Fear and Certainty

Things that alter my perception, of reality or of myself, have always frightened me. A gesture, an object, a feeling, or a moment have the power to act as a sudden and inexplicable crack in the smooth veneer of existence. We assume that reality is a solid block of concrete, but what if it's actually a box made of the thinnest glass that just looks like concrete? It appears sturdy, impenetrable, simple to the point of disregard. But a crack, a chip, a hole, the tiniest broken fragment can destroy that feeling of surety in an instant. To some end, this is the purpose of taking drugs--to willfully challenge or change one's notions or perceptions of reality. And I supposed that, pursued recreationally, it can be fun; but only because it is play-acting. Taking drugs is like buying a ticket to certain dissolution, intentional coming apart, knowingly altering, losing yourself and finding something else. The experience is finite. It is neither random nor continuous. It's a show you go to, and part of the enjoyment is the awareness that it will eventually end.

Experiencing a break with reality that you did not elect to take is something altogether different.

Discovering that something you always assumed to be stable is actually incredibly fragile--finding that something you always believed to be solid is in fact hollow, and that that hollowness creates the possibility of fullness of a different sort, the potential to be full of unknown and unthinkable things--it pulls the rug out from under you. It sets your assumptions and convictions alight, and your sense of certainty about the foundation of your life withers, curls up, floats away like ashes and smoke.

What possibilities scare me? What ideas fill me with dread?

Looking at something I see every day and realizing it's suddenly different. Something has moved, a color is missing, a size or shape has changed.

Waking from a dream and then living its events and narratives in real time, unable to deviate or change the course of my own actions.

Running into different versions of myself on the street: my selves that made a better choice here, a wrong decision there. They are exactly like me, and nothing like me.

Losing my ability to understand any language or communicate with anyone--trying to speak but no one understanding me, trying to listen to others but finding their words incomprehensible.

Things moving that should be still, or things being still that should be moving. Walls wavering, a bird suspended in the air.

Someone or something that has always existed in my life suddenly and inexplicably disappearing; a person I know is gone, but no one else has any memory of them. A possession I see every day is suddenly missing, and no one else remembers ever having seen it before.

Finding someone hiding in my house while I am alone.

Discovering an infestation when I least expect it.

Rapid, omnipresent and nonsensical voices.

Feeling my heart stop.

My sense of reality, my sense of myself, disappearing.

Losing your grip on reality is like being on a barge in the middle of the ocean with an anchor that weighs 2,000 pounds, but sometimes that anchor spontaneously disappears for stretches of time. You're moored in one spot, you're used to the bobbing and the storms and the drifting around in a general area, but you're more or less stationary because of that anchor--you know the bounds of where you are and what you're capable of. Then, without warning, without any reason or predictability, it disappears. And you're drifting, and you have no way of knowing how long it will last, or if it will ever come back again. You have no control.

The disappearance of the anchor isn't even the worst part. The worst part is the uncertainty. People can live with most anything, so long as there exists a degree of certainty. 

If you are born on a barge that has an anchor that you can pull up and drop down whenever you like, you have an ideal situation. You are still subject to trials and obstacles, but you can determine when you want to be stationary and when you want to move. You can decide, to a degree, where you want to go and what you want to do. You have the possibility of change or the possibility of continuity, but whatever you choose, it's you who does the choosing.

If you are born on a barge that is permanently anchored, you will have stability but no variety. You know exactly what you can and can't do, where you can and can't go, and you can count on the predictability of your circumstances.

If you are born on a barge that has no anchor, a barge that drifts forever and never stops moving, you may have no home but you will have freedom. You may slow down to a crawl at times, and sweep along swiftly at others, but there is at least the certainty of its fluidity. You can accept that you will never stop moving.

But if you live on a barge that sometimes has an anchor, and sometimes does not, and you have no control or warning about when the anchor will exist and when the anchor will disappear... You are suspended in a state of continuous uncertainty. Unreality. You can never relax, you can never get comfortable, you can never feel peace. There, always waiting, is the possibility of sudden, random and violent change. 

You could be anchored for ten years, becoming wholly a part of the place that you occupy. First feeling frustration at your lack of mobility, longing for variety, slowly you become accustomed to the life you've been building. You spend some time feeling trapped, feeling limited. But you find peace in the acceptance of your surroundings, and use the limitations and boundaries of your life like support struts. They shore you up, they can be leaned against and built upon, they can bear weight. Yet the instant that the anchor disappears, it's all gone. The foundation of your life no longer exists.

You can drift for ten years, learning to let go of attachments. Sometimes you feel a deep loneliness as you pass by people who are standing still together, resentful of the stability that comes with being stationary, yearning for the simplicity of a life with definite borders. But you release the idea of permanence and embrace the constant change. You are bound by nothing, restrained by no one, unburdened. Then suddenly an anchor drops, and drags you to a halt, and you're trapped. The foundation of your life no longer exists.

Without certainty, there isn't only fear, but there is always fear.

Ten-Minute Story, Part Three

Shower. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Fix hair.

And then what?

Charlie didn't know what to do next--this was, in part, why they had been reluctant to leave their bed. When you're always busy and you always have something to do, somewhere to be, something to begin or continue or finish, having free time seems like a luxury. When all you've got is free time, it can begin to feel like a challenge or an obstacle.

The pandemic had been raging for close to a year, with no signs of letting up.

In the beginning, Charlie had a job, a partner, friends, routine and familiarity. Half-way through, Charlie and their partner had moved to a new city--leaving the job, the friends, the routine and the familiarity behind. "A fresh start", some might call it. But it was more like living in limbo, like moving to a waiting room: everything was locked down, there was nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do. Oh, there were the little things, like grocery shopping and getting a coffee and taking walks to nearby parks. But those were the scenery and the props of daily life--without the players and the action, they didn't come to life in the same way. They were mostly dormant and faceless, lacking depth or personality. The grocery store, the coffee shop, the park--all of it was generic; there was nothing defining or real about them, nothing that separated these places from any other theoretical place Charlie had never been. Nothing was theirs yet. 

Coup of the Day

My body is tired now. It is nervous and it is vaguely sore. It feels hollow and dry. Used up.

My body spent the day full of tidal waves, by turns hyper-focused and disassociated, alive with an electric rage.

Anger bubbled up in my stomach like molten acid, burning my insides and making my throat contract, my jaw clench, my eyes pop from my skull in a lunatic stare of permanent shock. My feet were frantic as they paced the floor, wearing trenches in my carpet from the heaviness and swiftness of my footfalls. My mouth snatched ragged breaths in panicked gulps, and I surprised myself when I let out a scream:

"WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS GOING ON??"

At 3:00 PM EST, a coup was staged on the United States Government.

By whom?

The supporters of the President of the United States.

Let's just sit with that for a moment. Just let that sink in.

