Transcript 12-Evilyn

These transcripts deal with themes of mental illness and trauma

Cassandra interviewed Evilyn in her room in college. They met a year and a half previously when Cassandra designed a game that Evilyn took part in.

So, please state your name, your age, and your gender identity and presentation.

Uh, so my name’s Evilyn, I’m 19. I identify as a woman.

Fairly straight forward (both laugh). So have you been officially diagnosed with any sort of neurodivergence?

Uh, yes, actually. Like… clinical depression. (Evilyn laughs) Yeah, I laugh, there we go. Coping mechanism number one (Cassandra laughs)

Um, so how…so do you, how do you feel about the diagnosis?

Um, I think… well I’m not quite sure how I feel about it because on the one hand like okay, now it has a name or something I can do about it. But on the other hand, when I got the diagnosis I knew it wasn’t as bad as it had been. So it makes me kind of like, waver a little bit.

Okay. Well, so why don’t you give a personal history of… So, um, this is the kind of a broad question, but it’s like, what’s your personal history with… with depression? Like from when the symptoms sort of manifesting to now, like when did you get diagnosed? What were kind of the major turning points in this? How has it changed?

Okay, let’s see. So I don’t know it’s been…I honestly, I can’t really remember when it started cause like, my family history is very tumultuous, so it’s probably something in there with like, my parents or whatnot. Um, but… I can say that I was probably at my lowest around like 16. And then like I don’t really know what changed, but something… actually I do know what changed. Here I am, editing the story like I usually do. Um, I think what changed was… like the friends I had at the time were like really like just not… they were not good friends. I don’t mean they weren’t like good people, but they weren’t good friends. Like they kind of like, enabled self destructive behaviors and like, you know, stuff at school, like kind of encouraged me to just… not. But I think what made me just stop was, um, I think I said something about like, wanting to die to like… one of my “closest” friends and then he tried to pressure me to have sex with him.

What?

So… yeah. Big yike. Um, so I just… stopped, like I told my other friends and they were like, (Evilyn makes a sound of apathy). So I dropped all my friends and then I had no friends. Um… um, and yeah, I guess that gave me more space to like, think about things and to like, take an actual step back and be like, hmm, if my friends were this shitty, then like how shitty was everything else? I like… started… oh, I picked up a sport, I started running, which I hated. And then I stopped hating it. Oh, actually I still hate it. It’s like the Stockholm Syndrome of sports. You kind of just do it. Um, and I think that was something that helped me and I think I… got out of it enough to the point where I was like, okay, this is something that maybe I should like, talk to somebody about this. And then I got a diagnosis afterwards… and that actually wasn’t my first experience of like, therapy either. But then I got a diagnosis and then, yeah… and since then I’ve been like, trying to work on it because like… at first once I was like, “oh, this is what is wrong”, I was aware of it but I wasn’t aware of like the way it had made me like, respond to people. Um, a lot of which is like just not telling people things and kind of just being like, “I’m fine. How are you?” (Evilyn laughs) Um, and I think it’s only recently that I’m kind of like, pulling myself out of that and that’s where we are now. So I’m trying to like, break all of the… “hiding my own needs and putting other people’s needs above mine all the time” sort of thing.

Well, like how are you feeling about it now?

What do you mean?

In terms of like depression like how, like how does it feel for you now or like in the time since you’ve started?

It’s… I would say… okay, asking today in particular…today is not… today’s not a good day. I told you about some of the other stuff that was happening, which is related to everything that I’m trying to work on. Um, today is not a good day, but other than that I’d say it’s been pretty stable. I don’t think I’ve had… like if there’s like a little bit of fluctuation that it’s like a stable fluctuation, I don’t think I’ve had like, a big dip back in a while.

Okay. So it’s more like on a day to day rather than months at a time?

Yeah.

Okay. Um, are you like… doing medication or therapy or are you dealing with it on your own or…?

Oh, unfortunately I’m one of the people who medication makes more depressed. So, um, I do a lot of running, a lot of exercise…. I like do a lot of painting, a lot of writing… a lot of talking (both laugh).

That’s fair. Um, for like painting and writing, like how much… does the content of your… of your art kind of deal with these themes?

I’m not quite sure actually, because a lot of the stuff that I tend to do, um.. tends to be on the more abstract side and I kind of just make things. I mean, I can look at it later on and be like, okay, yeah, I can see what kind of state of mind I was in, but while I’m doing it, I’m not really like… going any direction.

So it’s like the act of making things?

Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.

Um, in this whole process, what’s the thing that you’re proudest of?

I think… I think I’m proudest that I can like… that I’ve learned to like, stop and look at myself and be like, “hey, you are not in the greatest position right now and you need to get out of bed and do something even if you don’t want to”, which is like something that took me a  really, really time to learn how to do. Oh Gosh. Yeah.

And so the thing you are struggling most with is… kind of like you said, sort of learning how to put your own needs first or…?

Yeah, pretty much, yeah. I dunno. It’s kind of like I’ve got “treat me like shit” written on my forehead the moment (Evilyn laughs).

