Self-love is crucial for surviving and thriving in an oppressive society hellbent on making us feel like we’re wrong or not enough. But precisely because of this society, cultivating self-love can be difficult. As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety, I know how much energy it can take just to get through the day. When you’re stuck treading water, self-love can … [Read more...]
9 Keys for Dealing With Gender Dysphoria This Trans Awareness Week
I’ve always had a hard time with gender dysphoria. Identifying it has been half the struggle. For most of my life it was unnameable, and unqualifiably sad -- a deep ache in the pit of my belly that I had learned to ignore. When it reared its head I saw it as dysfunctional, and my self-image was tainted by that view. My dysphoria was difficult to identify because I am … [Read more...]
How I Convinced Myself I Didn’t Have an Eating Disorder — And Returned to Myself Through Fierce Black Self-Love
Content note: This article discusses eating disorders (including bulimia and anorexia), weight loss, and "thinspiration". It began with a love of tattoos: the permanence of art on an impermanent body, the buzz of the machine, the stinging and the bleeding and the healing. And by “it,” I mean how I taught myself to call my eating disorder “inspiration” -- and thus … [Read more...]
Learning To Wear Red Lipstick: The Empowerment of Self-Presentation
A couple of years ago, I complimented a classmate on her outfit as we were waiting for the professor to arrive. “I love that lipstick color on you,” I said. “Thanks!” she replied. “It was just a red lipstick kind of day, you know?” “Well, I don’t really wear red lipstick, but it looks so gorgeous on you,” I said. “Why don’t you?” she asked. “I bet you’d look amazing with it … [Read more...]
Reclaiming My Eroticism After Sexual Assault
Content note: This article discusses sexual violence at length. After my rape, I thought of my body as a series of open wounds and wounded openings sutured together. I had to learn how to rewrite the poems, the stories, the words I wrapped around my flesh. After certain types of trauma, sometimes the only way we can see our bodies is as spaces for harm, spaces for … [Read more...]
3 Ways You Might Change After a Difficult Thing Has Happened (And Why That’s Okay)
One day I called my best friend from high school and asked him, “Can you tell me who I was?" "Remind me how you remember me, please," I begged. "I can’t remember who I was, who I really am, who I’m supposed to be.” I experienced a trauma. It changed me in ways that made me unrecognizable to myself. I struggled with these changes, resented them, and ended up resenting … [Read more...]
How Being “Selfless” Taught Me Unhealthy Codependency
It was clear from when was a very young child -- and my mother might argue earlier -- that I was a deeply sensitive, emotionally intelligent being. My ma has told me about each of her children after childbirth: “With each of you, I looked at both of you and saw these big, soulful eyes that seemed so old and wise.” This natural-born tenderness was nurtured and tended to … [Read more...]
8 Lessons for Men To Heal Rough Relationships With Their Bodies
Content note: This article contains references to dieting and struggles with food. Men in our society -- contrary to what the ideology of toxic masculinity would have us believe -- are extremely susceptible to the weight loss, dieting, and exercise culture we're subjected to every day. That includes, but is definitely not limited to, the near incessant advertising for workout … [Read more...]
How To Unwrap Yourself From a Toxic Relationship When the Person Is Gone — But Not the Pain
It has been almost two years since I ended my last long-term relationship. It seems so strange that we have now been apart longer than we were together. When it began, I thought I had finally found my person. I soon experienced anxiety and doubt after many red flags started to surface. I had longed to love and share my life with someone and I settled for a toxic relationship … [Read more...]
Surviving Is Enough: 8 Reminders to Not Be So Hard On Ourselves
I'm willing to bet that you're reading this in the middle of a million other tasks you feel you need to do in order to feel “normal.” Or maybe you're reading this in an attempt to get yourself out of a rut or improve your state of mind while feeling depressed. Either way, I'm here to help! A lot of times, we (meaning you, me, and everyone we know) feel like if we aren’t doing … [Read more...]
5 Things I Did After Turning 40 That Changed How I Saw My Aging Self
At thirty-eight I experienced a bit of a midlife crisis. Well, hardly midlife, but still a crisis nonetheless. Forty loomed on the horizon, and I felt a kind of aimless terror at that number. Some of it was kind of silly. What did a mature woman wear? Would I be forced by some secret fashion police to give up my band and anime t-shirts? Would I have to turn in my Chucks and … [Read more...]
You’re Worth Loving: My Letter for Those Still in the Closet
Dear you, This letter is for you. Your In The Closet But Still Worth Loving quiet, powerful, gentle celebration. Let me tell you a story. In middle school, I was the opposite of cool. I wore colorful striped leggings. My hair was always frizzy and in a ponytail with one strand hanging down, because I thought that was neat. There was a gap between my front teeth. I didn’t hate … [Read more...]
6 Ways To Talk About STIs (Without Being a Jerk)
Whenever the topic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) comes up, I secretly get excited and panicked at the same time. I get excited because, as a person with herpes, and specifically as a writer with herpes, I spend a lot of time considering the complexities of what it means to live in a shared body with a virus, particularly one on which society has imposed a code of … [Read more...]
Intergenerational Trauma: Indigenous Resilience in the Face of Abuse
This article was originally published on Residential School Magazine under its original title "Let Me Tell You About Inter-Generational Trauma" and is republished with permission. **Content note: this article contains discussions of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and violence as well as suicide.** My grandmother was placed in residential school at the age of 6. For … [Read more...]
