These transcripts deal with themes of mental illness and trauma
This conversation took place in the kitchen of Meghan’s apartment. For most of the interview, Meghan’s roommate Jade* was in the background, eating and doing dishes. Meghan and Cassandra met through school, were sexually assaulted by the same person, and then bonded over that while studying abroad together.
So, um, please state your name, your age, and your gender identity and presentation.
My name is Meghan Kristine Elliott. I am 22 years old. Um, and I’m a cis woman.
Okay. Um, so have you been diagnosed with mental illness and if so, which ones?
Um, well, so, um, major depressive disorder was the first diagnosis, um, that was back in junior year of high school. Um, I’m not sure if I’ve… I’ve kind of, yeah, I’ve received an official anxiety diagnosis. Like I think it’s generalized anxiety disorder. Um, and then most recently, obsessive compulsive disorder.
I didn’t know that
That’s a new fun one from over the summer. Um, my superhero name is OCDiva. My superhero outfit has latex gloves and my hair up in a ponytail or something.
So how do you… how has the process of being diagnosed? Like how did you feel about these diagnoses?
I know that people have really different, um, attitudes towards like… labeling and diagnoses. For me, it’s very… it’s freeing and restricting at the same time. It’s freeing in that at least I can give the beast a name. Um, and that’s the… for me, that’s the biggest emotion, is that it’s… it gives me something that I…. a label that I can put on all of those thoughts that don’t feel like me and all of those thoughts that are attacking me or making me miserable. Um, and it… if I can label it as depression or anxiety or OCD, then it doesn’t feel like I’m attacking myself and I feel… you know, I feel like I at least have myself as an ally.
Um, did you feel that when you first got diagnosed?
When I first got diagnosed, it was really validating, honestly. Um, it was more complicated because I… during what I would call one of the worst periods of my life, which was my second semester junior year of high school, um, my… my grades never slipped. Um, I didn’t stop participating in any activities. Um, I went overseas and even though, uh, the trigger for my first big depressive episode, um, was the first night that we were in Ireland… Ireland, England, and Wales… you know, I still got up the next morning and performed and continued to perform. I had a solo in St Paul’s cathedral. I mean… so everyone was really surprised and that surprise sometimes translated into disbelief. Um, but for my part, I actually have a really clear memory of that therapy session. (long pause, there’s talking noise coming from a laptop in the room with no one touching it) What the hell? (both laugh, Meghan tries to turn it off)
You can turn the volume off from the keyboard. There should be a mute button.
Nice. All right. Sorry about that. (Pause as the computer turns back on, both laugh) This is not working out.
Oh no!
I like that it’s a D and D podcast.
J: Of course it is.
How about I just turn off the computer… (Pause as they try to resolve the issue)
So you were telling me about your first depressive episode.
My first… I remember very clearly the drive home from… when I was driving myself home from the therapy session in which I was diagnosed. Um, because… I mean I got into therapy really just in time for that first crisis. Um, and I said that I wanted to go to therapy. My initial excuse was for grief counseling.
About…?
About my aunt’s death. Happened about a week, week and a half before then.
Which was caused by mental illness?
No, actually
Am I misremembering?
No, so this is… this is my mom’s sister. My mom’s dad was the one who died by suicide when my mom was seven. Um, so, but yeah, no, my auntie was perfectly healthy. I mean she did yoga everyday. She rode horseback multiple times a week. Um, she ate really healthy. Um, she had… there’s a family history of high blood pressure, but she was really well monitored and she was on medication and on the way back from the stable, she pulled her car up to the side of the road to make a phone call. Um, which I mean we all… thank the universe for, because had she died while she was driving, someone else could have been hurt and she would’ve hated that. Um, no, she, she was already on the side of the road. She… the person she was on the phone with thought she sounded a little bit weird. Um, and then she hung up kind of suddenly and she died right there by the side of the road, we think from a heart attack.
So that was why you went into grief counseling.