Oh no!  

But yeah. But… yeah, cause I mean for the longest time and I still like, I’m still guilty of this. Like I will not tell someone what’s going on because I’m like, “oh, this is just me being ridiculous and like, whatever”. And then I won’t… say anything about it cause I’m like, oh, I’ll get over it. And then I don’t, and then it gets worse. And then I’m just like, “well look at the pickle I have gotten myself in”. Um, or alternatively someone will be shitty and I’ll be like, it’s okay. Like, I understand people have bad days and they’re shitty and then I made too many excuses and then, yeah. So I’m learning how to not (both laugh).

How to not

How to not, and I think that’s, yeah, that’s been hard because when you tell someone, how about we not, they usually don’t respond well.

Yeah. So is it right now, like you’re kind of internally recognizing that it’s a matter of like… expressing it or just both.

I think it’s both and I think I’ve become quicker at internally recognizing it, but I’m still not the greatest at doing it.

So, um… so people will use different sorts of like, metaphors to… describe depression or anxiety or other things. And I think those are really interesting because I think they show how people position themselves in relation to it. Um, so I was wondering like… what it feels like to you, and you don’t necessarily have to give a metaphor, but that’s just kind of an example of…

Well I think, I think of it kind of like… kind of like water actually. And I like really like water. I really like the ocean. It’s one of my favorite places to be. And like, sometimes it’s great, it’s there and I’m there and we’re both fine, you know, like, and I go swimming and it’s… it’s fine. It’s fun. I am myself, it’s okay. And then other times like it’s too deep and I’m a short person and then I drown a little bit… I have almost drowned many times (both laugh).  

In the ocean?

Yeah, actually, especially as a kid, like I’d be walking and then it would be deep and I’d be like, oh no!

I got in too deep! (both laugh)

Yeah. I think that’s kind of how I think about it. And it like, it takes me a second always to like remember that I knew how to swim. Yeah. Inhale a lot of water. But… I still like the ocean so… here we are.

There’s a metaphor there somewhere (both laugh) Um, so in terms of like… things that tend to make it worse, is it most like, particular interpersonal interactions or…?

I think… yeah, I think for the most part it’s interpersonal interactions because like, when it comes to like workload or whatever I am… I’ve become like very good at just making myself do the work. But I think that the big things are like… sleep, space, and people, cause I’m like generally a pretty introverted person and like, I can go out and do things and have fun, but if I don’t have any time to myself, it drives me nuts and something doesn’t even have to be going on. But if I haven’t had enough time alone, nope. Or if I haven’t been sleeping it enough, nope. Or if there’s like, yeah, a situation or someone close to me is like… (Evilyn gestures with her hands) That was a weird motion. But here we go. I… yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say yeah, it’s those three things

Okay, and then the things you do that make you feel better would be like exercise, painting, writing. Those are the kind of big things?

Yeah, sleeping to a certain extent,…

Not sleeping too much

Not sleeping too much, which is like… a little bit of a hard thing for me because I already sleep a lot, so like the tipping point between sleeping enough to make me not tired and sleeping too much, it’s very bad (stage whispered).

Yeah (both laugh)

Yeah

Um, so how much do you talk to the people around you? It seems like if there’s a person that’s causing the problem, you don’t necessarily talk to them, but like how much do you talk to people around you about… depression?

I mean… I try… to talk to the person who’s causing the problem but sometimes they don’t want to listen.

Okay… (Cassandra laughs) there is a major side eye going on here

Oh yeah, there’s some major side eye. Oh Gosh. I will probably tell you about this later. Um, but, I think it depends on who it is because I like… I have other friends who like, have issues with like anxiety, depression, whatnot. Um, I think with them, or actually with my friends in general, I’m a little bit more careful cause I still very much have the worry of like, “oh, I’m going to tell you all these things and it’s going to ruin your mood and that’s not what I want”, you know? So I don’t… I can’t think of someone at the moment that I’m like, perfectly honest about all of it with, but I think I… yeah, I don’t… yeah, I don’t talk about it and in its… I can’t think of a word… like, purest form. I always tend to like, water it down a lot. Not even a little but a lot and I’m just like, yeah, I am tired and today’s not the day, this is what’s going on. But it’s fine. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve had a conversation where I hadn’t followed it with, “yeah but it’s fine”.

Okay. So you have conversations about it, but they’re like… from multiple layers of…

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

Are your friends the ones that you talked about this the most with or…?

Uh, yeah, I would say yeah.

Do you talk to your…you said your family, it was kind of tumultuous. Do you talk to your family at all?

No, my family is very, not the people to talk to at all (both laugh). Like… at all… like in no stretch of the word.

Did they… is it sort of like… uh, I’ve heard a lot of stories where it’s like, “my family deals with this things, but they’re undiagnosed and don’t think that I should be diagnosed”. Is it that sort of situation?