The President of the United States urged his supporters to obstruct and undermine the US Government.

And then they did. White nationalists, Proud Boys, MAGA dudes, Q-Anon followers and all assortment of Pro-Trump fanatics stormed the Capitol building as Congress was in the process of certifying the Electoral College votes that would ensure a peaceful transition of power to the Biden/Harris administration on January 20, 2021. This process has historically been a formality, and no Congress has ever overturned the results of an election. But history, procedure and any semblance of formality went flying out the window as the Capitol was overtaken and members of Congress were evacuated.

Neither main-stream nor social media could keep up with the events unfolding. Twitter, Facebook and Google News have been a whirlwind of professional and amateur video footage: hordes of rioters waving Confederate, Trump 2020 and Thin Blue Line flags; a small line of police being shoved aside and ignored as crowds stream up the Capitol steps; men in military-style gear scaling building facades and vandalizing the floor of the House of Representatives; members of Congress sheltering in place or running for cover as all hell breaks loose. And as most of our nation's eyes are fixed on the events unfolding in DC, only some noticed that similar protests were breaking out within the rest of the country. After an historic run-off election in Georgia resulted in Democrats taking both US Senate seats, and thereby regaining control of the Senate, the Georgia Secretary of State's office was evacuated. Likewise, protests turned violent in California's capitol city of Sacramento, with Trump-supporters hurling racial slurs and anti-immigrant rhetoric at whomever happened to be within earshot. Similar events occurred in the capitol cities of Texas, Michigan, Kansas and Oklahoma.

What has been the response of law enforcement? Tepid, insipid, milquetoast. But don't take my word for it, just look at the profusion of pictures and videos that speak for themselves:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av-embeds/55564421/vpid/p0938khp

A line of maybe ten police officers standing on the Capitol steps, holding up their hands and backing away as rioters and domestic terrorists advance up the steps--after mere moments of resistance, the officers separate and allow the protestors through.

https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A group of coup participants hanging out and taking pictures with law enforcement officers, chanting "ACAF, ACAF"... "All Cops Are Friends".

https://twitter.com/cevansavenger/status/1346920924310867968?fbclid=IwAR2xk_KM8UUHHEfvLALMR9Glys1wa4kJg0lisVFDLxL1GKePtxSPIe0hmso

Police literally OPENING THE GATES to allow the protesters to regain ground in the Capitol.

And how has President Trump responded to these events? First by rallying and goading his supporters. Then by reiterating that he would "never concede" the election. And now, by releasing a one-minute video addressing his supporters on Twitter, reiterating that "the election was stolen from us, but it's time to go home. You're all very special, thank you." No rebuke of vandalism, destruction of property or violation of federal law. No admission of culpability or wrongdoing. Not even a single admonishment of anyone's actions.

And how do these responses compare to, say, law enforcement and President Trump's responses to Black Lives Matter protests at the Capitol earlier this year? 

Just take a look for yourself:

https://mashable.com/article/capitol-police-trump-riot-black-lives-matter-protest/

It took over 4 hours for law enforcement to clear out the majority of the rioters and terrorists. The National Guard wasn't deployed until hours after the Capitol had been breached. Multiple explosives were found. One woman was shot and died of her injuries. And as a result of all this, Congress has yet to certify the election results. 

In a perverse way, I understand these people.

These people are angry. I am angry. But underneath that anger, there is fear--I am afraid. I am afraid of what this means, I am afraid of what will happen. I am afraid that the foundation of this country--already full of myriad cracks, flaws and imperfections--has finally reached its breaking point, and we're about to see the whole structure collapse. To see people actively working to undermine a democratic election under the guise of "patriotism and democracy" is mind-boggling. It is an act of seditious fascism that so utterly betrays any understanding of democracy or law and order that I can't help but feel more sorrow than rage. It is a collective experience that I can only describe as a socio-political gaslighting of meta proportions.

What I fear is the proliferation of ignorance, the glorification of "might equals right", and a wide-spread reversion to a type of tribalism that treats only some citizens as "full, real people". I fear the people who profess their bigotry, their hatred and their ignorance as points of pride. I fear both the destruction of this country and the myopic and dangerous tradition of papering over, covering up, looking away and refusing to confront our own evil. 

Like me, these people are angry. And their anger, like my own, is underpinned with fear--but their fear is different than my fear.

They fear they're being cheated, lied to, deceived. Stripped of their power and their rights. "Tread upon". And well they should, because they ARE being cheated, lied to, deceived, stripped of power and tread upon--by the very people they seek to keep in power. Trump and his ilk are some of the most self-interested, deceptive and destructive people this country has ever produced. Their success hinges upon an angry, uninformed and economically-depressed voter base to whom they can peddle their lies and distractions. The president who built his platform on "Making America Great Again" has accomplished exactly the opposite, and has maintained his supporters' unwavering loyalty by continuing to exploit their fears and their prejudices. A good many of these people are supremely afraid of difference, afraid of change. Afraid that their positions of power, their historical entitlement to better treatment and socio-economic advantage, is slipping away as a new order is conceived by larger and louder swathes of the American populace. They are afraid of "minorities" that were once this country's "other" becoming equally American, equally protected and treated and respected as the "default" white person. They are afraid of the people they see as the "other", and they are also afraid of becoming the "other".

Inevitably, the flash and bang will eventually subside, and things will seemingly "return to normal". People will talk about today, and whatever follows in its wake, with the clarity of hindsight. Some will call it a disgrace and a shame, others will express shock and outrage, and other still will shout support and approval. Do not be fooled: The crowds can be dispersed. Congress can reconvene. In 2 weeks, Biden can be sworn in as 46th President of the United States. And this country will still be in utter chaos.

Because these people will still be here, and their ideals and values will remain the same. They will continue to fester like a rotted tooth, their poison proliferating into the national bloodstream, only flaring into pain some of the time but inflicting constant damage whether we see and feel them or not. The tooth must be pulled and the infection treated, because what seems like a small and dismissible problem, a problem that bothers us but it's probably fine, right?, a problem that we like to think isn't really a problem... It could kill us. And if it does, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

Ten-Minute Story, Part Two

They rolled over and yanked the blankets up over their head. Please, just 10 more minutes. I just need 10 more minutes. Or maybe 20.

For a moment: darkness, silence, stillness. Charlie breathed in softly and felt their body loosen.

"Meeeeeeeeoooooowwww... meeeeeeoooooowww..."

Their body shot upright, as if spring-loaded, sending a pillow soaring over the end of the bed.

"OH MY GOD. OKAY. FINE. YOU WIN."

The cat just stood and stared, stoney-faced, featureless, revealing nothing. A face that said, I don't know what you're talking about.

As they swung their legs over the edge of the bed and jammed their cold toes into the fraying slippers waiting dutifully beside the bedpost, a shiver ran through them. January cold--bright and clear and almost painful.

