Representation Matters.

Today is the International Day of Trans Visibility and this morning I saw this piece of art in my social media feed.

56201130_10157428215713598_5544235667359268864_nIt was created by an artist Hannah Daisy @makedaisychains (photo credit to her.

I felt deeply moved by the image and spent most of the day thinking about it.   Why did this image impact me so intensely?  As a non-binary person who has scars from self harm, I felt represented and valid in a way that I didn’t even realize I needed.  In this image, the arm with scars is just one in a series of different and unique arms raised in an empowered fist.   It is SO rare to see art that includes self harm scars that neither stigmatizes, sensationalizes nor glorifies self injury (and cutting specifically).  In this art piece, the self harm scars are matter of fact but are not the focus of the image.  The scars are shown as healed/healing and thus represent a hopeful message of recovery and life after self harm.  The image implies that recovery is possible, but also depicts the reality that mental illness is not always an invisible illness.  It shows that scars do not have to be hidden and can be accepted as part (but not the defining aspect) of a person.  This image does not show the person who self harmed as an object of pity or of revulsion.  It doesn’t make me feel sorry for the person, it makes me feel that they are a SURVIVOR.

As a person who has a multitude of scars from decades of self harm, I needed to see this. I needed the representation SO much. I needed the message that I’m not shameful, disgusting, broken, crazy, insane or violent.  I needed the message that my scars do not define me.  I needed the message that SOMEBODY out there, an artist, sees my scars as a sign of strength, resilience and SURVIVAL.  I don’t want to feel ashamed of my scars.  I don’t want to feel judged by society.  I don’t want to receive stares of pity or confusion on a summer day.  I want to choose my clothes based on what feels comfortable, not based on what will hide the scars and keep me safe from stigma.   Because there is an intense amount of societal stigma associated with self harming behaviour (and cutting in particular).  It is misunderstood, even by mental health providers.  It is often treated as a contagion, something that will spread like a virus to others.  It often leads to exclusion and intense self hatred/shame/guilt and isolation.  It is almost always portrayed as entirely undesirable and destructive, never acknowledged as a complex, coping mechanism that has often helped a person survive extremely difficult times when they had few other options to survive.   Self harm is almost always conflated with suicide, when often  people who self injure are doing so as a way to stay alive and to cope with hopeless, intense or overwhelming emotions.  (Self harm and suicide can go hand in hand, but not always).

I felt seen and I felt valid.  I can’t remember the last time a piece of art made me feel so  affirmed and understood.

Later in the day, I was scrolling through social media and saw the same image on another website.  But this time the image was altered:


In the second image, the scars are censored.  They are replaced with what looks like the reflection of white lights or stars.   This second image made me feel erased, ashamed and frustrated.   I can understand that the website might not want to trigger folks and it might not want to be seen as “promoting” self harm behaviours.  I can understand why someone might think censoring the image was in the best interests of the public, but as a person who self harms, I completely disagree with the censoring.

I didn’t feel triggered by the first image, I felt REPRESENTED.  As I mentioned, I don’t believe the image in any way glorified or promoted self harm.  I saw the image as respectfully acknowledging the fact that many trans and gender diverse struggle, in a large part because of transphobia and lack of acceptance, with various types of self harming behaviours.   That doesn’t mean that we are weird, odd, crazy or broken. It means we are surviving.

What this censoring means to me?

It means that the people running the second website think I should hide my scars, that they are a bad influence on others or that they might make people uncomfortable.  It makes me feel that I should be invisible or deserve to be invisible. It makes me feel that self harm is SO terrible that it needs to be blotted out and erased, replaced with stars and light that won’t make anyone uncomfortable.

Does that mean that my existence makes you uncomfortable?

Should I be ashamed and hide myself away?

Is my mental health disability SO unpalatable to others that it needs to be censored?

If today is International Trans Day of Visibility, I think that means ALL trans and gender diverse folks deserve to be visible (if they want to be) and that includes trans folks with mental, physical and invisible disabilities.  We have to work from an intersectional perspective that does not erase the various lived experiences of people.  Representation DOES matter.  People with disabilities so often lack positive, affirming and realistic representations of ourselves in media, art and society.   Representations that neither treat us like inspirational stories nor tragedies.