It’s more so like, I’ve actually… I’ve actually tried to talk about it with my family and by my family I mean the adults in my family and like, okay… this is like kind of a really messed up story. But, um, so I started living with my aunt when I was like a young teenager and things were like really, really bad for like a few years. Um, cause yeah, I was no longer living with my parents. I was living with my aunt and I remember like a time where I tried to talk to her about it and I told her how I felt and she was kind of just like, “you should talk to someone”. And then walked out of the room and like left.

So. Okay, so family are not the people in summary (Evilyn laughs)

No. Yeah. And my mom knew about it and she was kind of just like, “ah, well”

Friends…. friends are good people

Yeah. Yeah. And all the rest of my siblings are too young and like we don’t have that kind of relationship because like my parents are not parents and I was the oldest and so I basically like raised my younger siblings so we don’t have like a sibling- sibling relationship. So it’d be, it’d be really like, yeah.

You feel like you need to take care of them.

Yeah. Pretty much.

Uh, seem to be a theme here (both laugh).

Oh yeah. Wow. Tied in with what I’m currently trying to not do. Yeah.

Um, so what sort of… so that response was not a great response to you telling someone. Um, but in general, what sorts of response do you get when you talk to people about it?

Um, the most common response that I get, and this is usually the first response is like, “wow, I couldn’t even tell”. I’ve gotten that one a lot actually, like a lot

How do you feel about that?

I have really mixed feelings about that because on the one hand I’m like, great, I’m doing a great job. You can’t even tell. And then on the other hand I’m kind of just like, oh, okay, wow, here we are. I wonder what you think now since like the person that you knew, you couldn’t even tell, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the most common response. Um, and then beyond that… I usually get like, I dunno, I… a lot of people tend to be very hesitant because previously they couldn’t tell. So now it’s like, uh, “oh, I don’t know how to interact with this. Like, I don’t know what to do” and there’s, yeah. It’s the thing that tends to make people uncomfortable, which is another reason why I don’t talk about it. Because the image that people tend to, like have of me is very different from like, things that may actually be going on with me emotionally and somehow they can’t…the two are very reconcilable, they are the same person. It’s just like people have trouble putting them together and when they get put together, they’re like, “no, we can’t do this”. Um, yeah. Yeah. Those are, yeah. I don’t tend to get very good reactions. It tends to stress people out, they’re just like, “nope, can’t do, no thanks”.

Yeah. With people… with other people who have mental illness, like how… how do you tend to interact with them?

Um, mm. I like… it depends and it varies because there are moments where I’m like, okay, this is something that we can talk about and we can relate with. And then there are other moments where it’s like, I can tell that like, you are using me as a support and I don’t want to like take that away from you. You know what I mean?

So it’s a weird space to try to negotiate?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And I also.. I have some friends who like… they’re great people and they really worry about other people and, I can tell that sometimes me talking to them worries them more than they already were. Yeah. So that’s like another little roadblock there.

Yeah. Um, so we’re going to switch gears and talk about gender now.

All right. Okay.

So the same way that you gave a personal history with depression, what’s your personal history with gender.

Wow. Okay. I guess we can start with the fact that I grew up in a very sexist, traditional household.

Ooh, ok (both laugh)

My mother was a housewife and my father was very much like, “women shouldn’t work”. And me as a kid was kind of just like, you think I’m going to get married and stay at home? (Evilyn laughs)

So even as a kid where like, “Nah, not about it”

Not my thing. Um, so screw traditional gender roles. Um, I think other than that, like my gender identity has just kind of like… been there… I don’t really interact with that very much. It’s kind of just there, you know, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about it. It’s kind of just there. Yeah. Um, yeah. And sometimes I kind of like… forget that it exists and I forget that I’m a woman and that carries like other stupid expectations of what I’m like and when I should be like, and what I should accept and like, oh boy (Evilyn laughs).

Have you felt those expectations kind of now that you’re older or was it mostly like your household when you were younger?

I mean, I think I’ve… I think that they were always there, but I’ve felt the more now that I’m trying to like fix some of the things that they have like made in me, um, because yeah, it was always like, ha ha, you think I’m going to stay home and cook and take care of kids? But I stayed home and I cooked and I took care of kids and like… established relationships with my siblings that aren’t sibling relationships and like somehow…I’m always the therapist. There have been.. literally every single one of my friends has come here and cried on my floor (both laugh). Um, it’s a little bit of a joke, but it’s also very true.

Uh, so yeah, I think I’ve always like… verbally and like mentally pushed back on the roles, but then kind of subconsciously fallen into them and I feel them now more because I’m trying to pull myself out of them and stop myself from being the person who you come to and you tell all of your problems and they’re just like, “ah, it’s okay, you’re fine”. And then you go and like do what they told you not to do and then come back and tell us about all your problems and they’re like, “it’s okay”. That’s… I’m trying to break that cycle and I’m trying to like stop being a mother. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely feel them more now, even if like my life has had them all along.

So it kind of like the… the caretaking specific elements of gender?

Yeah, it’s like I’m trying… I’m trying to not do that anymore. Not that I don’t like want to take care of my friends. It’s just like there’s a difference between like being a support and then being a mother.

