to see again too. There are a number of new people in my life I’d like to maybe see now that we can hang out with people but I also don’t wanna do it so early on with the restrictions.
He brought these cool beers and we just hung out talking, which I need. It helped lift my mood a lot to have the social time with him and the event Saturday.
I’ve been busy with all sorts of projects, including the fact that despite the fact that I keep saying I finished my new cover, I keep changing things.
That’s a photo of it on my computer screen. It won’t be blurry like that, and I have to center it better and possibly change the font, but I think that’s what it’s more or less gonna look like.
I finished my 8th edit of that same book and it’s shaping out nicely. I’m getting ready to start writing a one page description of the book to send out as a press release with stickers and business cards. They won’t be as big of packets as I did for The Godchild… no 8 pages of reviews and quotes, probably no prints, and then I’ll do one original sticker and I’ll possibly buy cool random fun stickers in bulk, or if I can get professional stickers of my logo made in bulk for fairly cheap, I may do that instead.
I’ve realized I probably won’t get around to my next book for a couple years. I wanna redo and re-release the first Godchild book first, and I’ve actually been going through that and taking notes on what to keep, what to purge, and what important things I need to keep in the story from the stuff I purge. I plan to completely redo the beginning. There’s so much unnecessary shit and so much important shit I somehow managed to leave out completely, so I’ll give the first 1/3 of the book a complete makeover.
Here’s me and Moo. Aren’t we cute?
Don’t mind my ADD. I’m listening to jazz right now but I did a couple new hip hop videos for tiktok. The link is through Instagram though since that’s where I have more followers. I’m trying to get ready for the upcoming open mic.
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. Iām a 42 year old intersex trans man from Boston, Massachusetts in the US. Iām a newly self published author, an artist, photographer, poet, rapper, and human rights activist. Iām 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 Iāve 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 whoās 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 itās not like I donāt like people. Iām 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 donāt do those things enough though.
2. How did you get into writing and publishing? Was this something you always wanted to do?
Yes, Iāve pretty much always wanted to be a writer. Itās been my goal since I was nine years old, and while Iāve 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 wasnāt 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 thatās 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 Iād come up with a bunch of ideas but not know how to get started and make it work. When I began writing āThe Godchildā, 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 tellā¦ my own. I knew that if I could just tell my story with all the details I could remember, that Iād have mind-blowing book. I started writing it in 2013 and finished a year or so later, but I wasnāt ready to publish. I was scared of the world reading something so personal, and honestly, I still am.
āThe Godchildā gets off to a slow start because I didnāt 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 wouldnāt know that. Iām 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 donāt regret it. Itās still selling and getting great reviews. I just wrote another book this past year which Iām 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, itās nice to feel like I did something big and important, and that I count. Iām grateful that my story is being told and heard, and that people get it. Itās given me the ability to say that Iāve got a job and show people that Iām not lazy or stupid or whatever they think when they hear I have mental illness. I didnāt waste my life. It may have been far from conventional, but thatās what makes it such a great story. I have far less shame about existing and sometimes needing help than I once did now that Iāve put out my books. I hope the books will help heal the world, but Iām grateful that they started to heal me first.
5. What advice would you like to give to aspiring authors?
Just writeā¦ and live. Donāt 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 āThe Godchildā trilogy. It works alone as just one book, where you canāt 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 Iād 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?
āOn Writingā by Stephen King
11. If you could recommend only one book to anyone which book would that be?
The DSM-5. Thatās 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 ācrazyā even means anyway.
12. Are there any upcoming launches that you can share with us?
Iām getting ready to publish my next book, hopefully in September of this year, and then my first childrenās book around the winter holidays. Iām 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. Itās an inspiring story of survival and itās my honest guts and tears. I put myself out there to help others feel less alone.
