BODIES - A Zine

1

Bodies explores the fragile relationship between

body and mind. How our bodies work and look can affect our mental well-being and how our minds operate often has a direct effect on our physical appearance.

In November 2017, I asked for submissions of poetry and prose up to one thousand words. The only requirement I had was that the “body pieces” had to be autobiographical. The following were some suggestions as to which topics could be covered for Bodies: “[...] write about how you came to accept your flaws, how you learned to love your body, how you’re still struggling to accept certain parts of your body etc.

You could also pick one part of your body and fully focus on that. If, for example, you have chronic leg pain, I want to know how that affects you and your everyday life. If you’ve struggled with mental illness, write about how that made you look at your body. If you cut off all of your hair and experienced changes in how others treated you or how you looked at yourself, tell me about it.”

The positive responses my call for entries triggered on facebook were followed by submissions about body dysmorphia, ulceritis colitis and head trauma, amongst others. Reading them felt like a special 2

3

privilege and an honour. My own struggles with sharing my “body piece” made me emphasize with each of the writers sharing their texts.

It’s hard being open about mental illness, or even just admitting what we don’t like about ourselves. We worry that others will focus on those “ugly” body parts, that we’ll be seen as “freaks” or that somewhere, someone in a higher position will find out we’re struggling with mental health issues and won’t hire us. Our struggles with our bodies and our minds can have devastating effects on our careers and our private lives. Understandably, some writers want to remain anonymous and have picked pen names. I am proud of them for sharing their most intimate thoughts with us.

Slowly, tenderly, with openness comes change and healing.

Though being open with each other is often not enough.

We need more mental health professionals, we need better training for doctors and nurses, and we need more free support systems for those of us who are struggling. I’ve put together a list of mental health organisations and charities in the UK which you can find in the back of this zine. Mental health issues are as common as physical afflictions like diabetes or cancer. Let’s treat them like it. Normalise them.

Remove the stigma.

And be kind. Always be kind. <3 Ragna

4

5

Therèse Hardy, No Need To See

pg8

Emily Benita, untitled pg12 Laura Onslow, Of Sound Body and Mind

pg14

Gareth Graham, part I + part II pg18 Helen Shaddock, Here I Am pg20 Mathew Robert, Ulcer and Plastic

pg22

Natalie Wearden, My Body pg25 Ruby Gillis, Restroom Feelings pg28 Ragna Amling, Hairy pg30 Ruth Lillian Foulis, Depths

pg34

Appendix pg37 Contributors pg38

6

7

How can you voice complaints about body parts that are invisible to the eye of an outsider?

People often ask me why I don’t wear my glasses even though I’m near-sighted. Most of the time, I tell them I just don’t like how they look or slide down my nose every time I move. I can get by without them anyway.

The truth is, though, that I don’t wear glasses because I can’t stand seeing people’s gaze crossing mine, or my reflection whenever I walk past a shop window. The world is much more bearable when you can’t be sure if someone is staring at your big chin or looking at the bus stop on the other side of the street.

Without lenses, the blurry reflection in the windows isn’t a reliable source of insecurities anymore.

Sadly enough, my eyesight is just good enough for me to see myself in a mirror when I’m sitting in front of it.

I try to avoid that kind of confrontation.

Sometimes, though, when it’s 3am and I feel delirious, I will inexplicably go down on my knees in front of my mirror, and look myself in the eye. Not at my spots, hooded eyelids, large pores, sharp manly chin. I will look myself IN the eyes.

That lasts about a minute realistically, but feels like an eternity. My heart beats fast, and I get cold sweats. Most people would find it ridiculous, so I never talk about it. But, if they were seated in my eyes, nested just behind the pupils, they would see that, after the thirty second mark, it is not me they are looking at anymore.

First come the shadows under my eyes. I feel them at all times, even when my eyes are closed. It’s like invisible sandpaper scratching at the bones through my skin, digging deeper and deeper, wearing the skin down until it is paper-thin, ready to dissolve so that the shadows can etch themselves into the infraorbital margins. When I’m not looking at the mirror, I have to touch my eyes, to make sure the skin is still there, and the purple shadows haven’t eaten through my orbital bones just yet.