Um, have there been any…so your friend that… the shitty shitty friend, um, who tried to manipulate you into sleeping with him after you told him about it, has there been any instances like that or was that kind of like the big like…

Um, what do you mean? Like since then?

Yeah, just in terms like that’s a big gender feel (both laugh)

So, oh my gosh. Um, so that’s actually… maybe not to that extent, but that’s been a pretty common thing. Like there’ve been like people that I dated, mostly men who are like, “oh, you just told me something vulnerable, wanna have sex?”

Like that’s just their response?

Or like, oh, “you’re like not able to do this thing because you have other things going on, is this about me personally?” I don’t know. It’s like it’s been a… yeah, it’s, it’s been, uh, or like, trying to take advantage of the vulnerability. Like, “oh, we’re friends and you talk to me about these things. I thought you liked me and like wanted to like have a thing” and I’m just like, no, I told you that I didn’t and I maybe even told you that I had a partner. And like, yeah, you know,

It’s just not knowing how to like grapple with vulnerability on their end?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Or it’s kind of like, okay,  I don’t know… I’ve had a lot of experiences with people that like have either attempted or have taken advantage of that vulnerability. And it’s just like, for me at least… it complicates the way that I like… share it with other people because now I’m kind of just like, “okay, wait, the trial period used to be 90 days but now we’re going to wait longer”.

“We’re just going to really make sure that you’re an okay person for this”

Yeah, and the other issue that kind of like, goes hand in hand with is, it’s like there’s always been with friends, with partners, with family, there’s always been this issue of like pedestalization like, “Oh look at this person. She’s like, smart and she’s got a job and she’s got a scholarship and like she’s pretty and like she has friends and she’s nice to people and look, she knows about life. Let me put her on a pedestal and project my ideas onto her and treat her like this perfect human. And then when she’s not a perfect human be like, why aren’t you perfect human?” The running theory is that it takes at least…like for women takes at least… like a year and a half to two years to stop. And with men, we don’t know how long it takes because it’s so far I’ve yet to meet one (Cassandra laughs)

Someone who stops putting you on that pedestal?

Yeah, it’s like every time like I’ve had… I’ve approached it in several different ways. Like I’ve been, I’ve done the like whole like let’s wait, let’s see… let’s see how you interact. And I’d done the whole like, hey, so I’ve noticed you do this thing and I just want to point out that that’s not an accurate representation of me or who I am as a person. And they’re always like, “yeah, it’s okay. I understand”. And then fast forward and it’s like they very much did not understand.

Lemony Snicket voice: “They did not understand” (both laugh)

Yeah, pretty much. And they just kind of told me that they did because they didn’t want to like…I don’t know deal with it…

Or like they weren’t aware of that behavior in themselves?

Yeah, pretty much (Evilyn laughs) so here we go

I had a thought last night that like liberal, masculine culture, it’s shit-talking to other guys for being disrespectful to girls and then turning around and (Evilyn laughs)

Yes, exactly! Oh my gosh. The joke has become that my taste in men is horrible because I always think they’re so nice… I always wind up dating the softbois because I think that they’re so nice and then they’re so not nice

It’s like, “this was misleading. I thought this was a different thing”.

Exactly. The whole softboi thing is like,” Oh, I’m so nice. Why didn’t she date me?”

Noooo

I’m the fool who’s like, Oh, you’re so nice. And then I date them and then they’re so not nice and I don’t find out until later. Oh boy. Or they have attachment issues. Geez. (Both laughing)

So what is it… what does your… what does it mean for you to be a woman? Like I think there all these expectations that are put on you, but for what you actually feel that means to you.

Um hmm. Let’s see. I actually… I don’t really know how to articulate it. Like a lot of my other identities, I don’t really know how to articulate it. It kinda just is and it’s something that is a part of me that I like… I don’t know. It’s certainly a part of me and it’s certainly something that’s like, shaped my life and my experiences. I think it’s not so much something that I anchor my sense of self into, but something that I embrace about myself. I think of it in a similar way that I think about my sexuality. Like I don’t tend to anchor my humanity in it. That could have something to do with the fact that I’m ace and oh god, that is a whole other can of worms.

Oh, we can talk…

Well, I mean that’s a whole other can of worms to deal with. Cause every time I tell people they’re just like, “Are you okay? Is there wrong? Like you should get that checked out.” And I’m just like, oh no, no honey, that’s fine. I just don’t want to have sex with you. So calm down.

How could you not want to have sex with them? What? (said sarcastically)

I don’t know (both laugh). Honestly, it’s a little bit of a digression, but like honestly when you tell someone that you’re ace and they get mad about it… there’s this whole thing, like if I had said “I don’t want to have sex with you but that I want to have sex with this other person instead”, they one hundred percent would be happier. They would be happier if you were like, “I just don’t… I don’t want to have sex with you. I want to have sex with them. But if you say I don’t want to have sex with any of you, they’re just like, “how dare you? How dare you not be a slave to whatever I am a slave to?”

