MENTAL HEALTH
_genda issue no 2
the zine of the Gender Equality Network
With special thanks to ED I TH E NGLA ND FRE YA BROWN JO SIE HE NLE Y KATE JONE S PHŒBE KI TC HER SIMON O’KA NE SOPHIE T YLER TEDDY SOUTH And of course to all of our contributors who wished to remain anonymous. You have all made this issue special.
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CONTENTS WHEN I WAS THREE FOUR HUNDRED POCKETS YOUR BEST PAL ATTENTION ALLOCATION TRANS OVERCOMPENSATION I’M AUTISTIC - SO WHAT? PUPPET SELF CARE TIPS
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
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WHEN I WAS THREE
W
hen I was three, I didn’t know what mental health was, I was just sad a lot, and I cried when I was sad. When my mother asked what was wrong, I would say “nothing”, and she would tell me not to be a cry baby. When I was six, mental health was the reason my father sat in his chair in front of the telly for hours. He didn’t move or speak. He didn’t hear us saying his name when we were stood right next to him.
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When I was eight, mental health was the reason my dad spent a long time in hospital. I didn’t know what ECT was, but I hated that they did something that left huge bruises on his hand. Mental health was the reason my mum couldn’t let him live with us anymore, why he couldn’t come home. When I was ten, mental health was why sometimes we couldn’t visit Dad at his flat, because his wife was drunk, or at the hospital after another suicide attempt.
When I was eleven, mental health was why I had extra sessions on my own with the family therapist my mum, sister and I were seeing. My mental health was a problem I must have had that needed to be fixed. When I was twelve, mental health was fixed with a smile pasted on my face a week after an overdose. The psychiatrist decided it had just been postviral depression and that I wouldn’t need any follow-up. When I was sixteen, mental health was something to blame me for again, when I couldn’t face starting a new school 500 miles away from everyone I knew except my mum. It was a reason to force me into counselling again, this time at my own expense. I only had two sessions and didn’t get past crying while I related my life story and described my family. When I was twenty two, mental health was the reason I had to stop speaking to my mother, when her delusions about me became too painful, and her recriminations about me shutting her out too venomous. When I was twenty nine, mental health was something I wished desperately I had sought help for before I became a mother. After a week of psychological pain, constant, and worse than any pain from my drug-free childbirth, I talked to a gp about it for the first time. When I told him I felt I’d be better off dead, he told me I was just a bit stressed. I argued, so he put me on antidepressants and told me I’d be referred to the community mental health team. He didn’t explain what would happen or ask how I felt about it. When I was thirty, mental health and self
blame were finally less overwhelming, when I found for myself to the answer of what was wrong with me. I was autistic, and actually not wrong, but different. Not lazy or selfish, but brave. Now I’m thirty three, mental health, autism, and several other things are a work in progress. I’m mostly proud of myself. I can’t wish any part of my life had been different, because I might not have my partner and my daughter. I still struggle, as do so many people I care for. I can wish there was more help for all of us, but I’m thankful it’s no longer just my lonely, ceaseless struggle.
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FOUR HUNDRED TW: RAPE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, TRAUMA
F
our hundred. The police think that I was sexually assaulted four hundred times. When I had a school trip to the imperial war museum, the lady showed us an exercise book full of rows of sticky dots. She told us that a child had decided six million sounded like too much of a blind fact, and that really, when saying how
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many people died in the holocaust, you should say “one, and one, and one…” until you got to six million. When you get to the number four hundred, they fade into one. I imagine it’s similar with people with a lot of pets- they must blur into each other a little bit. Inside your brain is a section called the amygdala, and that holds your trauma. If you get hit by a van on your bike, your brain can’t really handle it, so it keeps it in this special bit of your brain. Different
brains process information at different rates, and the worse the information, the longer it stays in the amygdala. The amygdala is like a confused person - it doesn’t know what time it is, what day it is, where you are, or when it’s appropriate to bring up the things it’s holding. So I can be walking down the street, and my amygdala starts talking to me - “hey, remember that time you got raped? How about that other time?”. And then it’ll throw me back, and I’ll have no idea what year I’m in, and I won’t know that I’m safe. It’s been four years since my last rape, and I have a lot fewer flashbacks now, but that’s not the end of it. My diagnosis is complex post traumatic stress disorder- and the “complex” part means that the rest of my brain is a mess now too. I judge everybody based on how likely I think they are to abuse me - and my brain thinks that most people are quite likely to abuse me. Four hundred, four hundred, four hundred….the track goes through my brain like a heartbeat. When somebody doesn’t understand my point of view, I just want to shout at them. Don’t you understand? I’m still functioning, and I have seen the stuff of nightmares every day. I have woken up in a locked flat, knowing my body was abused whilst I pretended to sleep, knowing that I will not get to feel air on my face or food in my belly that day. And I have bounced the FUCK back up. At twenty five, I have somehow developed a career in which people compete for me to work for them. I am in uni, finishing the degree he took from me the first time.