So yeah, I was like, “Hey, can I go… can I see a therapist?” Because I knew that something was really, really wrong. Um, and so… and so I had the first session and then I had… not to be dramatic, but I had my dark night of the soul, I guess. Um, and I came out and told my dad like, what was going on. He and I had established a like… pain level system so that I wouldn’t have to… so that I wouldn’t have to say things in words if my voice was failing me, so that I could hold up fingers on a scale from 1 to 10. And I came out and held up 9, um… which. it says a lot about me that on this like… horrific night… objectively probably the darkest night of my life, I only gave it a 9 out of 10 (Meghan laughs).
Um, but anyway, I gave it a 9, and he immediately was like, “Oh shit”. Um, and he called my therapist and got me in for an emergency session the next day. And so I went to that session and she talked to me about, um…TW self harm, um, about like my desire to self harm and like immediate steps that we needed to do in the house. Um, and I think… and I drove myself to that session. It was just me, no parents or anything. Um, but then like I went home and I had my dad helped me go through, um… and I had him go through with me and use my best creativity to get anything sharp out of my room. Just to be safe. Anyway, I remember driving home from that therapy session with depression as a diagnosis, um, with giving the beast to name and… cheesily enough, “Let it go” came on the radio. This was when Frozen was really popular. Um, and I just started crying, but like not… sad crying, not, “this is a bereavement crying”, crying because… fucking finally. Um, “this isn’t normal and this isn’t what life is like”.
So yeah, so diagnosis was a blessing. It was difficult with a lot of people in my life who didn’t believe it or didn’t want to believe it. Um, and really wanted to blame it on hormones. Really wanted to blame it on hormones. Like it’s, “Oh, it’s just… it’s just PMS. Um, really bad PMS.”
Which is a weird gendered form of like gaslighting mental illness.
Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like this is something I’ve heard other people talk about too. Like it’s not just my experience.
This is the second time this has come up in one of the interviews.
Yeah. It’s like, it’s just… it’s not just my hormones, like hormones are very powerful drugs, but it’s not just that, in fact, it’s not really that at all.
And it’s like they… they can affect…it’s not like a, “just” if they’re affecting your mental health, like that’s to be taken seriously, that there’s still legitimate things going on.
J: The way women are socialized.
What was, um… before diagnosis and before the death of your aunt… like what was kind of your experience with depression? Like how long do you think you were showing symptoms before you got diagnosed?
For me it’s hard to parse apart depression and anxiety.
Well… the two of them.
Anxiety was a, was a later diagnosis officially, but was just kind of something…that was what I sort of knew. Um, even with without being officially diagnosed, it was depression that was a more pressing concern…de…pressing concern (said as a pun)
Eyyyyy.
J: I hope for the love of god you cut that out.
I’m not going to (Cassandra laughs)
Anyway… when I was home for spring break. Um, and so last spring break I was going through some documents looking for some like tax stuff I think for like financial aid. And I found this document from when I participated in a psych study, um, and I was 13. I was like a psych study at the University of Arizona. And one of the things they did was some like basic… basic screenings and basic personality questionnaires. And it’s like, “Megan scored higher than average on anxiety. If you wish to pursue any treatment, please contact the psychiatry department at the University of Arizona at this number”. I was… honestly, I found it really validating.
When I was 10, I think it was… I was 10, the first time I went to summer camp and it was just a week sleep away, summer camp on a mountain near Tucson, Mount Lemon. And it was a girl scout camp and it was awesome. It’s called muggle magic, it was Harry Potter themed. Like the idea of the camp was super cool. Um, but a. I was so homesick that I actually threw up, um, I like. felt physically ill and b. monsoon storms are very, very powerful and you know, intimidating when you’re on the ground. When you’re up at like 8,000 feet and you’re a lot closer to the clouds, they’re really loud and really overwhelming. Being scared: normal reaction. Screaming and thrashing around on my bed, sobbing, “We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die”, not natural reaction, panic attack. I didn’t label it as that until much later, but it was a panic attack.