How has that been like in terms of like, there’s this… I guess the way that women and sex is treated is so weird in terms of that it’s expected but also like… how has it been? It seems obviously like what you were just saying, that seems a part of it.

Yeah. I think being, Oh yeah, being a woman and being ace have certainly like mixed in a lot of places in my life because people are kind of like… I dunno, sex…. like the expectation to have sex or to be a certain way about sex is something… for women is something that makes sexuality complicated because on the one hand, like I don’t like… I’m not sex repulsed, so sex is sex, it’s whatever. But I’ve had people respond like, very negatively to the idea that I don’t want to have sex just because, and the idea that I might just want to have sex just because (both laugh) and sometimes it’s the same person, they’re just like, “how can you be like… what?” Okay. And I don’t mean to be all… rrrrr about men. But it’s usually men (Cassandra laughs), like experiences I’ve had with women have honestly been some of the most consensual experiences I’ve had, you know, where like, women are just like, “Are you okay? Do you want to do this? Do you what to do that? Like are you sure?” And then men are kind of just like… well some of them are very nice and then some of them are very not nice. And I’m currently talking about the ones that are not nice. Um, and then they’re kind of just like, “well like, now I’m upset because you don’t want to have sex with me. Cause I thought that this was where this was leading” or I sleep with them and then they’re just like, “well now I’m upset because like, I thought that women were supposed to like put this sort of emphasis on sex and you don’t” Just like…(Evilyn laughs) I don’t know. I’m sorry that I can’t make you feel special in the way that you want to feel special.

Do they like have an emotional reaction from that?

Yeah, very much. And I’m kind of just, you know… I explained this whole thing too. Like you know that sex does not like, I understand that the stereotype is like the woman is very attached to like, or like puts this weight on sex and it’s like, oh, um, “I’m only going to have sex with someone that I love or like whatever”. But that is not me because like wanting sex like that or attaching those things…. Attaching those sorts of feelings to sex just doesn’t make sense for me as an asexual person. Like I can love someone without like… sex. Like sex just isn’t that important to me. And like, I can enjoy sex, but like… it just, it doesn’t hold that sort of importance. It can’t hold that sort of importance for me unless I want to like put all of these expectations and importance and gravity and like, oh my God, it’s sex on something that I don’t… just like isn’t…  cannot play that role in my life.

So it’s a “maybe sometimes thing but whatever”?

Yeah. Oh, that has especially been like a complicated thing with like, um, partners is that they like… like we talk about me being ace and they’re just like,” I don’t understand how you can love me”.

Oh no! There is no other way to love someone aside from sex: facts from men (said jokingly)

Or, “I don’t understand how you can like have sex with me or consensually have sex with me”. And I’m just like, there are other reasons to have sex besides like, really needing to fuck someone. Maybe I’m bored (Cassandra laughs). Maybe like, I don’t know. It’s like an intimacy thing too. I like cuddles,  sex is kind of like cuddles sometimes. Um, yeah, I dunno.

Sounds like a lot of weird complications on…

Yeah, I’ve been on both sides of the like, “oh, you just don’t want to have sex with me because you’re a woman and women withhold sex” and… and the “why don’t you have feelings for me? We had sex” (Evilyn laughs)

No way to win

I’m just like, can you… can you.. can you be happy? It’s not like I didn’t tell you. I told you because at this point, like whenever I, um, I know these things about myself and I knew that they, like… people interact with them in very strange ways and people like will take personal offense over things that aren’t about them. Um, so I tell people these things, I’m like, hey, you know, like I’m ace. And I explained what that means. And I explain what that means to me and what it looks like. And they’re just like, they’re always like, “okay, yeah, that’s cool”. And then they come back and they’re just like, “why don’t you have feelings for me?” Or “wow you’re a whore, why do you sleep with people?”

How did you start to realize that you were ace like, was that a hard thing or was it just like…?

Mmm. Well, funny story. So I actually recently told this story to a friend because they asked me and apparently he thought it was the funniest thing ever. So when I was younger I didn’t like… I like just didn’t get why people were so preoccupied with sex and I was like, well, I don’t like girls. I don’t like boys, so I must be straight (both laugh)

That’s the default!

Yeah. Um, and I think I kind of like, just didn’t really… I thought I was just like disinterested. You know, I was kinda just like, well, there are more interesting things. The joke was that I was going to marry a book, um, to be clear, it was my art history textbook.