8

9

In my reflection, they are not invisible. They are real.

Then my face starts to morph. Cystic acne grows between my eyebrows like multiple inch- long horns. My upper left eyelid droops over my eye, until it hinders my peripheral sight. Wrinkles appear on the sides of my mouth and nose. My cheeks lap over my jawline like empty distended pouches. And I cannot lift my face. I cannot move my lips up. I feel the invisible weight pulling on my face.

The weight eventually forces my eyes down to look at my body. There again, I do not even need to see to know what’s happening. I should mention that I cannot stop myself from eating, even when it makes me sick and my mind begs me to stop. I will be upset, sick to the stomach, gag reflex working at one hundred percent -, but I will still swallow every. last. praline. of the Lidl box. While I eat, I feel fat depositing itself on the back of my arms, on my stomach, and my thighs. It adds up, like bricks of jelly. Most days I keep my eyes closed when I shower, because I am afraid of what I will see. But on nights where I am sucked in by the mirror, I will take in every last bit of chocolate turned into body fat. My stomach and thighs become one blob of gelatine, and my hips disappear, while my breasts start to gravitate towards my belly button until they sit like sad plastic bags on the sides of my calves.

I do not want to see, but I am forced to witness my body changing with more clarity than I can see the world when I am wearing my glasses.

I could look away, and back, to see what other people see, but I am scared. What if the me in the reflection stays the same? What if that image is what people have been seeing all along?

The most terrifying part is looking back up, because the eyes that look back are not mine. They are sharp and seething. They reach out like clawed hands, full of malicious, murdering intent, and bear such hate that I feel cannot possibly come from this world. I can visualise my reflection ripping my eyes out because they told it to.

I have no solution for it. It comes in waves: sometimes I can survive weeks without any episodes. I can look in the mirror to apply make-up, and while I see flaws, they don’t change. My facial hair doesn’t grow longer, my thighs don’t expand on command, and my ankles don’t suddenly balloon up into cankles as if someone was pumping air into them. I have read on bodily dysmorphia, but I don’t talk about it. People would label me as ‘mental’.

In society’s eyes, I look normal. I comply to the expectations set for an average woman. They don’t see anything wrong with me. They think I’m fishing for compliments and attention.

I am not.

Doctors have told me it is normal that I am “difficult” with my body, as a twenty-something old woman. One of them went as far as to say, when I opened up about my eating habits, that whatever I was doing – binging then fasting for days – was working quite well, so I should keep it up. I was wearing my glasses, so I could see him winking at me. He laughed. I didn’t.

I am not “difficult” with my body.

I am scared of it.

So, I don’t wear my glasses.

This is usually the point where I have to turn away, and go back to avoiding the mirror for a while, because my heart can’t bear the fear.

10

11

I can only write stories about haunted houses.

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean to.

They just come out that way.

Before long, the fish-out-of-water-woman-centred-sci-fi takes a spectral turn for the worst.

I cleaned my actual house, as procrastination and protection a deep clean, burnt sage and feather dusters.

The nightly ritual, the banality of Nytol, spilling across flesh pages, blotting blood ink.

Waking with a start too aware of my finish.

I am trying so hard to be effortless.

But happiness haunts me.

My most treasured possession.

Something slips into bed beside me and my body convulses with its presence.

Tonight, I fall from my tree.

That gristle crunch, just once, and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave.

12

13

Our brains are part of our bodies.

Well yes, Laura, I hear you say. This is a very obvious statement of anatomical fact that we all learnt in primary school; and where are you going with this, love?

For me recognising my mind as a physical entity was a road to Damascus moment that only really occurred recently. Maybe I was too busy trading Pokémon cards to pay attention in Year 4 science. Maybe I never needed to recognise the link before.

Within the past couple of years my brain has been a right bastard at times. Shortly before qualifying as a teacher (who would have to teach kids science at some point, worryingly), I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Depression. Or, as I refer to them, Panic! In the Workplace and My Brain is a Hornet’s Nest Lined with Shit. Initially this was something of a relief. I finally knew why I kept bursting into tears on the tram and hyperventilating in Primark. My GP sent me on my not-so-merry way with some anti-depressants and self-help leaflets.

