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.
The days have been a challenge and I can only hope that means better times are on their way. I haven’t been my best self lately.
I went to the doctor on Thursday to get an EKG and some blood tests. There doesn’t seem to be any huge concerns other than my sugar being a little high, but they want me to come back soon and do a stress test in a couple months.
I stopped on the way home to mail about 40 press kits and drove by Spy Pond where the sun was sparkling on the water. I’m still struggling to get out. I really should have driven around or went for a walk to take pictures, but I’m struggling with agoraphobia and institutionalization after being kept indoors almost two of the last three years.
I took some photos when I was out, and when I got home, I found that the free editing program I’ve been using was no longer working on my phone. Technically the app went down in 2018, but it still worked on my phone until the other day. I asked for suggestions of good free photo editing apps and was told to try Snapseed and PicsArt, so I gave them a go.
These were the photos I took…
Jymi Cliche in a johnny
I thought that one was kind of cool with the grunge effect. It would make a cool book cover for a psych ward book.
That same day, my parents went to the beach and my mom sent me a picture of her wrapped in the towel I gave her for Mother’s Day from my Wicked Cliche Store.
I did some work on the Wicked Cliche Creative Friends page that features art by a very diverse group of artist from around the world who I call friends.
Please check that out.
I got a gift in the mail from my friend who makes soap. She’s listed last on the Creative Friends page under WickedSoftOrganics. This is the Trans flag one.
I listened to my favorite Nas album, God’s Son on vinyl.
and I cooked this delicious meal….
I cheated and got pre-made sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, but I made the chicken which had salt, pepper, and fresh thyme on it, and was cooked in a sauce made from honey, pineapple juice, Dijon mustard, garlic, and cornstarch, plus pineapple chunks and cashews. It was delicious and easy. I’ll do it again for sure.
Here’s an inspiring song from the God’s Son album by Nas…
Happy Juneteenth, if you can really say that. It seems more like it was made a holiday to shut people up while actual actions to fix systematic racism are not being taken.