Oh, a very specific book

Yes, a very specific book. It was like, this giant fucking book. It was really heavy. It was like as big as my torso. That was my future spouse. Um… (Evilyn laughs)

There’s such a culture about street women being disinterested in sex and like, those shitty like sitcoms or whatever, like married couples…

Um, so I kind of was just like, well, I don’t want to have sex so… guess not, here we are with books. And I think I didn’t really like, or I wasn’t… it wasn’t really a come into contact moment. It was a forced into contact moment with sexuality as like a thing. Um, and it’s kind of a cringy experience is I was sitting with like, we weren’t even like close… we weren’t close friends, we were just friends and we were sitting in class one day, bored and I was like, again, I was like 16 and was like talking about their sexuality and I was like, I don’t know. And they were just like, “well you are known to like just turn people down arbitrarily”. And I was like, well, I’m not interested. And basically it turned into like this whole interrogation about like, my sexuality and who I was attracted to and like, whatever. And yeah, for the first… for the first while I was really just like resistant to it because I was like, stop trying to force the label onto me. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Um, and then I like… thought about it more and was able to like work through the feelings of like, being frustrated with people trying to label me and like look into what it actually was and like be like, okay, like this is something that I can resonate with. I’m very unhappy that my first experience with it was someone trying to force it on me. But yeah, and I think knowing that has helped me sort of like parse my identity a bit more. It has complicated things, but…

You’re doing it.

Yeah, we’re doing it.

Um, so I think, so some of my questions are a little bit redundant depending on how the other questions get answered. Um, but the question is, how has your experience with gender affected, um, intimacy, whether that’s platonic or romantic or physical or any type of intimacy?

So there’s again, there’s the mother thing where it’s kind of like, “oh, she listens to me now I have a therapist. Um, and I can kind of just say whatever I want to her because she won’t get mad because she can’t get mad”. Um….

She’s not a real person, she’s a mother. Mothers aren’t real people (said sarcastically)

Exactly. Oh gosh. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I think in friendships, like the whole nurturing thing has been a big thing. And like, part of that is definitely like my fault. I don’t necessarily like, discourage it and I’ve certainly engaged in behaviors that enable like, treating me like a mother, but at the same time, I’m not forcing people to treat me like a mother. Um, yeah. Or just like… moving beyond that. Well, not necessarily beyond that, but tangentially, um, the expectation that I just can’t like be angry or like speak my mind about certain things. Or if I say, hey, stop it, leave me alone. I’m being mean, you know? Or like… if I like express a strong opinion, it’s like,” oh, well do you actually like know what you’re talking about? Let me explain”. Oh my gosh, I hate that. Oh boy. Oh boy. Maybe it’s something to do with my demeanor or maybe it’s something to do with being a woman, but I’m a small person and I’m like… I’m not going to lie. I’m kind of a dummy, but I’m not stupid. Okay. I’m clumsy. I’m a clumsy stupid. I’m not like intellectually stupid and I’ve literally like been in classes and talk to friends and been talking about something that is like my area of interest, you know? Or that I just explained to them and they’re just like, “oh yeah, it’s this thing. It’s this thing. It’s the thing”. And I’m just like, literally you’re wrong and I just explained this to you and I know what you mean because you already told me (both laughing).

So people not really like taking you seriously?

Yeah, that’s a big one. Um…

Big academia feels

Yeah, especially in like… philosophy classes. In the few, um, usually it’s something to do with like political philosophy, but I’ll like be in the class and I’m one of two women and then I speak and then the that kid, the resident that kid who’s… in my experience has always been a guy will turn to me and like talk at me about something completely different that I wasn’t talking about. And I’m just kind of like, okay… we were talking about different things. I… why, why are you looking at me?

You are wrong. You don’t know that you’re wrong and he’s now going to prove it but you’re wrong (said jokingly)

Or when they talk for 10 minutes and they’re like, “do you get my point?” And I’m just like, yeah, like you said this thing that I summarized in 10 seconds. Um, and then they think for some reason that this is a, oh, that’s the other thing with the platonic relationships is that a lot of times they’re used as jumping off points for things that are not platonic. When I am most certainly explicitly not interested, so like, you know, I honestly I don’t really know how I feel about that because on the one hand I’m like, yeah, I like making friends and doing things. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way that I am acting. But I also don’t know how to stop other people from like… because I have definitely, when I’m in a relationship I’m very explicit about it and like, Oh yeah, my partner, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, the guy I’m seeing, the girl I’m seeing, the person I’m seeing is like what.. I talk about them. And I’m very explicit about it. And I’m kind of just like… but there has been a history of like disrespect for my relationships and like emotions and whatnot. And I’m kinda just like, I don’t know where this is coming from, but no.

But no (both laugh)

Yeah. So a lot of my, a lot of my experiences was like platonic stuff have been like the mothering and uh, their not taking me seriously or like that using this as a way to either sleep with you or make the person that I have idealized into my girlfriend. Um, yeah (Evilyn laughs). And then I think with family… with family, oh, I get like… part of this is also like, I guess a cultural thing because like, I grew up with my mom’s side of the family. It’s like very Mexican, very Catholic. Um, and there’s like… I don’t know how familiar you are with it, but there’s like the culture of like, “the women must take care of the men in the family”. Like you go to a family party and they’re like, “oh, like come help cook or like, go get this person food or like whatever, whatever. Or like take care of the kids and like, um, stuff like that”. Uh, yeah. So with my family, it’s always kind of been like, “well, you have to do all these things for all of these other people and like, yeah, I understand that you might not want to talk to someone about that, but not me. Go do what you’re supposed to do”. Um, yeah. Oh. And the whole like, “boys can do whatever they want, girls cannot” is very, very strong in my family. It’s very, very, very, very, very strong. Like I have butted heads with many people in my family for being like, oh, but you let my brother do it. Or, oh, but I have better grades. I’m more responsible and you would let me do this if I was a boy.