I wasn’t ok but I’d be ok. Wine bottle half full and all that.

Fast forward to November 2015 and me having a severe panic attack at work, my saintly TA practically shoving me out the door of my classroom so thirty small humans wouldn’t have to see or hear Miss Onslow dissolve into what I can only describe as A Right Fucking Mess. I tried not to throw up in the staff room.

There’s a lot of words of physicality in that. Attack, dissolve, throw up. A lot of symptoms of mental illness are physical. And yet I remember somewhat disassociating from myself as a physical being. I lived in Sheffield at the time and once walked out to Peak District and back without realising I’d even moved my legs. It was late November in Yorkshire and I had just a denim jacket on over a t-shirt and the coldness felt like something I was imagining, not feeling. The worst moment was over Christmas when I tried to leave my auntie’s flat and couldn’t. I just didn’t feel like there was a body to move. I was simultaneously paralysed and completely absent. My mum finally got me in the car and drove me home where I stared at the ceiling of my childhood

14

bedroom for three days. The exhaustion of anxiety and depression is so monumental and fucking weird. You’re not tired as such – or at least I wasn’t – I was just completely fucking useless. At that point in time I don’t think even Tom Hardy inviting me over for pizza and a shag would’ve snapped me out of the haze. Sorry, not tonight babe, I’m not sure I actually exist.

Given that I didn’t actually feel like I was a physical person at this point, my doctor’s advice of ‘have you tried going for a walk or a run?’ seemed slightly mad. Mate I just turned down Tom Hardy’s offer of sex, you really think I’ve the motivation to put on a sports bra?

Part of mental illness is that you often feel demotivated and exhausted and – as in my case – as though your body isn’t really there. You spend so long in your mind that you forget you are a person. You are here. You exist in the world. You breathe. Fighting through this is overwhelmingly tough and you can’t just get up and run a marathon. It’s patronising to just tell someone they’d feel better if they only just did some exercise. However, exercise was as vital part of my recovery as medication and therapy.

I started with short, intentional walks. No more ridiculous Marianne Dashwood type stomps around the countryside, as on brand as they were.

Just one foot in front of the other to get to the pub or the cinema. This moved on to the gym and – the horror! - running. Let me tell you, lads, it’s hard to be too lost in your existential crisis when you’ve a big Sheffield hill to run up.

I am not a fitness expert. My motivation fluctuates and I can still eat a disgusting/impressive amount of nachos. I do sometimes still have bad mental episodes where I feel as though I’d reject Tom Hardy’s sexual advances. But I know I can push myself physically. Not only do I recognise that I actually inhabit a body, but I respect it. Like most people, I sometimes don’t like how I look but it’s childish for me to get upset about stretch marks and uneven tits and belly flab. My body can do amazing things. I swam 1.5 miles in the ACTUAL SEA this year and was gloriously, physically knackered at the end of it. I’ve a 10k race in a couple of weeks and each step of training is a reminder that I’m here. Getting out of breath, sweating, cursing that modern engineering hasn’t made a sports bra that can cope with my tits are all things that help connect my wonky brain to the rest of my body.

Because my brain is part of my body.

15

16

17

Ever fallen over? We all do, gotta get up, dust yourself off and plug away. You can’t eat gravel forever.

I fell; it was really bad. I woke up and a few hours were missing, no blood. But I was in hospital; I wanted out so I gave my ma a call. Doctors don’t let you walk out if you can’t really walk and were found in an alley unconscious. My ma came round to see what was up - the doctor wanted to do a CT scan, I couldn’t hear in my left ear and that was my main sticking point. I can’t be deaf in one ear - they don’t make eyepatches for ears, so you don’t even look cool, I’d go blind in one eye before - already sort of am and I don’t wear my glasses. There aren’t many things worth reading. Not even this.

I got the scan and sat about. It felt like ages because it was; typically a normal brain scan is fairly easy to read because there’s no need for interpretation. This wasn’t a normal brain by any estimation. It was bad, worse than usual.

Brain injuries aren’t about the first whack; that’s the best part really, it’s all about the shape of the skull. The skull is like a little cave - stalagmites, stalactites and all. That initial whack is called a coup injury, it’s nout, just an inconvenience but that sends the brain bouncing about - the contrecoup.