Charlie shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of cat food from the bag on the floor, adding it to the already-partly-full bowl. The slouchy orange tabby darted between their legs and dove head-first into the bowl, crunching ravenously on the little brown pebbles.

"Why couldn't you just eat what was already in there?"

 The cat looked up at Charlie briefly, giving them a big, slow blink of approval. A loud purring commenced.

Charlie considered flinging themself back into bed, but the thought of renewing the game of hide-and-seek with the noise and the sunlight felt exhausting. No, better to accept defeat than fight the losing battle. The day had begun.

outside, inside

Verbless poetry is exactly what it sounds like: poetry without verbs. An attempt to tell a story or convey a feeling using only images or objects, no actions. Here's a verbless poem about today:

outside

cold, grey light

shadows watery and pale

conspiratorial stormclouds

and a bitter, biting wind

stinging exhaust and the stink

of asphalt, hot tar

thundering engines of overhead planes

squealing tires, an argument

concrete towers and row upon row of

smooth, featureless rectangles of glass

inside

potted plants--succulent, cacti

an old bookshelf

the bathrobe and slippers

thin carpets, worn wood

knitted blankets, musty

a thin layer of dust

curled, sleeping cat

soft breath

chipped mug

steaming tea

familiar silence

Ten Minute Story, Part 1

The cat wouldn't shut up.

The room was cold--much colder than it should have been, even for the middle of January. The sun was streaming in, forcing its way through the slats of the blinds, prying its way under the pillow jammed over Charlie's face and needled into their eyes--but it wasn't making the room any warmer. Outside, a man was doing important research about just how loudly he could operate a leaf-blower. In the hallway, someone was opening the trash chute and hurling what sounded to be pairs of shoes, tied together by their laces, as hard as they could into the chute. The world seemed to be executing a coordinated assault.

But it was the cat that was really getting under their skin. That goddamn cat.

It wouldn't stop meowing. Long, slow, drawling meows, forlorn and lamenting, occasionally punctuated with the occasional, piercing rawr. It stood outside the bedroom door and cried out again and again. The bedroom door was open, mind you, and there was food in its dish and water in its cup--but there it stood, voicing its objection and its protest again and again.

"Whaaaaaat do you waaaaaaant?" Charlie groaned from the bed. They could hardly bear to drag themself from beneath the piles of pillows and blankets. No matter what the sun, or the bustle of activity outside, or the goddamn cat might have to say to the contrary, it was simply too early to get out of bed.

An Unrealistic Christmas List

Christmas is something I spend a lot of time preparing for. I spend a decent amount of money buying, and an even greater amount of time making, presents to give to my family, my in-laws, my friends, and inevitably some acquaintances, charities and volunteer organizations. I would say that I spend October through December with "preparing for Christmas" at the periphery (if not the forefront) of my mind. Ironically, I give approximately zero thought as to what other people could give me as a gift, and when the inevitable "So, what would you like for Christmas?" is asked, I find myself dumbstruck. Every year I seem to repeat the same deer-in-the-headlights moment, as though it's the FIRST TIME anyone has ever asked me such a difficult and mind-boggling question. 

So this year, I decided to come up with a list of things I'd really love to get for Christmas: 

(If, for some strange reason, you would like to get me a gift but can't manage anything on this list, I'd also enjoy a nice pair of thick socks or some flannel shirts)

A magical ceramic mug that keeps my coffee hot indefinitely. They make a mug, called the Ember Mug, that does exactly this--but it's all metal and insulated and requires technology and charging and whatnot. I want a magical, beautiful, hand-thrown mug--ergonomically delightful, rustic in its aesthetic but deftly glazed, heavy enough in the hand that it imparts a feeling of deep realness. And it makes coffee taste, somehow, even better than it already tastes, and it eliminates nearly all the caffeine from any coffee I may want to drink, so that I can drink as much as I want and I won't have heart palpitations or an anxiety attack. And it's unbreakable.

A mouth-watering charcuterie board that does not makes me feel like shit after I've eaten it. Pungent and salty aged cheddar, creamy and almost-melting-at-room-temperature brie, tangy and velvety chevre, an earthy, fudgey bleu cheese. Roasted nuts galore--pecans, cashews, walnuts, pistachios, and more pecans (but candied). Dried figs, dates, and cherries, and maybe some fresh strawberry preserves or blackberry jam. Soft and steaming hunks of fresh French bread, sturdy and herb-laced cubes of focaccia, seeded crackers, wood-fired flatbread. Olives and pickles, and maybe some anchovies. I'd eat the whole board, and drink a whole bottle of rich red wine, and afterward I'd get up and go on with my day and I wouldn't have a terrible stomach ache or crippling heartburn at all.

A pair of shoes that, when worn, make all the joints in my legs and feet feel the way that they did when I was a kid--that is to say, I don't feel them at all. I can walk for days at a time and jump from a height of 10 feet onto concrete and I don't think anything of it. Maybe they make it feel like I'm walking in water but without all the lag and resistance--just kind of weightless and free.

An absolutely insane rainstorm. For a week, it just RAINS--not a drizzle, not a sprinkle, not a light shower, but an all-out downpour. A monsoon-season-in-Vietnam kind of rain. And there is dazzling, powerful lightning, humbling and house-shaking thunder, and gusts of wind up to 40 miles per hour. The power goes out sometimes, and comes back on at other times. I suddenly have a fireplace and I basically live in front of it. There is flooding in the streets and everyone is house-bound--but no one gets hurt, no homes or cars or property is damaged, and everyone gets to take paid leave from work. Drones can deliver our groceries, and we all rediscover the joy of hunkering down in an elaborately-constructed blanket fort.

The complete works of Stephen King, leather-bound and gold-leafed and gorgeous. There are also a bunch of books in it that he never actually got around to writing, ideas he had that never went anywhere, but in my one-of-a-kind collection... Those books exist, and I get to read them. And if he's had any personal journals over the course of his life, those are in there, too. And I guess I'd need an antique bookcase to house this new collection: made from richly oiled mahogany, intricately carved and scrolled, it would stretch from floor to ceiling.

A chance to eat any dish I want from all of my favorite restaurants that have closed over the years.

A semi-permanent haircut. I get it cut, and it just stays that way until I use a special shampoo that re-activates hair growth.

My sense of smell. (No, I don't have Covid.) This sounds preposterous, but over the last decade or so I've largely lost my sense of smell. I have to actively TRY to smell things, which is actually a sort-of-fantastic superpower when I'm anywhere that smells horrible (walking past a garbage dump, cleaning a cat's litter box, riding a crowded bus in the middle of summer), but kind of sucks the rest of the time. I'd love to be able to walk outside on a winter morning and smell the sweet mustiness of dead leaves and wet concrete, or the lively spiciness of the air in a cafe, or the balmy perfume of my shampoo when I'm taking a shower... but without having to flare my nostrils and massage my sinuses and breath in as deeply as possible. 