Because we are SO much more than that.

Let’s Talk…


So you want to talk about mental health and stigma?

Let’s talk about:
-how few mental health care services are truly trauma informed
-how people with mental illness still face discrimination in the workplace
-the lack of preventative care for mental illness
-lack of culturally appropriate care for Indigenous folks
-the problematic aspects of the DSM
-joking about suicide
-how little funding there is for ending gender based violence

This isn’t just about ending stigma.


How to Heal when the World Wishes for Your Silence
















Burn the systems to the ground.




CW: sexual violence, systemic violence/oppression/disbelief
















#whyIwishIhadnotreported  #whymetooisnotenough


On being a survivor.










I wish I didn’t care.


Intellectually I know that it is counter productive and makes no sense to expect anything at all, anything even remotely approaching care or consideration, from my children’s father.  I know he is a narcissist and I know that he hates me.  I know that he will always be the victim in every situation and that I will always be wrong, bad, crazy or plain evil.  I know that it is unhealthy to expect anything else.  I know that the very definition of insanity would be expecting him to change.   In a way, it is easy to accept that he abhors me and probably wishes me dead.  I can accept that he wanted to be on the other side of the country to me and basically never speak to me again.  I’m okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is how completely he disregards the needs and feelings of his children.  I find myself entirely filled with rage, disgust and despair.   And I get disappointed, angry and upset EVERY SINGLE TIME he fails to meet even a minimum standard of decent parenting.

In March, my younger daughter scratched her eye on a school field trip.  It was luckily fairly minor and healed within a few days with antibiotic drops, but it was still her eye, and it was still scary.  I took her to the ER at the children’s hospital here and I notified her father about the injury and need to seek medical care.   I’m legally required to notify him of doctor’s appointments and medical information, but he never replies or acknowledges the information I send.   It makes me SO angry that a parent, living across the country, would not even text or call to check to make sure his kid was okay.

This week my daughter fell playing soccer and got a concussion.  Again, I took her to the ER and again I notified her father.  I sent him the handouts the Dr gave us and let him know how the injury occurred.  His child has a mild brain injury and he couldn’t even text or reply to the email to check on her?  Really?

I can’t imagine under any circumstances that I would not want to check to make sure my child was okay.   I would be on the phone or texting back the minute I got the email.  I’d be calling her myself to see how she was feeling.

An empathetic, kind person might even ask me how I was doing.  Thank me for taking her to get prompt medical attention.  Thank me for taking care of her during the recovery period.  Apologize for not being there.  React like a normal human and a loving parent.

It’s isolating being a solo parent.  It can be lonely and it can be scary when your child is sick or hurt.  It is a lot of responsibility making the decisions alone.   It’s hard caring for children without much of a break.   It’s bad enough if you are fully alone, or if the other parent is supportive but far away, but it is terrible when the other parent is absent, but not gone and completely working at cross purposes to co-parenting.

I find it very triggering.  I’m so angry and I just want to scream at him.  But he isn’t here and he won’t be here.  I don’t even know if he reads the emails I send, so there isn’t much point in screaming endlessly into a void.  On the other hand, I’m legally required to continue keeping him informed so I feel trapped.

Sending him a message about his child’s health and not getting a response makes me angry.  But if he replied I can almost guarantee that the response would upset me just as much, if not more.  It’s a lose-lose-lose situation.   And the worst part of it is that my kids can see just how little he cares.   He almost only ever engages with them on his terms.  He rarely directly answers their questions (if at all) and often gives roundabout confusing half-answers and suspects them of sneaking around (when they are just asking for a simple password!).   It is truly maddening.

We are all trying to get on with our lives.  A lot of positive things have happened over the last few months.  A greater sense of stability and normalcy has settled into our days.  I’ve been struggling to know exactly what to write about in this blog and what direction to take it in going forward.

For much more of our day to day lives we are freer now.  I can make decisions more easily and accomplish more in a shorter amount of time.  But weeks like this I still feel caged.  I rage at the legal system which has literally forced me to stay in regular contact with my abuser, no matter whether or not he actual responds (or even reads my messages).  I still don’t feel free because he still has some level of control over aspects of our lives.  I try to rise above and to think as little as possible about him and the harm he has caused, but it’s not always possible to block it out.