My brain was fucked.

Swelling, bruising, scarring.

The middle of your brain is supposed to stay put - mine didn’t. I’m not sure that necessarily does anything, but it typically means trouble.

I’m taken up to a ward - I’d call it home for the next two weeks.

The day went on much as any other first day somewhere does - the bizarre shake up of routine, boredom, adjustment. I was finally right when I felt like I was being watched. I felt like I shouldn’t be there - I didn’t belong there, I was still me - that had to be enough. They wouldn’t take my word for it.

I slept; sleeping in hospital is peculiar. The beds never feel right - “making you comfortable” isn’t a thing you wanna hear though. There’s always noise. Ticks. Beeps. Coughs. I was surrounded by other people with similar injuries but they were far worse off it seemed. The beeps were disconcerting; I don’t know if they’re supposed to be regular intervals or not - no beeps is the ideal number of beeps.

I didn’t have any beeping machines - that was a positive.

18

Day two was much like day one - hearing was recovering, CT scan, hands on chins, shaking heads. Back to bed.

On its own, being there makes you ill-at-ease; they do a fine job of pulling you out of those moments, being offered a cup of tea at 8am every morning is something to depend upon.

Those mundanities divert your attention from dwelling on the idea that you may well have irreparably fucked up your life.

These kinds of thoughts aren’t recommended for a speedy recovery, but I still do find time for them when all the lights are out.

I tried to envision what waited in future; I think I saw potential in a way. I still do; in fact, I see myself as an optimist. In these moments, I saw what happened as a dramatic method of stirring myself from apathy; it haunted me - lurks in everyone - cynicism is trendy. I despise it but I understand it; there doesn’t really seem to be a more rational response to such a comprehensively chaotic world, and it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to replicate my method of gaining new perspective. I’m sure I wouldn’t recommend it.

Life is a series of different states; you gotta always be prepared to adapt to the new circumstances that come along with them.

There’s a superset these states inhabit that only changes twice. You’re not alive, you are, then you aren’t. At this point I was.

I wasn’t frightened, because I was alive. I didn’t have the room to be afraid at this point; I had approached that final state change but I didn’t experience it. There was no value in wondering what mightn’t have been. Why exhaust myself wondering about all the things I’d never get to experience? In a grim way opportunity had presented itself merely by letting me carry on.

Besides, I already knew exactly what it would be like.

It’s probably different for everyone, but for me it was like every day prior to April of 1993 - up until then I wasn’t alive for the first time.

19

Here I am

Body and mind

Integrated Engaged An entity Grasps Persistently Seeking domination Disguised as an ally It manipulates Demands Dictates Promises protection Through threats To adhere Is easier Than to rebel And suffer the consequences But not forever Granted, It affects me But it need not Define me It wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be easy So please support me And bear with me As I break free

20

21

Ulcers and Plastic Bags (Diary Excerpt) October 2017 Pollockshields, Glasgow.

Like gravel and lava, insides churn.

I couldn’t relax for six long, straight years. Not even for a moment, held taught by that constant twisting inside.

Like a buzzing static behind every track on the record.

Life with the tap left dripping: water torture, but replace the water for acid.

You go a little crazy. Distracted to madness by the constant itch, throb, twinge, scratch. Day after day after day defined by pain or discomfort. Every gesture is a contortion; every sentence spoken feels coarse in your throat; every thought a white, hot, blinding migraine.

And slowly you lose your self into it.

I fucking hated my body. Resented it. My rotten, broken body and all its rotten, broken mechanics. For this rotten, broken life was mine and this rotten, broken vessel was me — I thinned-out and washed-pale in the mirror. My mind decayed and darkened. I went the-fuck-down encased in this sinking shell-of-a-ship, too decrepit to bail.

“Don’t panic.

Ulcerative Colitis will never actually, literally kill you.

It’s just messy and painful.

Keep that chin skyward.”

I shit myself three times in high school but I’m a sly bastard so didn’t get caught once, sneaking off to stealthily bail on the day and run home to change. I didn’t at the time, but now, with humour-tinted hindsight, I take great pride in those little embarrassment avoidances. I was like a social-shame dodging ballerina — a shitey-trousered ninja. I quickly got very good at hiding pain with a stooped posture and sarcastic wit.