Private piano lessons with a patient and skillful teacher who has no interest in small-talk, and the time, space and dedication to actually become a great piano player. I'd need an accompanying baby grand piano, of course. And maybe longer fingers.

The ability to fly. Ugh, it feels so tacky to ask for the ability to fly. Such a cliché--and really, one shouldn't ask for the ability to fly as a gift. That's more than a little over-the-top and extravagant, it's something that I should really just get for myself. But if I'm being honest about what I'd really like, something I'd really use every day, I mean... Yeah, I'd like to be able to fly. 

COVID magically disappears and everyone runs out of their houses into the streets, their maskless mouths sending up clouds of safe steam in the cold, early-morning air. All thought of gift giving or receiving is promptly forgotten like an unimportant footnote. There is much singing and shouting, laughing and embracing, hugging of strangers and kissing of old friends on the cheek, and everyone's standing so close together that I start to get sweaty, and someone steps on my foot but I'm so happy to be so close to so many people that I don't even feel it. We all join hands and sing and dance like crazy, a spectacle that is part Dahoo-Dores-in-Whoville from How The Grinch Stole Christmas, part ancient Yuletide festival (but maybe without the slaughtering of livestock). At the end of the day we all drop to sleep wherever we happen to be out of sheer joyful exhaustion. The morning after we all feel ever-so-mildly chagrined, but then we eat leftovers and take long, hot showers and help clean up, and agree that it was quite a good Christmas. 

TERFS, Target and Theoretical Book-Burning

If you aren't trans, you probably don't know that it's Transgender Awareness Week.

(The irony of that sentence is not lost on me.)

You also probably don't know that it's been a rough week for the trans community. Granted, a lot of weeks are rough weeks for the trans community--but this week, it has a little to do with the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, and a lot to do with the myriad of different masks people like to use to dress up pervasive transphobia.

What do you say about a gal like Abigail Shrier? She's an author, a freelance contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and a TERF fanner of flames within the Gender Critical movement. Let's break that down a bit before we press on: What is a TERF, and what exactly is the Gender Critical movement?

On its face, TERF is an easy acronym to understand: "Transgender-Exclusionary Radical Feminist". In practice it's a little harder to pin down, as many who associate themselves with the TERF label and its ideology are neither radical nor feminist. Just so we’re clear, here:

Transgender: Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

Exclusionary: The tendency to deny (someone) access to or bar (someone) from a place, group, or privilege.

Radical: Advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party. 

Feminist: One who supports the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

When you think "radical feminist", you might picture a lot of things. Maybe a young lesbian with an undercut, protesting outside the Westborough Baptist Church as Pussy Riot blares in the background. You're unlikely to picture a modestly-dressed Christian woman in her late 60's sporting a lapel pin that reads "RONALD REGAN FOR CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP". Surprisingly, you're just as likely to see either of these women at a TERF rally, shouting in to a megaphone about the sinister perversion of Hormone Replacement Therapy, lamenting the proliferation of binders and gender-neutral restrooms, and prophesizing the degradation or flat-out destruction of biological females. Indeed, the TERF movement has been lately making bed-fellows with conservative Christian think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council--organizations that promote "traditional family values", espousing woman's natural subordination to man and lambasting the depravity of gay marriage. Not exactly what comes to mind when you think "radical feminist", eh? 

So let's call a spade a spade and say that "TERF" is code for "Cisgender Woman Who Doesn't Believe That Trans People Are Real".

("Cisgender", by the way, means "a person whose sense of identity and gender correspond to their sex assigned at birth". I don't want to assume the terminology with which people may or may not be familiar, so I'll continue to clarify terms wherever necessary throughout this piece.)

And what of the Gender Critical movement? That phrase is a little harder to parse. All examination and exploration of gender is, to a degree, critical. Whether you're a proponent of equality and egalitarianism, or an advocate for "traditional", prescriptive gender roles rooted in theological texts, or anything in-between, forming any opinion or relationship to gender requires a degree of "critical" thinking or behavior. In the context of social discourse around transgender rights, "Gender Critical" tends to mean "acknowledging gender only on the basis of XX/XY sex chromosomes and corresponding reproductive organs; i.e. cisgender women and transgender men are all women, and cisgender men and transgender women are all men." When held up to the light, some glaring holes are immediately visible in this definition: the approximate 275,000,000 global population of intersex people (that is, people born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies") being the most obvious, followed by people who have genital or reproductive surgery related to medical conditions, people with endocrine disorders, and people who experience forced genital mutilation. Oh yeah, and all the trans people of the world. According to the GC definition of what definitively constitutes a man or a woman, all of these people have no assignation, no place in the biological system of government.

So how does Abigail Shrier fit into all this, again?

This past June, Shrier published Irreversible Damage, a book that links the increasing emergence and visibility of transgender people, specifically FTM (Female-to-Male) teens, in Western society to the development of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. It ultimately concludes that FTM gender transition is the result of social pressure and internalized cultural misogyny, that MTF (Male-to-Female) gender transition is a male attempt conquer and dominate cisgender women, and suggests that the "transgender craze" will have disastrously deleterious effects on generations of women to come. 

Before we go any further, I want to address the cornerstone of Shrier’s book: Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. This will necessitate some quoting of scholarly articles, and I ask that you bear with me and read the following excerpts. It’s important, I promise.

"Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria" is described as "a type of adolescent-onset or late-onset gender dysphoria where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood". A website titled "We Are the Parents of ROGD Kids" provides the following context for the preceding definition: "Our children are young, naïve and impressionable, many of them are experiencing emotional or social difficulties. They are strongly influenced by their peers and by the media, who are promoting the transgender lifestyle as popular, desirable and the solution to all of their problems. And they are being misled by authority figures, such as teachers, doctors and counselors, who rush to "affirm" their chosen gender without ever questioning why."

The Australian Professional Association for Trans Health released a statement last year that really sums up the medical consensus about ROGD: “The term ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ is not, and has never been, a diagnosis or health condition. [It] has been used in a single report describing parental perception of their adolescent’s gender identity without exploration of the gender identity and experiences of the adolescents themselves… The term ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)’ is not a diagnosis or health condition recognized by any major professional association, nor is it listed as a subtype or classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD).”

