Burnt Out & Neurotic: The Toll of Blogging While Ace and Mentally Ill
Over the course of the past few years or so, I've had no choice but to come face-to-face with the fact that I'm not exactly the spitting image of mental health. That, in fact, I never have been, having struggled with persistent depression and social anxiety for years, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. As such, debilitating depression/anxiety isn't new to me. Simultaneous burnout and mental breakdown on account of blogging was, however.
landscapes and fissures: navigating ace terminology in Japanese & English
the following post was written for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on the subject of “Nuance & Complexity“. it may or may not be cleaned up and cross-posted to the YouTube channel Queer As Cat in the future. —— some feel that people in (English-speaking, anglophone) ace communities are “overthinking” things. that the amount of words and identities (also referred to as “microlabels”) which have been coined in such communities is not only “overdoing it,” but even potentially harmful. i’d hope that this would go without saying (but understand that it doesn’t), that i disagree with the former and vehemently reject the latter. regardless of whether i or you or that random person over there petting the stray cat that’s out in the street right now feel such terminology to be useful to us personally, the fact remains that others do and there is immense value in that.
just the one.
as someone who can count on one hand the number of people they’ve ever had intense feelings for over the course of 32 years of this thing called “Life” and still have fingers to spare, can i just say that this whole intense feelings thing is an adjustment? with a learning curve, apparently, because what little past experience i have feels like nothing in comparison, and yet has still managed to do nothing but hinder me in the present. might as well only count the one finger. yes. that finger. because fuck you, ghosts of relationships past that still haunt me to this day.
that feel when no words
that feel when you finally have a use for relationship terminology, but none of it makes sense to you because all of it is predicated on the assumption that you subscribe to the dichotomy of “romantic” vs “[queer]platonic”– not to even mention the equally taxing concept that is “alterous”.
whiteness as default
as usual, i find myself turning to YouTube as a resource for information only to be reminded that…. YouTube is So Damn White. most things non-binary and / or trans are So Damn White. a search for “non-binary” and “testosterone” turns up almost nothing but skinny, short haired, white, non-binary people, none of whom i can really see myself in. which is nothing new. that’s part of the reason i’m on YouTube in the first place. beyond that, a bigger problem that i find myself faced with is that the very image / concept of “androgyny” or stereotypical “non-binary appearance” is inherently linked to whiteness. i want people to pause before they misgender me (seeing as how they will inevitably misgender me regardless) and the best way to bring about that is, presumably, androgynous appearance. however, androgyny feels unobtainable to me as a black person, because no matter what i…
a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian
…soooo, i just had a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian guy at Starbucks and i need to let off some steam. so, as you’d predict, i met random Nigirian guy completely randomly when i got off a train one night after work and he came chasing after me to strike up a conversation. me being the overly nice person that i am who finds it hard to say “i’m tired, go away.” ended up engaged in a short conversation with him. he seemed like a nice enough guy and i couldn’t help but feel for his situation of being the sole non-Japanese person at his workplace and not having anyone to talk to because he can’t speak Japanese. when he asked to keep in touch after i finally got up the nerve to tell him i had to go i obliged, although i knew well enough by now not to…
Feedback: “I’m sure there are plenty of other trans people who want to be visibly trans…”
anonymous said: On the visibility thing- I am a trans person who wants to be proudly and visibly trans, mostly because I’m genderqueer and there isn’t really a way to “pass” as gq, so being seen as cis is automatically misgendering me. So I try to be as “nonpassing” and obviously trans/queer as possible. And I’m sure there are plenty of other trans people who want to be visibly trans, otherwise stuff like trans pride shirts and such wouldn’t exist, no? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by visibility? ( re: this post ) i agree with you, anon, that there are a lot of people who want to visibly subvert and / or defy the assumption that they are cis a man / woman or otherwise a binary gender that they are not– especially among those for whom (as you pointed out) “passing” as their gender (or lack thereof) is…
Q&A: “how would a person go about separating gender identity and presentation?”
anonymous said: hey there! i just came across this blog, so im unsure where to look or search. how would a person go about separating gender identity and presentation? i personally when i first learned about feminism, i immediately understood no actions, feelings, way of dressing/presenting signified anything about gender. though it’s maybe left me a bit lost now (currently i recently started using the label neutrois lesbian, and only feeling “feminine” or “womanness” when i thought of my attraction to women)? hi anon, i feel like it’s worth pointing out that not everyone does view their gender as being separate or independent of how they present or express themself. and that’s okay. some people do feel like how they present / express themself is reflective of their gender or vice versa. there is a push now to draw a clear line between these two things, but not everyone feels…
missiles and tweets.
….it’s 6:44am, i have to get ready for work, no time to recount things for Tumblr so just screencapping, but like. if the news of this ever makes it to the US enough for the US government who is responsible for Japan’s military defense to actually care, just know that i’m okay but just like what the fuck right now and i do not look forward to whatever shit response the Cheeto eventually puts out that just makes things even worse for people on my side of the world.
QAC 58 – Escaping Womanhood || Non-Binary | AFAB | Internalized Misogyny
as a non-binary person who was deemed to be female at birth, i have struggled all my life with what others consider to be my “womanhood”. when women have fought so hard to progress gender equality to where it is today, asserting that there is no wrong way to be a woman because women can do and be anything– juxtaposed against the continual struggle of trans women and some non-binary people just to have their womanhood recognized and respected– it is incredibly hard not to see my own rejection of womanhood as anything other than internalized misogyny. it certainly doesn’t help that society in general, but women especially, are often more than happy to write off my gender as being nothing more than internalized misogyny. i mean, given how awesome women are but how misogynistic society is, obviously any disconnect i feel with womanhood must be a result of internalized…