With no prosecution, knowing he’s still local (and, to my horror, works with vulnerable young people), I have no safety from him every day. But he hasn’t come looking for me yet, so maybe he’s learned his lesson. So when somebody tells me I’m weak, I laugh at them. When somebody tells me I’m a sympathy seeker, l feel glad that they just don’t know. And when the nasty little man in my head starts telling me that I don’t deserve something, I tell him to shut up…most of the time.
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POCKETS BY EDITH ENGLAND “We’ve decided,” she said. “We’re going to have a camp fire tonight. The men will collect the wood. We’ll cut up the vegetables while they’re gone.”
I
was camping with my son’s school. Soon after we’d arrived the women had huddled together, while the men unloaded the car and put up the tents. I was banging in a guy rope, but I took my son by the hand and set off. I found the biggest log I could. I brought
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it back and threw it on the fire. The woman smiled and thrust a chopping board into my hands. “Let the men get the logs,” she said. “Sit down. Your son needs to rest. There’s plenty to do here.” Three years before, I found myself pregnant. I had wanted a child very much, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that this would change my body. I had been binding since I was 14; now it was agony. My body softened, ached. I fell off my bike. “Slow down,” said my
friends. Packing boxes, moving to a proper home, I was exhausted. I started bleeding. “Slow down,” said my doctor. I read baby books. Soft focused, women, in white towelling robes, holding blue eyed babies. I had short hair, mens shirts and DMs. I chose clothes for utility and pockets. I wondered if I should learn to bake, start a garden. I bought washable nappies, committing myself to laundry bleach. I learnt to knit and to thread a needle. My son was born. They called me “Mum”. I wondered who they were talking to. But I was a parent and he needed me. Breast was best. I had to work it out. I wandered the neighbourhood with him in the sling, like the dads did. I dressed him in pink. “That’ll confuse him!”, my neighbour fretted. He was three months old. In the playgrond, toddling, he made for the highest slide. They laughed. “He’s such a boy!”. My world had always been female. I lived in a squat, went to Greenham. These playground women were more exotic than anyone I’d met. They gloated at their husbands’ incompetence. “It’s like having two children,” they sighed. In the park, a father arrived. A hush of approval rose from the congregation of mothers. I shivered. I’d been there for hours. My long hair was whipping my face. Nowadays I wore skirts, coats. I didn’t always have pockets. I realised I was cold. To be mentally well we must be whole. One day my eyes met my own in the mirror. My hair was long. I was wearing a cardigan and sandals. I saw a mother. I saw a woman. I didn’t see myself. To be a genderqueer parent is to belong nowhere. Late at night, in
incognito mode, I read queer theory, intersectionality on the internet. I didn’t find myself. I could be queer, I could prefer women to men but to be trans, to be genderqueer, to fit the whole of my puzzle together, I had to be either male assigned or young. I had to be a free spirit, not encumbered by small people who knew me as a mother. Also, I should photograph well. There was no space for me in queer space any more than in the playground. There is always a turning point. There is always a day you can take no more and things have to change. I met someone new, someone who made me feel like I had been before. I came home. I looked in the mirror. I remembered who I had been, And everything changed. Everything changed because I decided it had to change. I made my own space. With my own hands, a day at a time I hacked into mother space, I burrowed into queer space until there was a place for me. I spoke up. I said no. I decided that a 40 year old could have pink hair, and do karate. I decided I had something to say that mattered. Now my hair is short. Its colour changes monthly. My sewing skills are turning out to be useful in repurposing men’s clothes. I always have pockets. I see myself in the mirror.
