This blog entry is going to be far more stream of consciousness than my previous one. With the last one, I approached writing it with a central idea in mind and a rough idea of what I was going to say. This feels a lot more loose and off the cuff. I wanted to wait until I had some kind of big idea to add to this blog, but I figured “eh, fuck it. It’s my little blog on my itty bitty neocities website.” I’m not a philosopher. I’m just a weird butch with an internet connection. Let the thoughts flow!
I go through periods where I think a lot about how I’m perceived by others or how others think of me, or if they even do. For instance, I have no idea how my writing/open mic friends talk about me when I’m not around or if they even do. I’m sure I come up in conversation occasionally. I used to agonize over this sort of thing. I would constantly worry that all of my friends and loved ones secretly hated me and thought I was some kind of mutant. Therapy and meds have helped with this tremendously. I don’t lie awake at night yelling at my own brain because it keeps telling me on repeat that I’m garbage incarnate and that I deserve every bad thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank fuck for that.
Despite being medicated and generally in a much better place, I do sometimes still get caught up in how I’m perceived. This is probably at least partly the result of bullying and a bunch of other stuff I’d rather not dive into too deeply. These usually aren’t thoughts that make me spiral or anything. These days they are usually pretty innocuous, like “oh I wonder if so-and-so and their friend such-and-such think I’m fun to be around” or “I wonder what this person thought of my outfit”. However, there are indeed times where the anxiety demons start nibbling at my ankles. This usually comes from me making a silly comment or joke that might not have landed. In both of the two recent cases of this that I can recall, I ended up being fine and the people involved thought literally nothing of what I got anxious about. Still, there have definitely been times where the anxiety will rear its ugly head. Coping techniques have helped a ton and I’m much, much better than I was even two years ago.
Let’s shift this away from anxieties and back to perception in general. My friends and loved ones (hi, if you’re reading this message me!) all seem to perceive me pretty accurately. Or, at least I think so? I feel like when these folks look at me they see what they get: a genderqueer commie nerd who likes prog, computers, and art. I say this, but who knows how true that actually is! I feel like, as I’ve become more confident and sure of myself, people have a much more full, concrete picture of who I am than they did in my adolescence. This better level of understanding isn’t just for others. I definitely feel like I know myself better now than I did, say, 15 years ago. That’s just part of growing up I guess!
You might have noticed that I’m specifically talking about how friends and partners and other people who actually know me might think of me. When it comes to strangers, I tend to swing back and forth between “Who cares? My existence is inconsequential” and “Oh god oh fuck”. Even in the face of something normally hurtful like misgendering from random folks, my reaction can easily be one of utter apathy. They don’t know me, so it doesn’t really matter. I recognize that this probably comes from a place of privilege. I’m white and live in the imperial core and have access to good mental healthcare, among other things. There are many people who can’t just shrug these things off. I certainly have it better than many.
The pendulum does swing back to the other side, however. The “oh god oh fuck” tends to come on days where I’m feeling far less comfortable or am otherwise on edge. When I hear news of hate crimes in a nearby city. When my personal life has been particularly stressful. When I’m directly confronted with vile bigotry. My point is that like most people I have good and bad days, and how I feel about perception or even how I interpret what I think are peoples’ perceptions can vary quite a lot. Such is the way of the brain of the gay elf mage.
I can’t think of a way to wrap this up in a way that is satisfactory. I would normally just save this as a draft and upload it after some editing and expansion, but I really want to get something new on the blog. I have tried to end this off on something inspiring but I can’t think of anything that really works. So, I’m going to leave it there. My next entry, whenever it comes, will hopefully be a lot more coherent and structured. It’s late and I gotta go to bed. I’ll finish this off with an album recommendation. If you like death metal or think you might want to give the genre a try, check out “Absolute Everywhere” by Blood Incantation. It’s one of the death metal albums I’ve ever heard in my life.
Until next time!