Um, and I mean, throughout my childhood I took piano lessons for 11 years. Um, finally stopped piano lessons, junior year high school because something had to give. I mean, I was having a rough enough time as it was and… something… I had to drop something. Um, but when I would practice piano, the piano was in this like corner in my living room up against a wall. And when I’d get things wrong, I would just… I would get so furious and frustrated and upset with myself, I’d bang my head against the wall and this was a thing that I would do… like on a regular basis. But I don’t think my family really knew about it. I mean, like if they ever saw me doing it, it was like, “Oh, honey, don’t do that.” But they didn’t realize how regular it was because I always kicked people out when I was practicing piano because I didn’t want anyone to hear me practice.
J: Same.
Right?
J: I’d only practice when no one was home.
Like I’d make them go into another room. Um, for a while I was really concerned that I was on the autism spectrum, um, because my school had a program for kids on the spectrum with various degrees of integration depending on like what was most comfortable for them and beneficial. Um, and so like, I saw… that kind of like raw emotional, uncontrollable anger, um, in the kids on the spectrum. And I was like, “shit, is that me?” And my parents were worried about it when I was little because I had a lot of trouble meeting people’s eyes. Now that I have words to explain it, I still have trouble meeting people’s eyes because the rest of the person is so much more interesting. Like the eyes, okay, I can stare at them for two seconds. But like, I notice every detail. I’m always the person to tell someone if they have like spinach in their teeth because I notice everything, I’m always noticing. But anyway, so, you know, I didn’t really know what… what was was going on, but it definitely didn’t feel normal that that was my response.
How much did you know about mental illness while you were growing up, before your diagnosis?
Not much. Um, it was… I mean, it’s not something that I could really avoid being exposed to. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know that my grandfather had died by suicide. Um, and I knew that, you know, that was… at least in some sense, you know, not normal, there was something wrong. Um, but I don’t remember… I don’t remember when exactly I really… like started thinking about mental illness in specific like, diagnostic terms. Um, you know, I took AP psychology, uh, senior year of high school.
Before that, um, I don’t know if I’ve told you about this friend.
(section omitted)
He was, I think the first person to suggest to me that I might have depression. Um, cause I think he’d been diagnosed or he’d been thinking about it himself and he’s like, “Some of the things that you’re talking to me about sound kind of familiar. Um, you know, might be a thing”. And for that I am grateful. Um, put it in my head.
Um, and it was something that I was really aware of in my friends. The first time that I had the urge to hurt myself, other than bang my head against a wall, which I don’t know if that was self harm or an anxiety reaction or… I don’t know. Um, I don’t remember enough of it to know. But, um, the first time that I wanted to hurt myself was in Chicago actually. And that was fall junior year. Um, mom and I were staying in a HomeAway rental, um, and I was trying to get the TV to work and I couldn’t get the goddamn TV to work. TV’s hate me. They really hate me. Um, I have such bad luck with them. And so I was getting really frustrated. Mom was getting frustrated because… like at me being frustrated and we just ended up having a huge fight and I shut myself in my room and all I could think of was how much I wanted to inflict pain on myself. And so I texted (insert friend’s name) was like, “Hey, I know this is something you’ve struggled with before. Do you have any strategies for… for not doing it?” And she… and (insert another friend’s name) happened to be hanging out together. The two of them called me together on speaker phone and wouldn’t hang up until they felt like I was safe. So I got really lucky there. But they were also people who like, you know… at least in high school, mental health, mental illness. Those were things that were definitely talked about.
And did you end up ever self-harming throughout your, um… time after that? Also if there are questions you are uncomfortable with, like you can say pass.
No, I just, I don’t want to trigger my roommate. Sorry Jade…
J: I’m fine
You’re fine?
J: I haven’t cut in like 13 months.
That’s awesome. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah.
KI also know this about you.
I know. I just like.. talking about it and it’s in detail.
I figured you would know the questions that I’m asking, but also you tell me if you’re uncomfortable.
J: No, if I’m uncomfortable, I’ll leave.You can trust me to.
So yeah. Um, that… that night in Chicago… my weapon of choice… I never wanted to use something… I thought about using like a Swiss army knife from time to time. But um, what I can now label as OCD was… no, there are too many germs, I can think of all the places it has been and I don’t want to get infected. Um, it was so, it was always my fingernails. My fingernails were my weapon of choice. Actually they’re getting too long. I need to cut them. Um, it’s been a bad week and I need to cut my fingernails (said jokingly)
J: It’s a better thing to cut (said jokingly)
Let the record show that I’m facepalming (both laughing).