I learned to fold an entire spare set of clothes into tiny package that could be discretely hidden at the bottom of my bag.

22

23

Life is learning on the fly. It serves up an obstacle and you dodge it. It gives you a problem and you solve it. Sometimes it doesn’t feel solved, and often it feels like said obstacle hits you square in the face. More often than not, in the moment that proverbial missile comes flying at you and buckles you in the wake of its momentum - bursting your nose and bending your jaw - you feel totally defeated; irreversibly set back.

But pal, just wait. Give the dust a minute to settle. Five, ten, fifteen years on? There’s always a lesson learned. Something gained.

I can tell you where every single publicly accessible toilet in the city centre of Glasgow is — and how willing the staff of each of the establishments they occupy are to let you use them. I can shower myself sterile in two minutes, flat. Literally nothing is able to illicit a disgust response in me; not anymore. At some point I forgot how to feel embarrassed, but I’m not one hundred percent sure when that was.

Most importantly, from the defected creases of my Tesco boxers grew the first seeds of compassion — an aching empathy toward the complexities every goddamned human on this planet struggles with.

And I wouldn’t trade that compassion for a million miles of the most luscious, fresh-pink, perfectly functioning bowel. Nah. I’m good as is.

After a few years of undulating levels of suffering, the decaying plumbing that was my large intestine blistered into little more than razor sharp mulch and the whole system had to be yanked clean out; pulled from me like a congealed lump of hair drawn from the plug hole.

They tugged a stub of what bowels remained through my abdomen wall and selo-taped a boringly-beige bag on top of it. From here on out, this bag would be my adult nappy.

My body, It is watery and fluid It is quiet and euphoric It is melancholy and mourns something It is slow It is aggressive It is confusing It is a lot It is safer around others who might be similar It is often nervous It is painful pain is a way of controlling it pain is a way of celebrating it’s aliveness, it’s awakeness, the blood that throws, thick and red from my veins, alive, alive, alive It is fleshy and visceral It is soft and intangible It is soothing, cleansing but also dangerous It is easier to describe in terms of all the things it is not It is laced in my skin and I am afraid that it might stop being there or that it in fact isn’t there at all

Those black days of high school now seem distant and irrational. Still a part of my past, but a part that’s weirdly alien to me now. Foreign to who I see myself as, as a person. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about them. Why they’ve suddenly come wandering back into my head… where have you come from, little thought seed of…

Okay. I lie. I do know.

The body is shamefully delicate, an intricate but transient vessel that begins to evaporate form the minute it touches the air… and what a tragedy it is we rely on it to exist. But hell; it’s not even close to everything we are. It is just a vessel. A vase. And it’s the goddamn roses people stop to smell.

24

25

It is a daily battle It is an anxiety, particularly in social situations It is violent It’s a box I’ve kept jammed shut for a long time and now it’s open all these demons are just pouring out litres upon litres and I am drowning and reaching for the comfort of a binary and I am afraid to let myself to swim to the other side and touch the cold brick surface of the place I would like to be and climb out I’m forever only just floating around somewhere in between to fight the cold, deep and enduring pain of violence inflicted and to escape from another that I’m never quite sure was ever there in the first place here, beneath the water I am soft malleable like a foetus not yet defined by the endless tick-boxes of land folk like a selkie like a seal I am in my skin and I like the way it feels in the water

26

27

The door slams shut and the upbeat disco music abruptly cuts to ambient piano cadenzas. The room smells of cheap lemon scented cleaning agent, dry shampoo and like it’s well beyond its prime.

She stares at me in terror, like a deer in headlights, as though she sees me for the first time. New mirror, who dis?

This is a frequent occurence. Somehow I have grown used to it in the nearly thirty years of inhabiting her.

Letting her inhabit me. It’s not like the specifics matter.

We are one and the same, and yet we’re different. We don’t really talk, because when we do, this happens.