And they’ve just been like, “Nah, not about it”?

Oh yeah. They’re very not about it. And they’re just like, “that’s not the point. You are a girl. You’re not allowed to do this”. And I’m just like, you know what, I’m gonna do it anyways (both laugh). I’ll see you in like three days. That is why I moved out. I don’t live with my family anymore at all. So that’s why I moved out. Um… yeah, just like… oh boy. The more I think about this, the expectation of nurturing, it’s just everywhere in my life and I am trying to get rid of it. Like that is the big thing that I’m working on here. It’s like not putting up with that bullshit. Um, we are trying to make progress. I think we have made progress. I don’t know why I’m using the royal we, my friends have using the royal we and it’s just everywhere and now it’s just like we this and we that, and we’re also only one person (both laugh).

It’s the supportive we.

Yeah, we gotta be your own self support sometimes. Let me add a we in there, we’re fine. Oh I did it again. I don’t even think about it. Oh boy. Um, yeah. And then even romantic relationships, there’s also like,…and this is something that I have like consciously done cause I thought it was thing to do like, I have withheld things that have bothered me and I’ve like, tried to be like, the supportive partner who like puts up with whatever, whatever, thinking that like, you know, people will work through things and like think about themselves. And like, I dunno that they would necessarily care that this was the thing that bothered me, which is sadly not the case. Oh boy. That was a wake up call cause I used to be like, “okay, you can work through this”. Like people make mistakes and then you talked to them about it and it’s fine. But my brain did not consider the option that you would talk to them… talk to them about it, and they would just not do anything about it.

It was like, why wouldn’t they do anything about it, that’s the reasonable thing to do.

Yeah, I mean, if I’m wrong and they don’t want to do anything, then like they’re going to tell me and like we can talk about that and then I can correct it. But then I was always the one correcting. So that has been a common thing. Um, and then within romantic relationships, also like expectations that I put on myself for like, levels of like, commitment or like… expressions of my sexuality and whatnot. Um, I think for the longest time I always leaned towards being just more like, this is my partner. Goodbye everyone else. Or like, I’m only gonna focus on like one person because whatever. And I think in the past like, year or couple years, I realized that I don’t have to do that because I don’t owe them anything. And there’s only as much commitment in a relationship as you both explicitly agree on. And when people have expectations of commitment from me that they are not themselves holding too, it doesn’t exist. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I am learning to be a human (both laugh).

Um,  next question is very leading, but I think also kind of redundant because I think at this point we have covered it, which is like the intersection between gender and mental illness, which I guess like, from our conversation seems like… A lot of the gender expectations have kind of lead to unhealthy sort of interpersonal relationship.

Yeah, yeah… have led to me like holding things in and then like, not expressing things that are bothering me or not correcting situations that are bothering me or allowing other people to like, push me around. Um, which has like, led to me becoming very depressed at times because I’m just like, “I don’t understand why this is happening. Like, why is this happening? This must be my fault”. And it’s definitely like, that is the big thing that I’m still working on is like moving away from, “I don’t understand why this is happening. This is my fault too. Like I don’t understand why this is happening”. Maybe it’s not my fault, you know? And on bad days I’m still like, “oh my God. Like what did I do?” And I think my friends have been very helpful with that, where they’re kind of just like, “you didn’t do anything. Like you’re fine. You went about this in a way that was fine and like their actions, they’re not your responsibility”. So… I think when I finally get to the point where I’m just like, your actions are your actions and they’re not mine, I’m not going to take responsibility for you because I’m not your mother and you are not a child. Um, I will probably be a lot better off. But in the meantime, I’m working on it.

I think I saw a meme that was like, “hey guys, girls who like cats make the best girlfriends because they’re used to loving something and selfish like your childish ass” (both laugh)

Sometimes I think… oh, this is not what a romantic relationships are supposed to be like, I think that part of the thing that’s helping me learn that is that um… there was… I dated someone for however long. Um, and there was like this whole like cycle of me being like hey and him being like, “okay”, and then things would be good for like 30 days and then big no. Um, yeah, I stopped dealing with that and he actually went to go work on himself.

Wow, real live character development?

Big surprise. It was a big surprise. Um, but I think that’s something where I’m kind of just like, okay, yeah. This is… an example of a time where I freed myself from something toxic and it has done good, not just for myself but also for the other person. I mean, it’s still focused like partly on the other person, but like, yeah, we’re getting there. We’re getting there.

In terms of… um, so you’ve… you mentioned… you’ve talked about being ace, so you’ve talked about being Mexican Catholic and how those have interacted. Are there any other identities or do you want to elaborate more on… on any of those and the way that they’ve intersected with, um, gender or mental illness?