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YOUR BEST PAL BY FREYA BROWN
Y
our best pals provide you with comfort, joy, warmth, love, support...they are invaluable to you, and you are often unsure how you would ever get through a day without knowing their love exists! But what happens if we do not enjoy, comfort, warm, love nor support
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ourselves? We scour the crowds, our friends, our family, our colleagues.. Desperately searching for love, validation, acceptance.. But it’s all for nothing. If every night, you still return home and hate yourself... The comfort you seek from others, and the sadness you still end your day with, presents
as a perpetual, torturous cycle of disappointment and frustration. It seems as though nothing external can fill that void you desperately seek to nourish. Why, after all the scraps you have found and eaten, do you still feel sick with hunger? Until you learn to be your own best pal, in all the amazing ways you know a best friend to be, then you cannot possibly enjoy the love that others provide. You will never understand it. You will go home every night and feel that same emptiness. You will suffer, sometimes forever, until you realise that the void you are trying to fill with external objects and people, will always swallow everything up....until you love YOU. That void cannot be filled by others, because it was a void created by the absence of our own self love and acceptance to start with. Thus, only we can return the light to that darkness. Be kind to yourselves, friends. It could mean the difference between living a life of perpetual emptiness, or a life of love and joy. It could mean life, or death, for some! Don’t bully yourself. Be your best pal in all that you do.
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YOU HAVE USED UP THE ATTENTION ALLOCATION ASSIGNED TO FEMALES BY JOSIE HENLEY
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eing a boy is a problem in an all girls school. It was just not allowed. Not for me, nor for Paul. There was a difference between us, though. I complied and he didn’t. I liked my educational psychologist when I was five. She called me Joe.
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Everyone else insisted on Josephine. I saw her several times throughout my primary school years, the last visit at the Day Unit for children with ADHD. I liked it there. It was a boys’ school. ADHD is disproportionately diagnosed in boys. I loved the Tarzan films and believed that I too was muscled and masculine.
A photograph shows me aged 10, bare chested and proudly puffing out my pecs. Later I was made to wear a top in public, differentiating me from the rest of the boys. Daily battles with clothes included what colour spectacles I could wear. The boys that I played with, who I thought of as friends, had begun to treat me differently, to look at me oddly, to want to touch me in ways they hadn’t before. I lost friends. I hated people telling me that I was a girl. I hated girls’ things because I was forced to pretend I liked them. Because I intensely disliked being a girl, I disliked girls, but I was also attracted to them. I couldn’t reconcile this in myself. I had also begun to dislike boys. I got lonely. As a teenager I was violent and on a path to self-destruction. I shaved my head, wore flannel trousers and work shirts, Old Spice, braces and boots. I thought I looked good but no-one else did. I was attention seeking. This label is placed disproportionately on girls. Especially when they demand the attention that boys get. Once you have a label of a mental health problem, any non-compliance becomes part of that problem. My new educational psychologist was also kind and called me Joe. She said that the perfect place for me was a boarding school for maladjusted girls. My name and clothes were replaced. I was forced to grow my hair. I learned to assimilate and act in ways that allowed me to function in society. I learned that being female was tolerable. No-one wants to be inferior but they accept it. I didn’t feel completely right but I was presented with no other option. I
collaborated with my own oppression. I began to identify as a lesbian. I fell in love. I learned to hide in plain sight. Paul was sent there during my third year, but he refused to change his name, refused to accept being called ‘she’ and was very, very angry at being sent to a girls’ school. I was kept from him. I was curious and wanted to get to know him but was chaperoned everywhere for the three days that he stayed. I have always wondered what happened to Paul. I was told that the school “wasn’t the right place for her”. I imagine he was probably sent to a psychiatric unit, where children with extreme problems would go if they couldn’t fit in with us. As a feminist, I have wondered whether I perhaps didn’t have ADHD at all, but that I had been acting as an ordinary boy and this was interpreted as a problem in a girl. It’s clear to me now though, when I examine my behaviour patterns, that I do have ADHD. I feel lucky that I got a diagnosis as a child. I now identify as non-binary. I still have ADHD. I also have anxiety and depression, which is linked. For my whole childhood I was told that my own experience was wrong, that I was ugly and not right in the head and was repeatedly beaten. It’s hard to imagine I would survive without a mental health problem. I find it difficult to see these three aspects of myself in any way other than in interaction with each other. Being trans* isn’t a mental health problem. Living in a world where there is no other option than to act as something you’re not can give you a mental health problem.