J: But I’m not wrong.
You’re not wrong. Anyway, I was like, digging my nails into my arm. Um, or like… like pinching. Um, you know, I… I grew up in Arizona. You don’t wear long sleeves more than maybe two months of the year.Um, and you know, Chicago was in the fall for like anywhere else in the country, but it was still pretty warm in Arizona so I was still wearing short sleeves, so I couldn’t leave any lasting marks. Um, cause I knew I’d be found out and so, you know, the fingernails would… it would hurt, it might bruise, but it was nothing new for me to be covered in bruises. I’m extremely accident prone, walk into so many walls. Um, but yeah, so that night, I think it was like once or twice before, I was like, “fuck, fuck, this is bad. I.. I’m going to text somebody who knows how to stop”.
Um, after that, I don’t think I did again until my aunt’s funeral. Um, and I remember at one point there was like, there were… people were giving like these like big emotional speeches or something. I just… I couldn’t handle it. I like went and kind of hid and was crying and was just like digging my nails into my elbow. Um, trying to like pull myself together. Um, and then my dad almost caught me. Um, but it’s… you know, it’s your elbow, nobody looks at people’s elbows.
Um, but then… that… the dark night of the soul, which is just how I refer to it in my head. I, um, that was the only time I think that I ever used anything external, um, other than again, wall when I was little, which I still don’t really know… but um, you know, those shampoo bottles that have the light crimped tops? Um, hang on, I have one in my bathroom right now. (Meghan goes to her bathroom, the following conversation taking place speaking from a distance)
Okay (Cassandra laughs). We get a visual.
We get a visual!
Amazing!
It might be the same brand of shampoo.
Oof. What a feel.
J: (laugh) Wow.
I wonder if someone mentioned it to the company though, because they rounded the edges now. (Meghan comes back with a shampoo bottle)
Oh, that’s what you meant.
Like this, but the edges were pointy and I… like hurt myself on them accidentally before so I knew they were effective. So yeah, I took…. I was in the shower and I was just crying and feeling both hollow and overflowing at the same time. And I started like scratching at my arms with my shampoo bottle. Um, I remember just sitting there looking at the… the bathtub tap and thinking… realizing that I couldn’t think of a reason not to die. Um, and that’s when I knew something was really wrong. You know, that… the suicidal ideation didn’t just go away as soon as I started therapy. Um, I kinda had a vague idea of what I would do if I were going to do it. Um, because having a peanut allergy, there was always Benadryl in the house. Um, and I’d… one Benadryl makes me really sleepy. So, um, and I don’t really know what stopped me. Fear of death maybe or not being able to do that to my mom. Um, after that, there’ve been a couple times, um, with my fingernails after that. Um, I think there was one this past winter quarter and there’ve been some close calls that, you know, I’ve been able to stop and some where I haven’t.
So people oftentimes have like… different uses for self harms. Like what role did it play… what function did it serve for you?
For me it was always… and this is how I described it, um, tried to describe it to my mom initially and now she like… has heard it from more people and she’s like… and since then she heard it from more people and like, “okay, this makes sense” is that there was so much pain inside me that I just, I couldn’t… I… I couldn’t deal with it. I physically could not deal with it. And so physical pain rather than emotional pain, physical pain was easier to deal with and focus on.
So we’ve talked a lot about your experience during high school. Um, so what has been your experience with mental health since then? Like, what’s the trajectory that it’s taken that’s led to like how you’re feeling now and how are you feeling now?
(Meghan laughs) It’s been a week. So by the end of high school… (Cassandra reaches out to hold Meghan’s hand)
…If that’s helpful.
Thanks. I’m good. I have my tea. So by the end of high school, like I was feeling better. Um, and then I got to college and you know, despite my mom urging me to try to find a therapist here, I was like, ”no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna see how I do without it”. Um, and how I did without it was… not super great, but you know, I started college. I was a little sad. I’d been broken up with by my first boyfriend, you know, a month or so before starting school. That was really sad. But you know, I was making all these new friends. I was doing pretty well in my classes. And then my dog died. And then my other dog died. And then in January, I was sexually assaulted by somebody that I really thought was a friend and I thought I could trust. Um, I didn’t realize that it was assault until the following summer. Um, ironically, during the sexual assault prevention course.
