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…
“I Write the System” explores how society forces us into separate, binary genders. Intersex people and others who don’t 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 he’d 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 wasn’t 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’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…