It’s difficult to move forward knowing that he will never face any legal consequences.  He was able to pick up, move to another province and more or less start over.  He still thinks that I’m “mental” and his mother still thinks that I belong in a mental hospital.  “Once a mental person, always a mental person” she told my daughter.

People who can repeatedly call a child’s mother “mental” to their own children are not good people.  He is not a good person.  I know that, but I’m still angry.  And I’m angry at myself for the strange twisted hope and disappointment I feel every time he fails, yet again to ACTUALLY CARE about any of us.

And the fact that I care SO MUCH means that I am an empathetic, kind, loving human who wants what most people want: connection.   My humanity allows me to be deeply hurt, but I would not trade it for his empty life.

All mixed up.




For me, there has been an incredible amount of anger.












All the ways…all the blame.













And neither do I.


Not my art.  Taken from Pinterest online

All mental health care, all health care, needs to be TRAUMA INFORMED CARE.


I’m feeling frustrated about the barriers to receiving high quality, publicly funded, trauma informed mental health care.  Especially the barriers faced by trans and gender non-conforming folks.

I know that I’m blessed to live in a country that has free universal health care, but we still have a two-tiered system.  Psychological care, social work and counseling that happens outside hospital settings is fee-for-service.  There are many barriers for those without finances or work place insurance in terms of accessing mental health care.  Based on my own experiences, I believe that medication alone should almost never be the first line of treatment for mental illness, and that medication should never be used without corresponding counseling of some type.   This does not mean that I’m anti-medication or anti-choice or even fully anti-psychiatry.  It just means that I see mental health as more than just a chemical imbalance in the brain.  It means that I know that supportive, validating counseling can be helpful in treating most illnesses.  I highly value feminist based counseling, intersectional approaches, peer support models and any type of counseling where the patient has a say in what happens and is treated like the expert in their own lives.

I’m personally quite negatively biased against cognitive behavioural therapy.  That does not mean that I don’t think it has a place, or that it can never be useful.  I believe it can be helpful with certain types of issues, such as OCD.   But CBT leaves a LOT to be desired in relation to trauma therapy.  It focuses too much on the individual thoughts, feelings and behaviours and too little on trauma, societal oppression and practical barriers.

When I was younger, and I first entered into the mental health care system, my parents found a clinic and doctors that supposedly were experts in the field of eating disorders.  Now, maybe they were good doctors, but I can say with absolute certainty that they were not trauma informed.  I don’t really remember every being asked exactly WHY I had developed anorexia, or if anything had happened to me.

I’m not an expert, by any means, but I know that young people rarely (if ever) develop eating disorders and self harm just on a whim, out of the blue.  Generally eating disorders are symptoms of a larger problem, generally eating behaviours are coping techniques to deal with something.

I was a smart teenager.  I knew to some extent why I wasn’t eating.  I had learned that it was an effective way to zone out, feel lighter, feel empty and take up less space.  I became addicted to that feeling of zoning out, it helped me cope with the sexual abuse I was experiencing.  It wasn’t about my looks, it wasn’t about losing weight and it wasn’t about existential angst (per se).   I’m not sure if anyone actually ever asked me why I wasn’t eating.  And after a certain amount of time had passed, it became irrelevant to everyone.  Nobody cared why, they only cared about me eating so I wouldn’t die.  I didn’t believe I could die.   I’m not sure I REALLY cared if I died. I think I did at that time, but I certainly didn’t care by the time I started taking anti-depressants.  I pretty much welcomed the idea of death and started to think about suicide at 17.

These psychologists I went to see worked from a CBT model.  I remember being 16 and sitting in the psychologist’s office while he drew diagrams of how thoughts impacted feelings which impacted behaviours which further influenced thoughts and feelings.  I quickly picked up on the pattern of it.  I realized that a very specific set of responses were the desired outcome.  I followed the pattern and started saying what he wanted to hear.  I didn’t internalize any of it.  It became a game to me, not a game to manipulate or hurt anyone, but a test to see if I said what was expected if I’d be allowed to go back to school and stop missing music class for the appointments (which to me appeared pointless).