The term “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” was coined by Lisa Littman, an Assistant Professor at the Brown University School of Public Health. It was first used in an article published in 2018 entitled Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Study of Parental Reports. This article, and the term itself, were immediately adopted and held up as a victory trophy by anti-trans activists the world over. “FINALLY! SOME SCIENCE WE CAN GET BEHIND! GET MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S BATHROOMS AND GET OUR DAUGHTERS TO STOP SAYING THEY'RE TRANS!”  Within the scientific and scholarly community, however, the article has been widely criticized for its data collection methods and the limited scope used to draw conclusions about gender dysphoria among young adults. Several articles have been published in direct response to Littman’s 2018 report; one such article, authored by academic editor Daniel Romer, offered the following criticism of Littman’s methodology:

One possibility to address the purpose that the study originally proposes is to follow a group of gender variant young people evaluated by mental health professionals in a longitudinal way, to assess if those who persist demanding gender affirmation differ (in terms of contact and social influence, or other factors) from those who do not persist. Another (much simpler) approach could involve a cross-sectional design, in which transgender youth answered questions concerning their networks and peer influence. In contrast to those possible approaches, Dr. Littman’s research provides only indirect evidence of the role of the influence of social and media contagion on young people’s gender identity. Littman's article recruited parents online. Some of the websites that posted recruitment information about the study might attract parents who are more likely to question their child's gender self-identification and the current best healthcare approaches. No youth were enrolled… Evidence also points to a low correlation between parents' and children’ self-evaluation in several domains of mental health. For example, regarding quality of life, a systematic review verified that parent and children do not agree in the evaluation for children non-observable states (such as emotions)… Furthermore, parents’ biases may be enhanced in the presence of stress and psychological symptoms. Studies have shown that this could be the case for a good proportion of parents of gender-variant children and adolescents, who tend to present negative attitudes toward their offspring's gender variation. 

I wanted to include this dry, clinical language as a foundation to what I’m about to say, and to make it perfectly, sparklingly clear:

The premises espoused in Shrier’s book are based on a condition that is not medically recognized, and that was in fact created by a singular author for a singular study performed two years ago.

It is indeed true that research surrounding trans physical and mental health is scattershot and incomplete. Shrier quotes Fox news articles as primary sources and cherry-picks statistics to support the claim that being trans is like being in a cult, that being trans is a cultural phenomenon that is mostly the result of media influence and peer pressure, and that many who pursue medical transition later regret their choices and detransition. And if you stand back, tilt your head, close one eye and squint, it seems like it maybe it could be a sound argument. Then you open both eyes and look closer, and as with the basis of the Gender Critical movement in general, you start seeing holes all over the place. There are numerous studies--some long-term, some short-term, some with large sample sizes and other with groups of less than 20 people--that confirm the benefits of medical transition and gender affirmation for transgender people. A quick search of "gender transition" on Google Scholar will yield scores of articles to that effect. Two particularly persuasive articles are worth mentioning:

According to an examination conducted by Cornell University of more than 50 studies related to gender transition, the effects of transition are overwhelmingly positive. An introduction to the study explains, "We conducted a systematic literature review of all peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1991 and June 2017 that assess the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being. We identified 55 studies that consist of primary research on this topic, of which 51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm." (Cornell University Public Policy Research Portal)

In a journal article titled A Survey Study of Surgeons’ Experience with Regret and/or Reversal of Gender-Confirmation Surgeries, a total of 46 surgeons responded that out of the collective 22,725 patients on whom they had performed some type of gender-confirmation surgery, the total number of patients that expressed post-surgical regret was 62. That’s 0.0027% of patients. The survey concludes that, “regret after gender-affirming surgery is an exceedingly rare event. Reasons for regret or detransition are diverse, ranging from change in gender identity to societal and relationship pressures to post-surgical pain.” (Oregon Health & Science University)

Shrier doesn’t have the facts on her side, but that hardly seems to matter to those who laud her book as important, ground-breaking, revolutionary… Statistics and facts are almost beside the point, even if they're in the favor of trans people and trans allies. As we've seen time and again, you can have all the science and all the facts on your side but still fail to persuade someone whose mind is squarely made up. The effects of climate change, the efficacy of vaccinations, the highly contagious nature of COVID, the history of white supremacy in America, the fact that race is not a biological attribute... Anyone who denies the reality of these phenomena can be shown all the facts, all the scientific data, all the proof in the world, and studies have shown that it has little to no impact on changing a "denier's" opinion. On the contrary, it’s often had the opposite effect! Those who would claim that vaccines cause Autism, when shown large bodies of empirical data that disprove that myth, have responded that they are even less likely to vaccinate their children after being confronted with evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy. Transphobic rhetoric and behavior cling to terms like “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” in much the same way, despite the glaringly obvious flaws in the research.

So, how did the LGBTQ+ community react to Irreversible Damage? They were far from gobsmacked. Shrier has long been a prominent voice in the Gender Critical movement, and her transphobia-masquerading-as-feminism is old news. Nevertheless, there was certainly push-back and renunciation and expression of outrage: trans people and allies alike were quick to point out Shrier's selective and pseudo-scientific approach, the large body of evidence that is contrary to Shrier's claims, and the potential harm that such a book poses to trans people in an already-hostile society. The outpouring of criticism from the LGBTQ+ community was heard, and large retailers like Amazon and Target made some changes in response: Amazon eliminated paid ads for the book, and Target pulled the book from their shelves altogether. 

Her proponents immediately cried foul. "CENSORSHIP! FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS ARE BEING TRAMPLED! THE BIG TRANS AGENDA IS GAGGING THIS VISIONARY AND SUPPRESSING THE VIOCES OF DETRANSITIONERS!"

Would it surprise you to learn that Irreversible Damage is still the #1 best-seller in LGBT Studies books on Amazon, despite the "no paid ads" controversy? Because it is. And Target, in a milquetoast about-face, has returned Irreversible Damage to its shelves.

In the midst of all this, in strolls Grace Lavery. Lavery is an author, a professor of English at UC Berkeley, and a trans activist. A transwoman herself, Lavery frequently engages—both professionally and personally—with a seemingly boundless stream of opinions, ideas, ranting and ramblings about trans issues online. This week, she tossed out a string of tweets about the Irreversible Damage debacle. Within 24 hours, all hell broke loose.

The infamous tweets can be seen below:

So, it’s obvious (at least, to me it’s obvious) that Lavery is being hyperbolic and that her tweet was not in fact a directive to steal and burn books, but a dry criticism of how valueless and harmful the book Irreversible Damage is to the trans community. You remember hyperbole, right?

“I’m literally dead.”

“I’m starving.”

“I’ll kill you if you say that again.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

None of these phrases are to be taken literally, and people employ them all the time. Why, then, is it so unlikely and difficult to comprehend that a transwoman might have some disdain for Irreversible Damage, and express that disdain through hyperbole?