Oh, Hey, it does do things.
I mean it’s why I don’t want to do it now because it’s a little triggering. Just a bit. Um, but I mean, yeah, I do… I’m glad that it exists. Like it did… it did help me realize, um, I’d had a feeling… I’d… I had a feeling that there was something wrong about it because when I was asked back to the apartment of a guy that I liked and was attracted to, and I said yes initially, and then walking back there, I had a panic attack. I was like, “do I just have some sort of big hangup about sex? I don’t think so”. Actually. I think that the morning after that I spent like three hours in (insert name of a friend) room being like, “You’re my… like… token sexually active friend, help!” (both laugh).
Anyway. Um, so yeah, that wasn’t great for my mental health. Um, and then, um, pretty much my entire second year, um, was devoured by the Title IX case, which also wasn’t great for my mental health. Um, in the hearing um, I don’t know whether he or his lawyer came up with it… I’m assuming his lawyer because he got like a high power defense attorney. Um, but when they’re… when the respondent is allowed to submit a question, the question he submitted was, “Were you on any medications at the time that might’ve interacted with alcohol?” And the asshole knew that I was on Prozac. Um, we had talked about mental health a lot.
And I’m pretty proud of myself because even in the midst of that horrible situation, I was, um, I suddenly got very academic and angry and I’m like, “this is a medication that I have been on since I was 17. I have consumed with alcohol before and never had any adverse effects. I never had any memory issues due to the medication”. You know, it’s like… AKA very big word academicy way to say, “Fuck you”.
Um, so that was second year. It really did eat up my second year cause I started talking about it with, um, (insert name of mutual friend). Um, I started talking about it with her in the fall when we were both kind of like saying yeah, “What happened was not consensual”. But then the actual hearing wasn’t until, I think April 21st. Um, so that wasn’t until spring quarter cause it dragged on and on.
How’d you feel treated throughout the process?
By?
Any of the above?
It… at the time, I felt like they were doing their best. But somewhat at the time and especially now I feel like their best is… was and is not good. Um, there’s a lot of emphasis… and I felt like there was… you know, the burden of proof was more on me than it should have been. Um, and I think one of the things that still really angers me, especially given the current context with Kavanagh’s confirmation… alcohol was used to gaslight me. Because I had had alcohol at time, you know, it was used to gaslight me to say that my memory was not accurate. He had had more to drink than I had at that point. And yet alcohol was not used to gaslight his memory, alcohol was used as his excuse. “If he hadn’t been drinking, he wouldn’t have assaulted me”. And it just really showed a very gendered attitude towards alcohol consumption. Um, where it’s like if, um… you know, if the woman… this is very binary, um, because a lot of society’s, commentary seems to be obnoxiously binary. It’s like if a woman is drinking, then that makes it her fault. She shouldn’t have been drinking. But if a man is drinking then it’s alcohol, not him, it’s not his fault.
Um, which is why I was livid when, um, the, the real only punishment other than like… he has a warning in his file, but the only punishment was him… He… he was required to attend a university designed course on the dangers of alcohol. (Cassandra makes displeased noise) That was the punishment. It had nothing to do with consent. They were saying, “Well, if he hadn’t been drunk, he wouldn’t have done that”.
Despite that face that in the other cases… (Contextual note: here Cassandra references the fact that the person in question was not intoxicated when he assaulted her)
He wasn’t intoxicated. I mean, God.
Throwing some shade as the interviewer here (Cassandra laughs)
Throw the shade. Fuck, I hope he goes to this exhibit. I hope he walks by it.
I would fight him if he came to this exhibit.
I hate that it still gets to me.
Do you feel like it still… like having had this trauma still has an impact on your mental health? Just like in terms of what causes the fluctuations on a day to day basis?