Um, let’s see. You see, like, I think in my head they’re always kind of intersecting and I just don’t put them all together at once because like, if I sit there and I think about them individually, like, um, there’s being ace and everyone else’s assumption that there’s already something wrong with me because I’m ace and like, you know, I like… struggled with that for a while and oh gosh, that has, oh boy. I had some conversations about my mental illness and my sexuality. Wow. Because like, the big thing is like, people are like, “oh wait, you… you struggle with depression? Are you sure you’re not just like depressed? And that’s why you don’t want to have sex?” Yeah. That has happened.

That’s super invalidating.

Super invalidating. Um, I’ve also like, yeah, there was like, a person I dated and like this was… this is something that happened before we dated– I slept with someone. Okay. And I kinda just like, I slept with her and I was like, Oh, why not? And I slept with her. And then, um, there was a person that I dated afterwards and like, this person I did not date for like… several months after I had slept at this other person and they brought it up and were like, “I still don’t understand why you slept with this person. Like when you had feelings for me”. And I was like, “what? Hold on. What?” And then I was just like, they were looking for an apology and I just was not apologizing for it because I was like, I’m not gonna apologize for having sex with someone before there was even anything like, there. And then they like convinced themselves that the reason that I had had sex with them, sex with a person that I had slept with, was because I had been in a depressive state, (Cassandra makes sound of frustration) which I was not. I just… slept with them. And it was fun. I have zero regrets. It was fun. Um (Evilyn laughs), okay.

Yeah. And then if I look at like being a woman, there’s just, that has affected my relationship dynamics to the point where it’s like…. what is this string? (Evilyn touches her desk drawer) okay, there’s a string in my drawer, I don’t know what it is…. To where I’ve like, I dunno, entered into dynamics that have made my mental health worse. And then being like, Mexican and whatnot, there is like, this idea of like being a woman and taking care of everybody else and also not really… talking… like my family doesn’t talk about emotions very much. Especially not like, depression. Like we’ll talk about anger, you can talk about being mad. Okay. You can not talk about like, just like, I don’t know, being sad or being depressed or like, wanting to die or not feeling okay about yourself or not feeling okay about your body. No, they’re just kind of like, “okay. Uh, okay.”

Yeah. Um, is there anything you want to talk about the hasn’t been covered by the questions?

Um, not that I can think of at the moment. To be honest. I’ve spoken so much then I don’t remember everything I’ve said (Cassandra laughs).

That’s totally fine. Um, if there’s anything you can always go back back and add it in. Um, so it’s really important to me that these are more conversations than interviews. Um, so you’ve just like… you’ve sat with me and you answered my questions. I just want to give you the chance if you have any questions to ask them of me, whether that’s like turning any of these questions back around on me or asking me about the project. You don’t have to, but it’s just like, so there’s a bit more of a back and forth.

Um, let’s see… I don’t know. Is there any like… what are you thinking?

What am I thinking? (Cassandra laughs)

Yeah, cause like I know like, um, I am probably one of the people that you’ve talked to the least. So it’s just like… and these are all things that people don’t usually like learn of until later. Even if I’m really, really open, I tend to be pretty open. Like, if you ask me, I will tell you… I will preface it with like, I hope you know what you were asking. Um, this is the thing.

“Because I will actually tell you”

I’ll actually tell you and I don’t, I don’t want you to like think that I’m like different or anything.

Um, yeah, I mean I didn’t know any of your… any of your background, but I think I’ve also… just because of I think the friends that I hang out with, I’ve gotten to a state where I’m kind of surprised that people are neurotypical (Cassandra laughs) and like, oh, there are people out there who don’t have anxiety and depression. Like… interesting concept, that is. Wow. There are people who haven’t been parts of their life wanting to kill themselves. I don’t know how to grapple with that.

Yeah. I mean I’ve been like hiding not for so long that even sitting here like I hesitated the few times where I was like I wanted to die.

Yeah, because it’s a big… it’s a big…

It’s a big thing and it’s like generally when I do feel that way I don’t tell anyone about it because…

it’s a weird complicated thing where… it took me awhile to learn how to separate… like  I guess figuring out exactly what suicidal ideation meant in terms of like, I can feel like I want to die, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything. It’s just this feeling that I have to acknowledge and then let pass and I think that’s one of the most fundamental things that I think people who aren’t depressed do not understand. They’re like, “oh my God, you want to die? Like are you in danger?” And you’re like, no, not necessarily. I’m just like, this is kind of the mental state that I exist for this moment right now (Both laugh).

Yep. It’s funny how like this is like a pretty serious conversation to yet we both sit here and laugh.

Yeah, there’s… I’m going to be transcribing a lot of laughter from like all my interviews because everyone just…

Because everyone needs to laugh about it because if you don’t laugh about it, then everyone’s just like, “oh my God, do I need to call somebody?” I’m just like, no, it’s just a day. It’s fine. It’s fine.

Um, I see Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts on your shelf and that is… I feel related to this conversation (both laugh) in many ways, but I just wanted to appreciate that as a book.