Lavery went on to clarify that her tweet was not meant to be taken literally, which was met with skepticism at best and outright violent threats at worst:

And here’s where it starts to get interesting: Lavery, while affirming that her initial tweets were meant in jest, started to take the cries for “freedom of speech” and the assertion that “all book-burning is fascism” and flip them around, creating a lovely paradox that sailed cleanly over the heads of her critics and decriers:

As I read through the tweet-thread about theoretical book-burning and the difference between destroying a physical commodity and an intangible idea, I was by turns angry, aghast, proud and in awe of Lavery’s (typical) equilibrium between razor-sharp wit and her ability to remain graceful under pressure. She demonstrated, yet again, her adept ability to craft and sustain a surprising and unlikely argument, like a fire slowly and carefully kindled in the midst of a roaring bluster.

I agree with Lavery’s assessment whole-heartedly. Burning books has long been associated with facism and oppression. However, burning an individual book, in protest, is not an act of censorship or a suppression of anyone’s freedom of speech. Neither is a private entity, like Target or Amazon, refusing to advertise or stock a book a violation of an individual’s first-amendment rights. People seem to think “freedom of speech” means “I can say whatever I want, and no one can disagree with me, and no one can take direct action to combat what I say.”

What does the first amendment actually protect? Let’s look at the text.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

It protects individuals from the State censoring the free expression of ideas. The State is supposed to be neutral (laughable and unrealistic as that might sound). The State is imbued with institutional power that no individual can possess. But what of individuals? Other organizations and entities? Why, they’re free to ignore, denounce, attack, oppose and discourage whatever ANYONE might say. That’s the thing about free speech—it’s a two-way street. Just as everyone has the freedom to speak, everyone also has the freedom to reject what’s being said; to walk away and refuse to listen any longer; to persuade others that what’s being said is nonsense; or even to organize collective action to combat that speech. All those actions are demonstrations of free expression. Anyone can speak their mind, but that right doesn’t come with the entitlement to a platform, a podium, a microphone or an audience.

Abigail Shrier had every right to author Irreversible Damage, and whomever wants to read it has every right to do so—but that doesn’t translate to a “right” to have specific outlets carry the book, or shield the book or its author from criticism, or even protect physical copies of the book from being burned in protest by individuals. Fun fact! There are several noted incidents of radical feminists participating in symbolic book-burnings, from the misogynistic medical textbook Obstetrics and Gynecology (Willson,1971) to a spiritual guide to sexual orientation conversion therapy called Pastoral Psycho-Therapy (Rodríguez & Ramírez, 2019). Freedom of that sort doesn’t seem to be of interest to TERFs and the Gender Critical movement at present—it doesn’t suit their cause or help proliferate their ideology à la mode—so they selectively remember the book-burnings of State regimes and forget the acts of individual protest within their own “radical feminist” ranks. The GC movement also continues to unabashedly endorse a slurry of other forms of oppression—from bills limiting healthcare availability to trans people, to strongly rejecting the acknowledgement of trans people throughout history in school curricula. Might they object to these efforts if the subjects of these oppressive and prejudicial acts were “women” instead of “trans people”?

The backlash following Lavery’s original (and subsequent) tweets has been swift and scathing. There have been demands for her termination from the UC Berkeley, calls for her prosecution for inciting unlawful behavior, and a constant bombardment by transphobic slurs and threats of violence.

News organizations, both small-town and nationally syndicated, have picked up the story, with most headlines reading as some variation of “UC Berkeley Professor Calls for Book Burning!” Lavery has confirmed that most of these news outlets have not reached out to her for comment.

Throughout the onslaught, Lavery has remained mostly positive and continued to update her followers on social media as to how things are progressing. But the ordeal and the aftermath is a collective experience of suffering for trans people that has no expiration date. Because:

A hateful woman still wrote a hateful book.

That book is still being purchased and read.

It’s author is gaining money and power.

It’s ideology is proliferating.

Another woman criticized this book and it’s author, and was publicly flailed for it.

She was flailed in the name of free expression.

She was flailed for her free expression anger about a book that seeks to undermine, delegitimize and harm her and women like her.

In the name of free expression, she is receiving threats to her employment, to her social standing, to her own physical safety.

And all of it—ALL OF IT—boils down to transphobia.

Dressing up transphobia with different masks—“DEFENDING FREE SPEECH”, “PROTECTING WOMEN”, "SAVE THE CHILDREN", “MORAL DECENCY”, “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM”, “BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM”—makes it all the more pervasive and dangerous and effective. This is nothing new, but familiarity with or frequency of exposure to the grandiose displays and clever contortions of hateful bigotry doesn’t dull the pain it causes. It compounds, it piles up, it makes the hurting heavier.

Transgender Awareness Week... It’s been a long week. It’s been a tiring week. And still, we live: we cry, we scream, we fight, we work, we love, we fuck, we eat and sleep and write and dream. We persist for ourselves, and for each other, and for a world that might someday come to be, if only we persist.

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Sources:

https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/conservative-group-hosts-anti-transgender-panel-feminists-left-n964246

https://www.thedailybeast.com/radical-feminists-and-conservative-christians-team-up-against-transgender-people

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.html

https://www.lexico.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/22/science/do-races-differ-not-really-genes-show.html

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/

https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/10/03/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-trans-healthcare-debunked/

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/31/why-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-is-bad-science/

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/feminists-burn-book-about-changing-sexual-orientation/

https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2017/08/24/book-burning/

https://rachelemoss.com/2020/11/17/book-burning-womb-burning/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038026120934693?journalCode=sora

https://quillette.com/2019/03/19/an-interview-with-lisa-littman-who-coined-the-term-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/ a 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6424477/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212091/

https://everyone.plos.org/2019/03/19/correcting-the-scientific-record-and-an-apology/

https://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/386

https://twitter.com/graceelavery?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

The Daniels

Daniels have been important in my life. That’s not to say that only Daniels have been important, but that I’ve had a higher-than-average number of Daniels present in my life, and some of them have been incredibly important to me. For starters, my brother’s name is Daniel. When our mom was pregnant with him, before they knew the sex, they asked what I wanted to name the baby—I said Kimberly. Then they had a boy and named him Daniel. (A few years later they had a girl, who they did in fact name Kimberly. Pretty surprised they took the suggestion of their three-year-old, but I stand by it, and I hope you like your name, Kim.) My brother has been the longest-standing Daniel in my life, and he is the Daniel to whom I compare all others. My brother seems to grasp things best when he can physically grasp them, he learns through physical contact and action. Perhaps for this reason, my brother is very gifted musically, and he can play an assortment of instruments. When I picture my brother completely at ease and completely himself, I picture him playing the guitar and looking off into the distance at nothing in particular, not thinking, just playing. He can be explosively emotional, in both the good and the bad. He is a bit of a hypochondriac, which I can understand, because my anxiety has often led me down the WebMD, self-diagnoses rabbit-hole, much to my chagrin. My brother will talk to you about literally anything, and he won’t walk away when the conversation gets hard. He will often forget his keys, phone, wallet or anything else important that one shouldn’t forget. I’ve had many people tell me that he’s the funniest person they’ve ever met in real life, and it doesn't surprise me a bit. This first Daniel in my life set the bar for all the other Daniels I would later meet, of which there have been many. Sitting down to write this, I tried to count them all and I came up with 17 different Daniels that I could identify. I’m sure that means that there have been more and I’ve only just forgotten some of them, but capping it at 17 is still an eyebrow-raising number of Daniels, don’t you think?