Definitely. I mean, I hate that he’s still on campus. Um, I’m glad that his girlfriend at the time who betrayed me to him… um, yeah, that was… who used to be my friend. You know, that’s a thing. Anyway, um, I’m glad that they’re no longer a couple, um, for her safety because even though she betrayed me, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Um, I wouldn’t wish it on him. I honestly wouldn’t.
(Break in recording as there’s an issue with Cassandra’s phone)
Did the other one save though?
Yeah, it saved, no worries.
I was like, Oh God! Can’t do this again!
No, no, no, it saved. Do not worry. (Both laugh)
Okay. Anyway, so let’s see where…. where were we… (insert name of person who sexually assaulted both of them) is a giant asshole. (Cassandra laughs)
Let the record show…
Let the record show that he is… I wish I had a word severe enough to describe him and I don’t.
Yeah. Putain. (Both laugh)
Putain.
So you’re talking about like the ways that this trauma has affected mental illness.
I mean, seeing him is definitely… can definitely be the difference between like a good day and a bad day or an okay day and a bad day. Um, seeing him on campus, you know, with no effect to his life where… what… whereas I’m walking around with my life very much affected and I’m really lucky that now I’m in a relationship and I’m learning to trust again. But it affects my relationship too. I mean, there are remnants of it everywhere. And even when I think, “Hmm, you know, I’m in therapy now, I’ve had a little closure”. Um, an accused assaulter is elected president in 2016. Well, not even accused– admitted, literally admitted it. And an accused assaulter without really any investigation is confirmed to the Supreme court and it just brings it all back up and it feels like nothing’s going to change. Anyway. So that… that affected my mental health trajectory. But then I had…I had an upswing, studied abroad and it was the happiest I’ve been in years. Hence applying for Fulbright. I want to go back. Um, yeah, study abroad was amazing.
Why do you think that helped so much?
I mean not being on campus. Um, the culture and the atmosphere at UChicago, there’s just this cloud of misery and you can’t escape it. Um, especially like in the winter. Um, but I think also I’m learning that I am at my happiest when I’m outside my comfort zone. Um, either like very, very inside or like… like outside, like solidly outside, um, and having adventures. And, you know, I was traveling and most of the people that I was spending time with were people that are, you know, pretty positive. Um, and fun. (Cassandra laughs)
You know, then part of… you know, at the end of study abroad, um, my last day in Paris, I find out that I get the call from my mom that my dad is in the emergency room because he had an accident and broke his neck. So that was fun (said sarcastically). And I’m very lucky that I had a… god, I’m so glad I went to Budapest. I’m so glad I went to Budapest with you and that I wasn’t alone cause you were, you know, fantastic. And that was…. even though I was like… in emotional turmoil, I was like having a good time, um, and felt really supported.
And when I was solo traveling, you know, I… it was very new and at first very lonely, but I really felt like I proved myself to myself, which was extremely empowering, especially like… with anxiety, you know, anxiety didn’t keep me from having these adventures. Anxiety didn’t keep me from navigating Prague with a paper map, um, from getting my train in the middle of the Czech Republic where I don’t speak any Czech, you know, for making it from… from Prague to Salzburg. Uh, thanks to a very kind English speaking pothead (both laugh) who told me what, was going on.
Helped you along in your quest.
Helped me along in my quest. But you know, that was really validating. Then I got to spend a week with my then-friend (insert name). I mean, that was a mess. Um, because she has… she has a lot of very real issues and I’m fairly certain undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. Um, she’s someone who once sent me a picture of the freshly inflicted cut on her arm. With full knowledge of my history and my feelings, sent me a picture of her newly inflicted cut. I can count at least three different times where she made me talk her off the ledge. Um, yeah, that was emotionally abusive as fuck.
Um, and then traveling… traveling… traveling with her, she just had a really horrible attitude and we were going into all of these really cool places, but like all… my memory of all of them is tainted by her just being awful. Um, and then when we had… we had a big like blow up fight in the termini train station in Rome. Um, and she told that I was overreacting to my dad’s accident. Um, I thought I could forgive that… I really couldn’t. And so I ended up ending that friendship winter quarter and it was a fantastic decision. I have no regrets. So that was like part of my mental health journey.