Fairly soon after that, I became physically starved to the point my brain wasn’t really working rationally anymore.  The physical side effects of the disease confused my brain and the restricting and exercising became obsessive to the point of OCD.  The behaviour self perpetuated and I lost track of why I started doing it.  I lost track of what happened to me.  I lost track of the abuse.  I lost track of everything.  I felt panicky most of the time.  I was always cold.

When someone is that sick, no type of therapy is going to work.  Eating is the only treatment.  I went to an inpatient program, started the process of weight restoration and my mind gradually cleared.  I don’t remember being asked in treatment why I starved myself to the point of near death.  I think people were relieved that I was eating and that I returned to some level of semi-normalcy.   I was still thin.  I still had strange eating habits and anxiety around food.  I still avoided eating with most people.  But I was well enough to “pass” as recovered.

I began to recover some memories around the age of 18.  But they weren’t concrete at first.  They were flashbacks, physical reactions, nightmares.  I remember talking about it indirectly to my boyfriend at the end of high school.  Telling him that something had happened with my last boyfriend.  I don’t remember if I shared many details.  I think the idea was only slightly formed in my head.   I didn’t connect the dots and fully disclose until I was 20.

Then I was thrust into the psychiatric, medical model.  I was drugged and drugged and drugged more.  The worse I got, the more drugs were given.  I was medicated to the point I could barely stay awake during the day time. I felt foggy.  I gained weight.   I was diagnosed with PTSD, but I still didn’t receive trauma informed care.

I did an inpatient program for PTSD.  It helped a LOT.  I learned a lot.  But I couldn’t fully actualize the learning because I was on too much medication and I was in an abusive unhealthy relationship.  I knew by then that the trauma piece was at the centre of my struggles, but I didn’t fully comprehend that my current situation was a major factor.

All this to say, that my life story is a testament to the perils of practicing medicine without considering the impact of trauma on physical and mental health.

I’m so passionate about looking at the roots of why people cope in the ways they do.  What societal circumstances and traumas caused them to cope in the ways they do?

Now I’m a parent.  My children struggle with anxiety.  My younger child is transgender.  She has secrets.  There are things she won’t talk about to anyone.  She struggles with focusing sometimes.  I see a lot of signs of trauma and of the impacts of things she has lived through.  Experiencing transphobia in and of itself is trauma.  Being misgendered, people using her old name, being treated as less than a real girl, being told that her mom is crazy for “forcing her” to be a girl….I could go on, but it’s a lot.  A lot for a child.  Rejection by a parental figure is one of the clearest predictors of mental illness in trans children and youth.  Acceptance is the highest predictor of mental health.

Again.  It’s not rocket science.  Of course a child will feel safer if they are accepted.

Now I’m the one trying to find the doctors, trying to access the care, trying to get referrals, wait on lists, be taken seriously.  20 years later, I’m still fighting to find a mental health care provider who truly understands the impact of trauma on a child and who is willing to practice trans positive, trauma informed care.  I don’t want her forced into CBT.  I don’t want her to be medicated.  I want someone to help her feel safe enough to express what is on her mind.  I want someone to hear why SHE uses the coping she does.  I don’t want doctors to guess and assume.  I don’t want them to misdiagnose her as well as mis-gendering her.

She deserves to be heard.  I don’t want her to be writing a post like this in 20 years.

Kids will say what they think adults want to hear.  They may do it consciously, or unconsciously or for their own reasons.  They do it to please, to stay safe, to feel a sense of control and many other reasons.  It takes a special type of doctor or counselor to help a child feel safe enough to tell their truth.   Because after enough time hiding, even she will be confused about what her truth is.

Mental health care for children should be free.  The practitioners should be trauma informed.  There should be enough funding that kids can access the care they need without lengthy wait lists.  There should not be a two tiered system where those who can pay can access things those in poverty cannot.  Poverty is a risk factor as it is, without it also limiting access to care.  Ideally there should be a system that is easier to navigate, where parents don’t feel they are fighting and advocating to the point of exhaustion.

Mental health care is a right, not a privilege.



The Minutia. Barriers after Leaving: A rant.




























No, survivors can’t JUST LEAVE!