My husband’s name is Daniel Smith. We met at a coffee shop in 2010; I was singing and playing the piano, and he was behind the counter making people laugh and serving lattes. As I was leaving, he stopped me in the parking lot and said, “Hey, do you have a boyfriend?” My long-distance boyfriend and I had just broken up earlier that week, so I arched an eyebrow and simply said, “No.” He then inquired, “Can I have your phone number and take you out on a date sometime?” To which I replied, flattered and amused and a little bit flustered, “Uh, okay.” A few weeks later he texted me asking if I wanted to go get a fancy Italian dinner and then go swimming in his parents’ pool. Years later confessed to me that this was all part of his fool-proof system to get laid. Take ‘em out for some spicy Italian sausage, get ‘em to laugh a lot while you’re in the hot tub, and let nature take its course. Apparently eating sausages someone else paid for and sitting in hot chlorinated water makes your date want to bang like crazy. Naturally, I threw a monkey-wrench into his carefully laid plans and I said no, I would not like to go out for a fancy Italian dinner, and I was actually a vegetarian and thought sausage was gross; nor would I like to go to his parent’s house, because I didn’t know him and that just seemed weirdly over-familiar. (I was never good at “dates”—does it show?) I made him a counteroffer: “How about meeting me over at my friend Russell’s house to drink some beers?” Seemingly stunned at being shot down and then asked out on a not-date to drink at the house of some other guy (I’m sure he was thinking, “is Russell’s House a bar? Or am I actually just meeting you to drink beer in some dude’s backyard?”), he agreed to meet me there. We hung out in the backyard with my friends—most of whom were other guys, guys I’d dated, guys I’d known since Middle School—and told crude jokes and smoked gag-inducing quantities of hand-rolled cigarettes. Eventually everyone else passed out on various pieces of furniture or shuffled themselves home, and as he was about to leave I caught his hand and pulled him back and kissed him. He looked stupefied and walked out the front door. He came back in a minute later and kissed me again, as if wanting to prove he would not be out-done, then left again. We’ve been together a decade this past July, and we continue to surprise and delight and attempt to out-fox each other.

At the age of four, when we were still living on a small farm in Minnesota, I made the first “best friend” I can remember having. I don’t remember most of this friendship, it was 27 years ago, but what I can remember is: sitting in a dark closet, surrounded by adult coats and scarves and galoshes, and pretending it was a clubhouse; playing Sonic the Hedgehog on his Sega Genesis; trying to walk in very deep snow and his boots coming off, and rushing back to the house in thrilled panic at the prospect of frostbite; drinking hot chocolate in the little landing between the upstairs and the downstairs of my house; talking while I took a bath and he sat on the floor of the bathroom playing with action figures and feeling like it was a perfectly normal thing that all friends did together. His name, like my husband’s, was also Daniel Smith. Two different people in two different states at two very different times of my life, one my incidental and proximate “best friend” and the other my legally-bound and intentionally-chosen “best friend”, both named Daniel Smith. Not that “Daniel Smith” is an uncommon name—obviously quite the contrary—but still! That’s pretty crazy, right? Pretty unlikely? And what does it mean? Oh, nothing at all, really, but it is a canny and extraordinary coincidence that makes me smile when I think of it.

There were a lot of other Daniels, too. The first boy I ever kissed was named Daniel—we’d been friends since the 4^th grade, we dated briefly a time or two, and we’re still great friends today. I sang with a few Daniels in choir in high school, and I ran cross country with a Daniel, too. I had flings with a couple of different Daniels while I was at NYU, and I dated a Danielle—I like to think she counts as a Daniel. A high school girlfriend’s older brother was a Daniel, and he actually worked with my husband Daniel at that coffee shop where we met. Me and that Daniel had an intense board-game rivalry at one point, and while he seemed exceedingly smart and effortlessly talented to little 21-year-old me, he was also a terribly sore loser. I don’t know if that made him less fun or more fun to play board-games with, because he was insufferable when he lost, but that made it all the more deeply gratifying to beat his pompous ass at Settlers of Catan.

One of my best friends growing up had a twin brother named Daniel, and he was one of the strangest guys I ever met. We were all the same age, but socially he was years behind--at 17 you'd easily have mistaken his mannerisms and maturity for that of a 12 year old. I remember sitting on the swings at a park near our house and watching with uncomfortable fascination and embarrassed awe as my foster-sister explained the female anatomy and the mechanics of reproduction to this Daniel, and wondering what he was thinking and feeling in that moment. As I got older, I worked with a couple of Daniels: one was a barista with me at a Peet’s Coffee, the other was a coffee roaster and trainer for an independent coffee shop called Farley’s that I used to manage. There were Daniels in a few different bands I occasionally went out to see. There was an ex-military, alcoholic skater Daniel that frequented my local bar, and he was by turns intriguing and unsettling and predictable. There was a Daniel who had a recording studio in his garage, and he would put on shows in his backyard, and he always wore a silly hat. There was a strange Daniel whose house I wound up at a few times, presumably an acquaintance of a mutual friend, and there we would smoke weed and get drunk and argue about nothing. I think I spent New Year's Eve of 2014 with that Daniel and two other Daniels. Daniels, Daniels, Daniels. I didn’t think there would be so many. Some of these Daniels weren’t particularly important to me, but I remember them nonetheless, and hold each one with a special distinction in my heart.

If you don't have any Daniels in your life, I'd highly recommend them.

Expectation and the Unconscious

Sometimes I wake up with a pain in my chest. It isn't always the same pain--sometimes it's a sharp stab, sometimes it's a tight grip around my chest, sometimes it seems to throb with my heartbeat, sometimes it's a vague, dull ache. For long stretches of time it doesn't happen at all; when it does, it's the very first thing I'm consciously aware of as I wake from sleeping. Before I've even opened my eyes, I'm aware of the pain in my chest, followed by a moment of confusion and a little swell of distress. Then I open my eyes, and I take a deep breath and try to "find" the pain, try to figure out exactly where it is and how it hurts. Then I give up. I grab my phone and take a sip of water and try to forget about it.