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A ROUGH GUIDE TO TRANSGENDER OVERCOMPENSATION BY KATE JONES
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indsight is such a wonderful thing. If I look back at my life I guess it’s fair to say a huge amount of the decisions I made were fuelled by my gender dysphoria. I knew I couldn’t tell anyone I was really a girl. Reading this previous sentence back made me laugh out loud because
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it sounds so ludicrous. At the time it did feel as though my world would come crashing down around me if indeed Tom, Dick or Harry ever found me out. You hear stories of young transgender girls playing with their sister’s dolls, wearing their mother’s high heels and generally not being the boy assigned
at birth. This definitely wasn’t me. I was running scared, no one could ever find out my secret. The consequences were too frightening to consider. For me, overcompensating did not mean doing masculine stuff but instead it meant excessively avoiding anything feminine as this helped with my allconsuming fear of being “found out”. Classic examples of this were, as a child, playing war using pieces of wood as guns. I enjoyed playing this very masculine game with the other boys in the street not because it was fun but because no one would ever suspect Kev was a girl. It also took my mind off the constant pressure of feeling different. As my childhood progressed this overcompensating became my “go to” remedy for dealing with the storm that was raging inside my head. Upon starting secondary school I threw myself head long into my overcompensation. I instantly made a bee line for the jocks. My mind-set was that I wouldn’t get bullied if I hung out with the cool guys. I joined all the sports teams though I was pretty mediocre at most of them and definitely got in with the wrong crowd. I was the boy that never was and no one suspected a thing. Then along came puberty, to a transgender person this is a total nightmare. Again I just blocked it all out and became more of a lad. One of the small benefits to this was I didn’t have any trouble talking to girls because I was one! “Kev Jones, he’s so lovely”. Plenty of girlfriends followed and I actually became quite popular in years 10 and 11 but I didn’t want a girlfriend; all I wanted were girls to be friends with. It was a very confusing time for me and
as a consequence my studies began to suffer. After leaving school I discovered the ills of alcohol and drugs. Something to completely take my mind off of my problems and I thoroughly kicked the ass out of both. I could go into graphic details regarding my excessive partying but that’s definitely a story for another day! Needless to say I spent the majority of the next ten years feeling unfulfilled in the workplace, partying hard and definitely being a lad in the truest sense of the word. In my late 20’s I met a lovely woman in Nat. We married and had a family. The overcompensating moved in a completely new direction. Having children is such a wonderful way to focus the mind. I had found something positive I could plough my energy into. Then along came kickboxing, running and starting a business. It was all about keeping my mind occupied so I didn’t have to think about my gender issues. Unfortunately it didn’t last; the selfdestruct button was pressed again. Back on the booze and the gear, and unfortunately destroying my marriage in the process. In December 2014 I discovered my wife had been having an affair with a good friend. How did I feel? Pissed off? Nope, I felt a massive sense of relief as they had done me the biggest favour of my life thus far. The prison cell door had finally been unlocked and Kate was free to go.
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I’M AUTISTIC SO WHAT? BY SIMON O’KANE
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utistic spectrum disorders vary extensively, ranging from classical autism, where those affected find it extremely difficult to communicate at all, to mild Asperger’s syndrome, which often goes undiagnosed. Like all people, autistic people are unique individuals; hence
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autism manifests itself in many different ways. My diagnosis is high-functioning autism, which falls somewhere in the middle of these extremes. Most autistic people lack either the communication skills or the confidence to be able to talk about what it’s like; I therefore feel somewhat duty-bound to do so.
I consider myself lucky to have been placed in mainstream education when back in the 90s this was rare for people with my type of autism. I was incredibly needy towards a few adults in my life and rather distant from others, but I grew into one of the more academically able pupils in my primary school. I never made any true friends in primary school, but got on well with a few children; in secondary school I made a couple of lasting friendships, although I keep in touch with others. In sixth form I grew less reliant on special support staff, became more socially adept and was somewhat liked, but I could never break into the core of a friendship group. At university, my outlook became much more positive. The change of environment, entering a new crowd who didn’t know how odd I used to be, did me the world of good. I dived headfirst into the SU societies; singing, roleplaying and fundraising became new passions in my life. My involvement in these activities, combined with my enthusiasm for my course and eagerness to befriend random students, meant I would soon regularly attract the comment “you know everybody.” I took my own notes in lectures and the amount of mentoring support I needed tapered down to one hour a week, although I still needed special exam arrangements. Although being autistic disables me in many ways, it enables me in others: it means I seldom get embarrassed, I can speak confidently in front of people and I’m not afraid to say what I think. It also helps me feel confident in who I am and resist the pressure of conforming to stereotypes. Autistic spectrum disorders have been linked with exceptional
memory and talent in mathematics, science and engineering. Downsides for me include poor concentration, some odd behaviour in public, a tendency to over-analyse absolutely everything, feeling guiltier than I need to, always having an obsession with something and an annoyingly persistent lack of any love life whatsoever. One of the reasons university was such a positive experience for me is that the University and Students’ Union were so supportive. Leaving that environment is going to be hard. I have to be honest and say BGEN has filled that void to a large extent. I don’t know of this is a good or bad thing but you’re awesome and make me feel so welcome. I’m proud to be part of a society that has worked hard to integrate disabled people and rejected the far simpler (yet far more costly in the end) option of throwing them on the scrapheap. If we do not accept people who are different, we miss out on different points of view, hidden talents and innovative solutions to problems.