Dissociation. Depersonalization. Derealization. Call it whatever you will; I call it the reason we usually try to avoid each other. To each of us, the other is that awkward roommate that lives with twenty cats and smells of incense sticks. Not dangerous by any but a weirdo by all means, and any interaction that goes beyond a hushed Mornin’ has the potential to turn into hour long sitdown sessions of awkward silence and occasional sighs of boredom. I know my time could be spent better than that.

But the restroom caught us of guard. Whether it is the alcohol, the sudden shift in music, the disgustingly bright lights at this time of night, or the absence of other people after hours of excessive socialising just ten steps away – we’ll never know. And now we’re stuck.

airiness inside her head. Her breath is shallow, and her heart hammers to the barely recognizable beat outside. Nirvana? I can’t concentrate like this. She’s driving me crazy, I’m driving her crazy, we both chuckle at the thought that either of us would be better off without the other.

And now I’d like to see everyone trying to pull up their panties without their hands touching their skin! No touchy, everybody! THE SKIN IS LAVA! Shaky hands for an extra challenge!

Ah, the almighty mirror. Mirror, mirror, bathroom stall, who’s the fairest of them all? She tries to withstand my gaze, come to terms with the fact that I live inside her. I don’t feel comfortable with her eyes being fixated on my face like that. I choose to look away.

The door slams shut and the divide ends with a jumpscare. A decidedly confident lady has entered and taken possession of this restroom as though it was her parents’ house. ‘’Did you spray dry shampoo in here?’’

No madam, as a matter of fact I have not. I was being busy freaking out about the inevitability of a certain consciousness living inside my head and my awareness of said consciousness that made my toilet break a rather awkward one, thanks for asking and rescuing me from myself by barging in here like Moby Dick, thank you very much. Fortunately, she’s not too interested in my reaction. ‘’It smells absolutely fantastic!’’ She wiggles off into a stall.

The door slams shut. Nirvana’s In Bloom assaults my face and ears.

Her guess (mine?) was right then. Heeeee’s the one who likes // all our pwetty soooongs My friends are over there. My arm moves to wave at them. I catch it mid air. But he don’t know what it means This never

happened. He don’t know what it means when I say...

Her heart rate rises. Her head starts spinning. The dulled bass of the party music next wall resonates within her stomach. She starts to feel sick. She tries to forget about me. It’s too late for that, I’m afraid, since I’m already annoyed by her presence as well. Maybe it’s going to get better if we put another door between us and the music and the obscene emptiness of existence?

The stall wall features an impressive essay on why Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is an artistic masterpiece of personal rebellion against societal rules. I can’t fully appreciate it though, as I am too bothered by the

28

29

People often compliment my dark, chestnut brown curls and I agree: I have good hair. I’m not being conceited; I agree the same way I agree when my family makes fun of my small, stubby toes. My toes look like mini cocktail sausages. Lots of women would like to have hair like mine. Both statements are true. I used to wish for straight, auburn hair but I’ve come to like what uncontrollably grows out of my head. Writing this makes me wonder how I’ll come across to people who don’t know me. I don’t know why, at twenty-eight, I still worry about strangers liking me or disliking me for stating that I love my hair but if it helps: I don’t like my short, muscular legs, it annoys me to no end that I need glasses and I still don’t enjoy having big boobs. They’re always in the way, and I can’t make them smaller as easily as I can get a haircut.

When I was nine years old, I told my mum I wanted short hair. She took me to a hairdresser who admired my thick, long hair and couldn’t believe I didn’t want it anymore. My mother and I insisted this was in fact what I wanted, I wouldn’t be sad about it, I know this is a final decision, we can’t glue it back on. I remember being surprised about the masses of locks the hairdresser cut off and swept up, then looking in the mirror, touching my neck and my short curls. I loved it. I joked that all I needed was one of those French hats, one of those flat ones (a beret, my mum said) and a blue-and-white striped shirt and I would look like a French girl. No idea where I got that image of French girls from, but point is I was really excited about my short hair and left the salon skipping.

The next day at school, my friends didn’t recognise me at first, then exclaimed how different I looked. My long hair, which had been almost straight, curled up as the weight was gone to hold it down. One girl especially, Laura, who had long, straight, white-blonde hair, kept enquiring why I had cut off my hair, I’d looked so stunning before, it was so short now and would take ages growing back. I got defensive; almost started crying with anger when she wouldn’t stop. It was my hair on my head; why did everyone make such a fuss about it? It didn’t concern them, didn’t affect them. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? I looked adorable, goddamnit!