Has this ever happened to you? Do you know what it feels like to have your first conscious moment be not just the perception of pain, but the immediate feeling that something is wrong? It's a distressing, disorienting way to wake up, let me tell you. And when it happens for multiple days in a row, something sardonically funny happens: you wake up expecting the pain. And because you expect the pain it is less jarring... but it is also distinctly depressing. If you don't feel jarred by the pain anymore, that means it's become familiar; no longer "just passing through", it seems bound to stay. At the same time, it seems kind of impossible, to be expectant while unconscious--it sounds like a contradiction of terms. It is a contradiction of terms.

Expect: regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of.

Unconscious: not knowing or perceiving; not aware.

How do you expect when you're unconscious? The only answer I can think up is that unconsciousness... isn't real? It feels ridiculous to even write that. But I can't reconcile the feelings of familiarity and expectation when arising from a state of unconsciousness without supposing that on some level we are conscious of everything. The mind may be unaware of something while the body may be fully aware of it. We like to think that the mind is the epicenter of the body, the dictatorial overlord that calls all the shots, that keeps track of where everything is and what's going on and when to act and just how to act when the time has come to do so. But like many dictatorial overlords, the mind is sometimes subject to the will of the masses, and the body--greater apparently than the sum of its parts--stages a coup. It will go haywire, it will hurt, it will shake, it will vomit, it will faint, it will act despite the protest of the mind, it will heed no warning and submit to no control. The mind, once pompous and self-assured in its tower atop the body, watches helplessly as its kingdom crumbles and its subjects run amok with scorn and disregard.

There are a lot of metaphors for anxiety. 

That's what all of this comes down to, including the pain. The pain I've woken up with for the last 5 days, the pain that's familiar and unsurprising and expected, is just another metaphor. It's really happening, don't get me wrong--I really do feel stabbing or tightness or aching--but it's a representation of something else, and that something is anxiety. My body is taking something my mind can't comprehend and attempting to make it comprehensible in the simplest way possible: Pain. And my relationship to that pain changes depending on the frequency, the intensity, the location, the conditions in which it is experienced, and whether it feels new and surprising or familiar and expected. 

Here's another metaphor: It's like seeing a cockroach in your house. You wake up one morning and there's a cockroach on the wall. You feel panic and disgust and a reflexive need to act immediately, to get rid of it. Part of your reaction stems simply from the fact that it's so out of the ordinary that it must be dealt with immediately. If you flush it down the toilet or smash it with a boot and then go about the rest of your day, and go to bed and wake up again tomorrow, and there's no cockroach, you hardly even notice that there's no cockroach--why would there be? It was a one-off, an abnormality, an unpleasant but ultimately insignificant experience to be forgotten. Maybe it happens again, five years later, but by that point enough time has passed that it feels like an entirely new experience; you might not even remember that it happened before. But what if you wake up the very next day and there's another cockroach? And what if there's a cockroach, or multiple cockroaches, in your house (maybe even in different rooms, at different times throughout the day) every day for a week. Two weeks. A month. At some point, you don't feel surprised anymore, and even your reaction of disgust has dulled. It's not that you don't care, but rather that you've gotten so used to caring and noticing and being disgusted and feeling panicked that you're just... always kind of in that state. Your body can't sustain the high pitch of panic you felt that fist time, but with the frequency of the recurrence, your body never relaxes like it relaxed before; you never really let your guard down. There is a word for this feeling: Dread. Your body lives in a state of dread.

This is what living with chronic anxiety is like. 

I used to think that there was something seriously wrong with my heart. I was constantly afraid that going to have a heart attack, or maybe that I had some kind of cancer that was affecting my circulatory system. After numerous trips to the doctor, one emergency room visit, a lot of self-medicating and self-destructive outlets, countless conversations with my partner and my closest friends and family, and a year of therapy, I'm now mostly convinced that it's a physical manifestation of my anxiety. It took years before I would believe that I actually have an anxiety disorder, and longer still before I would accept that anxiety isn't as simple as "feeling stressed or worried", but can in fact make my body go haywire. That might sound like a long time, and maybe it is; why would it take years to believe something that was already happening to me all the time?

It's a pretty common response, as it turns out. It takes a lot of convincing to believe there's nothing physically wrong with you when your body is telling you otherwise on a near-daily basis. Partly because there is just so much that could be physically wrong with a person; the possibilities seem nearly endless! Everything inside you has the potential for failure or defect, and every documented medical ailment known to man has, by virtue of our awareness of it, happened to someone. Which means that anything could happen to you. Also, it's natural to assume that the basis of a physical symptom will be a physical cause--that's usually the case. If you're tired and coughing and have a fever, it usually means you have a cold; If you're stomach hurts and you throw up and feel better, it usually means you have food poisoning. If you're waking up with pain in your chest and a racing heartrate in the middle of the night, or you're having heart palpitations throughout the day, feeling dizzy and short of breath and shaky... It's natural to assume there's something physically wrong with you, probably something wrong with your heart.

And even when an emergency room doctor is looking you in the eye and telling you matter-of-factly that you've had a panic attack, that the EKG has recorded your heartbeat and your sinus rhythm is normal, and that this really does happen to people on a regular basis, you don't believe it. It sounds completely ridiculous. How can you go from being asleep to feeling like you're having a heart attack? If you were asleep, where was the opportunity for panic or anxiety to occur? Panic about what? I was asleep! Nope, no way, absolutely not. The only panic that's happening is the panic that the doctor doesn't believe you and thinks you're crazy. There's got to be something physically wrong.

And then a few years pass, and it keeps happening, and you eventually tire of scouring WebMD, demanding blood tests, taking your pulse every hour, eliminating everything from your diet and reintroducing things one by one to try to find some correlation with what's happening to you... And somewhere along the way, eventually, with a defeated acquiescence that's still tinged with skepticism, you accept that you've got an anxiety disorder. It's hard to let go of the hope that there's something physically wrong--and that might sound backward and fucked up. The hope that there's something physically wrong? Excuse me? But it's true. There's a perverse sort of hope tied to physical illness--if there's a physical cause, it usually means that there's a physical solution, and once treated the whole mess will be resolved for the rest of your life. Not so much with mental illness. Not when it takes years to even accept that a physical symptom can have a non-physical basis. Not when you're on a cross-town bus back home from your therapist's office and you start to have a panic attack for seemingly no reason at all, and no matter how fervently you repeat to yourself, "I'm fine, I'm not dying, I'm going to be okay," you still can't stop it. Not when it's nearly a decade after that trip to the emergency room and you still wake up with a pain in your chest and a feeling of dread, and you know the best you can do is accept that it's happening and believe that it will eventually pass, and attempt to go about your day like normal in spite of the fear.

So I sit down to write about it. Because looking at it from multiple angles, recalling it in the past and comparing it to the present, creating metaphors to describe it, giving up on "solving" it in favor of examining it, is maybe the best I can do to deal with it in the moment when happening.  And three hours, two glasses of water and a lot of thinking and writing later, I feel a little better. The pain is gone, for now.

I'm going to go start my day.