It takes a lot of strength to keep climbing the wall.







Living Outside the Binary.


There have been an enormous number of changes in my life over the past 3 months.  I haven’t been blogging as much, but I hope to create some new posts about those changes soon.

I’ve been reflecting a great deal recently on how much society wants to squish people into binary boxes and categories.  Either/or.  Society doesn’t promote the shades of grey, the spectrum, the people living at the intersections of multiple gradient scales and who do not fix neatly into categories.

It’s quite difficult at times, being a person who doesn’t identify with many binary categories.   I sometimes feel invisible, different, crazy, or like my identities are not real or valid.  In some situations, I don’t even feel safe or comfortable challenging the binary norms which are coercively placed on me.

In terms of sexual orientation,  I’m non-binary.  I identify as queer, which means I’m not exclusively heterosexual or gay.  I’m open to relationships and dating with people of any gender.  I don’t fit neatly into a box.

In terms of gender identity, I’m non-binary.  I identify as genderqueer, which means I do not feel exclusively like a man or woman, but something else.   A different place on a spectrum, and outside the realm of female or male

In terms of sexuality, I’m non-binary.  I identify as demisexual, which means I’m on the asexual spectrum.  Not entirely interested in sex, but not completely disinterested in it either.

In terms of my health/disability status, I’m non-binary.  I identify as having both physical and mental health disabilities.  But I don’t “look sick” and I am extremely “high functioning” despite the level of symptoms I experience daily.  I’m able to work, but I don’t always have the energy to do all the things.  Some days I feel pretty good and others I feel barely functional.

The reality is, I think a huge number of people identify as non-binary in some ways.  Maybe you haven’t explicitly thought of it this way, but very few people exist solely in all the normative, expected boxes and categories.  No person has just one single identity.  Life happens at the intersections of our identities.

I’ve experienced some level of not being believed or validated for my identities.  I’ve felt not queer enough to fit in with gay people, but not straight enough to exist comfortable in heteronormative spaces.   I feel too feminine to be non-binary.  I feel like I’m “lazy” if my symptoms cause me to struggle on a given day.  I feel like I SHOULD be something very specific and it’s definitely not what I am.

The worst part of it is how I don’t consistently believe and validate myself.  Internalized oppression is something I struggle with constantly.  I tell myself that I’m not “queer enough” or that I don’t “look non-binary enough.”  I tell myself that I’m not functioning well enough to be normal, but I’m way too “able” to identify as disabled.  I put myself down.  I tell myself I don’t belong. I tell myself that folks won’t believe me.  I tell myself that one day I’ll be found out, and that others think I’m a fake or a fraud, or lying to get attention or to gain an advantage.

identity bipolar disorder

Internalized oppression leads me to gaslight myself.  Internalized oppression means I don’t often accept myself.  Some of the worst pressures to fix into the neat clean boxes of normal society comes from my own internal critic!

I don’t believe in binary systems.  I don’t believe the messages of ableism, homophobia, transphobia and patriarchy.   On one level I don’t believe them or believe in them, and yet I put so much pressure on myself to “pass” as “normal” when I don’t even know what normal means.

I don’t actually want to be normal.  I want to be myself.  I want to be accepted as the person I am.   On one hand, I love the fact that I’m diverse and have experiences that can exist on a rainbow spectrum, rather than in black and white boxes.  But at the same time, I feel pressure to confirm, to choose, to fit in, to pick sides.

I’m not going to fit neatly into boxes.  It’s not possible.  I would have to deny so many aspects of myself that I wouldn’t be me.  I would have to compromise my own deeply held truths, just to be fully seen by society as valid.  I reject that option.

Instead, I’m creating communities and groups of friends who do accept me as I am.  People who do see me as valid, just the way I am.  People who aren’t trying to place me into categories that don’t fit, like uncomfortable outgrown clothing.

The spectrum is beautiful.  I like to think this is part of the symbolism behind the rainbow pride flag.  We are all part of a spectrum, like the light spectrum which creates a beautiful rainbow. Without each individual colour, the spectrum would be incomplete and neither the bright light or the rainbow would exist.  Spectrums are all around us and within us.

Embrace the non-binary.  Embrace the intersections.  They are beautiful and valid.