30

31

There was no answer to why I had wanted short hair. I couldn’t explain it. There was simply an underlying feeling that I was different than the others, a feeling I needed to turn outwards. At eight or nine years old, the girls in my class had just started behaving differently around boys, started imitating their older sisters, cousins and friends, got flirty. I didn’t understand.

All I understood was that I was different. I didn’t care about boys, had no desire to play with make-up and didn’t like barbies or boy bands. I distinctively remember looking at Laura’s legs during PE. They were tan and smooth. Mine were tan and hairy. My knees were knobby and my skin dry. There were scabs and scars from when I’d crawled through the bushes and had climbed my cherry tree. Laura’s legs almost shone with softness. She never climbed trees. I looked at my arms. The hair on them had turned golden in the summer sun. I wished for the hair on my legs to also turn golden, or rather disappear completely. I wanted smooth, soft skin like Laura. Hairless. Feminine.

A few years later, at thirteen, I shaved my legs for the first time and was amazed how much hair came off. It was embarrassing having my pale best friend giggle about my awkward first attempts at applying the shaving cream properly. By then, my scalp hair had grown back into shoulder-length long locks. Around that time, I also discovered a few shy hair sprouting under my arms, and almost at the same time my first pubic hair. I was hairy everywhere! I remember being annoyed at the constant shaving I had to do; underarm shaving was quick and easy but pubic hair and leg hair removal required more time and commitment.

My hairy body made me angry. At thirteen, I was fully aware of the unreasonable beauty standards for women and knew not shaving could be my own private rebellion against the patriarchy, a word I had learned from my English teacher, yet I also badly craved my female classmates’ approval. I still didn’t care about boys and started to wonder if I was gay which was hard to tell because yes, I had crushes on female singers and actresses but in real life, I never wanted to do more than hug female friends and be physically close to them. Thinking about kissing freaked me out but if I had to kiss anyone, I’d rather kiss a girl than a boy. The thought of sex was gross to me.

32

Before I learned about demisexuality and long before I embraced being a demisexual lesbian, I was desperately hoping to be a late bloomer, to fall in love, preferably with a boy, so I could be more like my friends.

Even being bi seemed better than being gay because then, at least, there was a chance of falling in love with a boy and being “normal”, like the others, like my aunts, my mother, my friends, everyone on mainstream tv in the early 00s. But I knew. Deep down, I knew, and it made me sadder than anything before. How would I ever have a family?

How would I be like as an adult out in the world if the word “sexy” had no meaning for me, if I had little desire for sexual acts and if I kept being awkward around other people, no matter their gender? I still didn’t understand how to flirt but soon learned that being friendly and interested in a topic will eagerly be taken as sexual interest.

I wanted to cut my hair again but was also fully aware of how much power it held. Hating my round ass and my big tits for the mean comments they got me from girls and adult women and for the unwanted attention they got me from boys and men, I mainly found my femininity in my hair. At age nine, I loved being mistaken for a boy when my bike helmet covered my short curls but as a teenager who was unmistakenly female, it somehow became crucial to have good hair because that was all I liked about myself. I was too curvy, my shape too feminine without me fulfilling the expectations society puts on girls.

There were too many hopes and fears put on me, on my womanly shape.

On bad days, I tried in vain to hide my body in lose sweaters and baggy pants. Covering my curves was difficult but I could always open my tied back hair and hide my face behind a curtain of curls. To this day, I still hide behind my hair a lot, use it to distract or attract, turn it into a power tool when my anxiety threatens to cut off my voice. It’s good hair, and if it comes with the price of having to shave my legs on a daily basis, then I’m ok with that.

33

My belly button has grown deeper but there is joy in its new depths.