And then winter quarter, I mean, there was the missing Paris. Um, and there was the, “It’s winter in Chicago and I grew up in Arizona and the sun is not there” and I have my little light, but it’s not the same. So winter quarter was kind of rough mental health wise. Um, I was also an adjustment period for the apartment since the four of us hadn’t lived together yet. Um, and then spring quarter. Um, and… (pause)
J: You can talk about me if you want.
Sorry…watching someone that I really care about wasting away before my eyes, it was hell (referencing Jade’s eating disorder). And you know, it was really difficult. Um, especially not being able to help. I really want to be able to help people and I can’t, that’s frustrating. E
J: Yeah. I was just trying to teach you a lesson (said jokingly). That’s the whole reason.
Oh my God. You stink! (said jokingly)
Almost dies to teach me a lesson (said jokingly).
J: I mean, that is kind of why I have an eating disorder, is to communicate with people that something new is wrong and I can do that without using words….
I got the memo
J: …almost killing myself.
I got the memo winter quarter!
J: It wasn’t about you (said jokingly)
Everything’s about me, Jade, aren’t you aware? (said jokingly)
J: It wasn’t about you.
Anyway (all laughing), um, so… so like spring quarter is when I went to student counseling. Um, so I was really… I was really wary of going to student counseling, um, after hearing Jade’s experience and that horror story. I was very distrustful, but I actually had a really good experience. Um, which was weird. I wasn’t expecting to have a positive experience, particularly with, uh, a like middle aged man whom the therapist at the student counseling was, but he was a really good listener and it was… it was really good to like start getting into therapy. And then seeing, um, the psychiatry department at student counseling and being able to up my dose of my Prozac, um, and then also be prescribed Klonopin for, you know, any panic attacks in between. Um, I think I can count the number of times I’ve taken the Klonopin on one hand. Um, which is good. I mean, that was something, that kind of a substance, I was really concerned about. Um, but… I don’t enjoy the way it makes me feel. It’s better than a panic attack, but not better than like, you know, me being me.
Then over the summer it was a whole cluster fuck trying to find a therapist who was accepting new patients. But I finally found one who wasn’t accepting new patients, called to tell me she wasn’t accepting new patients, heard how… how like sad I was on the phone and relented. Like, “I changed my mind. Are you Wednesday?” Bless her. I love her. She’s just… she’s really sweet and she… I… I keep saying like, “Oh, I’m such a sensitive, like I’m so over-sensitive” and she is like, “But it’s also a strength”. She’s very wholesome, like reminding me of things that are strengths.
How do you think feelings about strengths and weaknesses… um, B. like how does that relate to like… gender and like the way that you’ve been treated and B, how does that play into mental illness? It’s a little bit of a leading question, but…
No, I mean it’s what your project, like… things that your project is on. Gender wise, I feel like, yeah, being a cis woman, I am allowed to cry, but when I do, it feels like weakness. And so it’s like, “You’re allowed to cry but the reason that you’re allowed to cry is because you’re expected to be weak”. The weaker sex. Victorian terms. Um, and for me, crying has been a little complicated. Um, being able to cry has at times been a sign that I’m not in an episode. Not binge able to keep from crying has been a sign that I am in an episode. So it’s complicated and my relationship with it is complicated.
Um, and there is a frustration sometimes… I feel like I’m caught between two extremes and one of them is the like community of people with mental health issues and who have I found a lot of. And um, there’s very much the like, “You are… you’re so strong and you’re doing all of these wonderful things” and they just feel like platitudes, you know, it’s not helpful. But then there’s the other side of the people who don’t have or don’t know they have these mental health issues. And I feel like I don’t get enough credit. Um, and I’m like, “You haven’t… until you know what it’s like to have to spend, you know, half an hour convincing yourself that you can get a leg out of your bed, you don’t know what it’s like, you know?” So, um… and especially when I receive…when I’m told things, even from people I’m really close to, um, like, you know, “Sometimes you just have to suck it up or um, sometimes you know… sometimes you just have to be an adult”. It’s…
J: Adults don’t get your depression (said sarcastically).
Adults are impervious to any weakness (said sarcastically).
