Looking in the mirror, picking the parts that I wish would disappear. The hair on the top of my lips, on my arms, legs. How skinny my arms and legs are. Feeling a level of disgust towards myself, some thoughts of wanting to just rip those parts of me off and replace them with something that would make me happy.
Those thoughts have dwindled in time, they were at a point in time I really didn’t like myself a lot and was still figuring out who I truly was and because I couldn’t I was hateful towards myself. I would dig my nails into my skin if I looked at myself too long, getting angrier at myself, that I couldn’t be who I wanted to see in the mirror looking back at me. But to be honest I don’t think I would have ever been happy with who was looking back at me.
When trying to think back to that time and either putting it into words or giving some sort of release for the memories I struggle. A lot, I highly doubt this piece will give justice to what I thought at the time or what I even think of it now. For Trans Awareness last year I made pieces based on those memories, it felt like the first time I could really put my feelings into something and it didn’t come from any sort of planning. I feel like my thinking is well, not thinking. I have this impulsiveness towards myself, that anger was definitely from build-up whether it was from my family or school. So naturally the best way I could show those emotions was through impulse. Not to plan what I was going to draw, it just all came out and I’m still proud of what I made.
The same thoughts that swarmed my mind when drawing was that disgust I had for my body. That feeling of those parts being torn from my body into a bloody rage. The parts that make me feel so boxed into being someone I was never happy to be. To show that hate I had towards my body not as a way to say I still do, because I don’t, but as a way of healing and showing to myself that I am not that person anymore. I do still look in that mirror and if I do look for too long I will feel some disgust towards those same features, but it isn’t damaging to myself.
From those memories I have this sort of odd relationship to violence and those feelings very much exist outside of the memories too. I had moments where I was really turned off from the thought of gore or violence, it was something I couldn’t interact with for a multitude of reasons and since it has been coming to understand my boundaries and from that, an understanding of who I am. It’s a journey and one (1) I am still on, one (1) that has become easier as time has moved on.
I think that journey has become easier as I have taken the steps to interact more with my thoughts as a whole. I struggle a lot and I don’t intend to talk about the thoughts that aren’t related to what I want to talk about here. But the journey has been the same and that has been figuring out who I am and from that everything has been falling together since. Like when you’re playing Zuma and when you mix a colour together and colours after that mix together causing a combo. It just all kinda worked out.
I’ll start with the steps towards figuring out myself and what that felt like to me to add context to what came after. As I mentioned I’ve had *thoughts* towards myself and that came from the fact I was trying to figure out who I was in a lot of ways. I remember in 2019 coming out to one (1) friend as non-binary but my mind was swarming with all these thoughts. Was I actually non-binary? Am I only doing this because all my closest friends were trans and I felt like the odd one (1) out? What would my family think? Would I ever tell anyone and just live in secret? There was a lot going on and I never knew what to really think of any of it, it was so much that I got so scared of it that I said I wasn’t non-binary anymore.
That was when I still struggled with those emotions and as a result of putting myself back into a box I didn’t want to be in, they got worse. There came a deep hatred for all I was, I would get angrier easier. Punch myself in the face, hit my head against the walls in the hope it would cause damage. Not standing the sight of myself but wanting to feel the anger against myself that I would look anyway. As if it was an excuse to feel some hatred towards myself. I can’t really recall how I got out of it to the point where I did come out as non-binary again and ever since it has stayed that way. Perhaps at some point I became so tired of the constant self-loathing that I stopped caring what I even thought of myself and a part of me said this is what is happening now. That impulse I tend to have and for once, it changed me a lot for the better. But I could never pin all that on just myself and I will get to that eventually I promise.
I think that’s where the road to healing properly started. As I said I had a weird relationship to violence and from then I have been working on my boundaries towards what I interact with and how I interact with them. As for someone with a deep love for horror it would be incredibly hard to not interact with that as my love for it did not dwindle, there was just a fear that it would set me back in ways. Games I used to adore and play a lot became ones I would keep a distance from for those reasons. But working on realising who I am and in turn with thoughts towards myself I fixed those doubts and relationships with that art. Giving myself control again, not feeling so helpless and out of control was revitalising. A game like Bloodborne stopped being a fear as any morself of violence or death might have set me back several steps and become an outlet for that anger.
It Is odd to say that violence has become a core part of me in some way. Both in its history and I view it as empowering now that I can interact with it so much and not fear that decline mentally. I don’t view Bloodborne as a distraction, that if I stopped playing at that time I would become hateful again towards myself. It was a way of coping and through that I have only been able to improve. It’s why I’m drawn to such games like Darkest Dungeon, Dark Souls, DOOM and ULTRAKILL.
To me it felt like it put my anger into a way to ground myself back into the world and breathe again. I don’t think I could ever put it into words what ULTRAKILL means to me in terms of gender identity. I definitely relate my history with anger to who I am today and not in a way where I am hateful towards everyone I meet. Cause what the fuck. Because at this point that anger is history and is not something I have felt at all in recent years, becoming more grounded with myself and how I view myself and what my identity is has been paramount for moving beyond those feelings. It’s freeing and powerful to me.
The other side of that is I wouldn’t be who I am today at all without the support of my friends and they continue to make me want to be the best person I can possibly be. I will not make it a secret that I love my friends and from that love I became so much more comfortable being me. My family is my family and in hopes that they never read this, I will say their thoughts of me are meaningless. They can think whatever. I learnt that it only really matters what I think of myself and that sort of love taught me it’s okay to let others be close to you.
My partner is the person I trust the most in the world, their love makes me feel like I can be happy with whoever I am and from that I have become so much happier with my body and how I perceive myself. Because of them I have a much better outlook on myself and the others around me and want to be better for everyone I can be. That is something I hope can become apart of me the way that that anger was a part of me. The anger being my history and love being who I am for now and the future, until I die.
When I used to look in the mirror I would think so much of what was wrong, I would want to tear into my skin and pick myself apart. Now I look and feel good about who I am, not feeling that hatred and instead feeling a hope that I will continue to work on becoming more and more who I want to be. I’ve come into 2022 with happiness and love for myself and the people around me and I will do my best to share that with them for as long as I can.
I don’t feel like I’m in a box anymore, I am me and that only matters to me.