34

35

Mental Health Charities in the UK: Breathing Space, a confidential out of office hours telephone line for people experiencing low mood, anxiety or depression: phone 0800 83 85 87 and visit http://breathingspace.scot/

NSPCC Helpline provides 24/7 help and support from trained helpline counsellors to thousands of parents, professionals and families. Phone 0808 800 5000, email help@nspcc.org.uk or visit: http://www.nspcc.org.uk

Childline is a free, private and confidential service for anyone under 19 in the UK, available 24 hours, 7 days a week: Phone 0800 1111 and visit: http://www.childline. org.uk

Samaritans, a 24-hour helpline offering emotional support for anyone feeling down, distressed or struggling to cope: phone 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit www.samaritans.org

Mental Health UK brings together four national mental health charities working across the UK. They have 40 years’ experience of working to improve life for people affected by mental illness in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. They were originally set up as a single UK-wide organisation in the 1970s, and are now working together once again as Mental Health UK. They are working together to raise funds so that more people across the UK can access support for their own mental health and for friends and family members who are affected by mental illness: https://www.mentalhealth-uk.org/

SAMH, Scotland’s Mental Health Organisation: https://www. samh.org.uk/ SANE is a mental health charity in the UK which works to improve quality of life for anyone affected by mental illness: phone 0300 304 7000 between 4:30pm – 10:30pm and visit http://www. sane.org.uk/ Switchboard, LGBT+ helpline where all volunteers self-define as LGBT+: phone 0300 330 0630, 10am-10pm every day, email chris@switchboard.lgbt and visit https://switchboard.lgbt/

Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding: https://www.mind.org.uk/ MindOut is a mental health service run by and for lesbians, gay men, bisexual, trans and queer people based in Brighton: https://www.mindout.org.uk/ NHS 24 is a 24-hour health service for Scotland: phone 111 and visit www.nhs24.com

36

37

RAGNA AMLING is a sometimes-writer/always-reader with a Club Mate addiction and a love for bunnies. She’s the Festival Manager for Glasgow’s World of Film Festival (@ WoFFGlasgow) and enjoys being a connector of people.

EMILY BENITA is a writer and performer based in Glasgow.

She lives with her cat Malcolm Tucker, which sums up everything you need to know about her.

RUTH LILLIAN FOULIS is an illustrator, lecturer, nanny, and writer of things who is based in Glasgow. She is currently working on a picture book about a friendly selkie, a lecture on the fans of Harry Potter, and a novel about a pirate’s daughter.

RUBY GILLIS, 28, would like to keep using this name for personal (ha!) reasons. She is neither a writer nor a reader but a methodical analyst of texts, only interrupted by the occasional gift that keeps on giving that is Borderline Personality Disorder. Restroom Feelings was written down exactly one year after it happened.

fuckin’ loves plays, and frequently attempts to write them. Ulcer and Plastic is not one of said plays.

HELEN SHADDOCK is an artist based in Newcastle whose practice incorporates video, sound, writing, installation, sculpture and performance. In April 2017, Shaddock participated in the Spoken Word Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity in Canada.

Shaddock has gained Arts Council England Grants for the Arts funding for her current project Voices: Within and Without which will culminate in a solo exhibition at The Word, South Shields in April 2018.

NATALIE WEARDEN is a performance artist based between London and Helsinki. They obsess over words, romance, other people, the land and the body. Their practice is a relentless and often futile search for intimacy, connection and presence. They have performed and shown work extensively both nationally and internationally including at the Royal Academy in London and have worked collaboratively with high profile artists including Marvin Gaye Chetwynd.

GARETH GRAHAM is a 24-year-old Irish graphic designer who has not much else to say for himself but sorry.

Text editing: Ragna Amling Illustrations & Layout: Steven Affleck

THÉRÈSE HARDY has been living the Glasgow life for the last 4+ years. Writing sporadically, coincidentally when she has too many things to do. Cleaning gives her much peace.

She is terrible at wiping moods off her face, and amazing at brushing important problems under the carpet.

www.stevenaffleck.co.uk

South London’s premier ABBA enthusiast, LAURA ONSLOW works in higher education. Her free time is mostly spent reading about the Spanish Civil War, drinking wine and being disappointed by Southampton Football Club.

MATHEW ROBERT is 25, lives in the south side of Glasgow and will be raging if gentrification prices him out of Pollockshields. Currently he makes a living as a Barista (not a barrister, much to his father’s disappointment). He abso’

38

39