Originally written for bathimpact volume 12, issue 1, page 6. Major changes have been made to the fifth paragraph for relevance to _genda. Shortlisted for bathimpact Article of the Year 2010/2011.
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PUPPET BY TEDDY SOUTH 30/08/2015
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I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can barely move. I have to fight to keep myself inside my own head from floating away and bumping into the ceiling. If I slacken for a moment I can feel myself slipping. My hands become foreign, my voice, my face, my eyes... Even the sounds around me become hollow and false nothing matters except it does this is real this is my life why does it feel like a dream? Why do I doze with my eyes open Why do I wake but continue to sleep Why do I feel so wrong Why am I so afraid I get up and walk, but my body remains Petrified under some hateful spell If only my breathing would stop too but it doesn’t anchored to this strange fleshy puppet, he lies still, unwilling to move and I cannot move him. I become intangible. I fly above him, and tug and strain and shout. Nothing happens, and no one can hear. Eventually, we merge, and I am myself again. But every day, if I allow my mind to wander, or my eyes to settle somewhere without purpose My mind threatens to evaporate, and cut the strings that hold my puppet aloft.
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SELF CARE TIPS FROM THE GEN’S! COMPILED BY PHŒBE KITCHER 1. Tidying my room always makes me feel a thousand times better.
5. Get some daylight. Even if it’s just through the window.
2. Take a bubble bath with a good book and just ignore the world for a bit.
6. Go out for a cross country run, especially in winter. Just me and the trail. Helps to focus the mind and push out negative thoughts. It’s great for mental and physical health.
3. Pet your dogs! 4. Have a shower, put on some wool pyjamas and make a cup of tea.
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7. Always talk positively to yourselftalk to yourself as you would talk to a best friend. 8. For me, because “relaxing” stresses me out I try finding an activity that is nothing to do with my daily activity (I used to do pole classes and circus classes at uni, which was very different to being sat at a computer studying law. After uni I then got heavily back into reading and video games when I was working on an outdoor show, etc.) 9. Allowing yourself to indulge in your favourite food or snack. 10. Writing to do lists (even with everyday things like “have a shower” on) stops me feeling overwhelmed, calms my anxiety and makes sure I look after myself :) I LOVE LISTS!
rounds do me the world of good when I can psych myself up to doing it. 20. Doing my washing and having a nice cup of tea while watching Gilmore girls. 21. In case of depression: • Make sure you’ve taken your meds if applicable and you’re hydrated. • Sleep. • Make contact with someone. 22. In case of anxiety: • Make sure you’ve taken your meds if applicable. • Listen to a familiar podcast or read a familiar book. • Tell someone, make contact. • Accept help when it’s offered. 23. Switching my phone and all other technologies off. Freedom!
11. Go for a long, slow walk and put my favourite tunes on.
24. A cup of tea and an episode of Gilmore Girls.
12. When I’m feeling a bit down I get out for a walk and be around people can make you feel a lot better. Sometimes simple things can help.
25. Sleep, and lots of complex carbs.
13. Meditate xx. 14. Make a to do list!! 15. Getting enough proper sleep, and making sure you have a good routine to get to sleep! 16. Hide under my duvet & scream very very quietly. 17. Any sort of escape is good, I like films. 18. A shower or bath and clean sheets on the bed. Just makes you feel all brand new. (and less gross if you then stay in said bed for 3 days.)
26. Have a nice hot soak in the bath. 27. Eating properly and drinking healthy 28. A good playlist. • Having a shower. • Going for a walk outside. • Drinking a glass of water. 29. Having alone time with a book / cats. 30. Switching off electronics at a set time each evening and making time to tidy / read / shower / make to-do list / colour in / make hot chocolate, for half an hour or so before going to bed.
19. Yoga - a couple of sun salutation
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_genda is a zine lovingly made by writers, artists, and campaigners from the Gender Equality Network If you like what you see and want to get involved:
zine@thegenderequalitynetwork.com