I mean, you know, adults don’t have anxiety over like phone calls (said sarcastically).
J: I’ve never had anxiety over a phone call (said sarcastically, all laughing)
You’ve never had anxiety period.
J: I am not an Anxiety.
Capital A. But I mean, you know, that’s something that I… that’s been, that’s been a theme of things said to me or said to people in my situation, of things said in the media. And it’s very… it… it’s very frustrating. Incredibly frustrating to be using all of your strength to pretend to be normal and then to be treated as weak. I mean like if I… it’s as if I were carrying around a backpack full of dumbbells and people were acting as if I’m getting tired by carrying a backpack that’s empty, it’s not a fair comparison. Um, and within the community of people who like have mental health things, there’s also definitely, um… are definitely people, um… who see some of the like… things… the decisions that I make as giving up or quitting. Um, I’m a big fan of spoon theory. Spoon theory is very useful to me and I’ve used it… I’ve like explained it to people. Um, and then used it to like explain where I’m coming from. And I’m like, “All of these… these tasks, which take absolutely no thought or energy for you take a concerted effort for me. So if I don’t have energy leftover to do X, Y, Z, sue me”.
Um, and then the gendered aspect of it, I think there’s definitely… I mean, I don’t think, I know there’s a privilege for like… being presenting as a cis woman. Um, when it comes to having like… being upset and having negative emotions and even having depression, um, because there… statistically, you know, there are gender differences in incidents of mental illness, but I feel like a lot of that is a diagnosis gap. Um, and so like, I am allowed to express mine and there are a lot of people like me who I see out there writing and speaking and advocating, um… for… in all sorts of regions, um, from, you know, self care and, um, mental health to body positivity. You know, I’m the kind of person that message is directed at and I recognize I have a lot of privilege there, but then… because depression, I have horrible, paralyzing guilt about the privileges that I have (Meghan laughs). Um, and it’s… I’m not even gonna feel like… there’s nothing I can do about it, which is incredibly frustrating.
Um, so yeah, being, I mean, being a cis woman, I definitely have a privilege there. But then there’s the other side of it, which is, um, there’s… I mean there’s a lot of data about women’s pain being taken less seriously, including physical pain and like medical conditions. And like… from like heart attacks and just like… I read that I’m just… I was just so painfully unsurprised. But yeah, if one more person tries to write off my feelings as a mood swing, they’re going to get punched. They will trigger a mood swing. A mood swing to rage (both laugh). Um, you know, and it’s like, “Oh, you, you know, you have these problems, but can it really be that bad?” Um, and my first response, my first instinct is to be like, well, “You know, I know I have it better than other people”, but I’m trying to learn to stop myself and remind myself that pain and trauma are not a competition. Like this is not something you’re trying to win by having the most pain or the most trauma… like somebody can have… can have stubbed their toe and be really upset about it and be in a lot of pain and I can listen to them and empathize and then they can listen to me and empathize when I am debating whether or not I want to be alive. I mean, it’s not a competition and it really frustrates me when it’s treated as a competition and that’s within the mental health support community. It’s still treated as a competition sometimes and it’s frustrating and I have a lot going for me and I recognize that and people… one of the biggest things that I’ve… I’ve come up against is people who think that I don’t know my own privilege. Um, or who assume that I don’t know my own privilege or don’t know how lucky I am in a lot of ways and think that it’s their job to remind me of it. And I get that. I get that a lot of people aren’t aware of their own privilege. I get that there’s privilege that I am not aware of. But especially when these people don’t have depression, um, and don’t know what their words are doing inside my head, which is giving me more evidence of my not being worthy to exist. It’s a little… infuriating. Sorry, that was a big tangent from your original question.
They’re like… these questions are just meant as guiding points. Like people go in all different directions and everything is valuable. All of the things you have to say are valuable.
Potato farts.
Maybe not that (both laugh) I take it all back.
Everything is valuable.
Um, so people had different ways of conceptualizing their mental illness, whether it’s… they see it as something like internal to them or external or like how they visualize it. So like if you were to kind of explain how you see it, whether that’s through like a… like a large black dog to use that like very typical metaphor or like…
I have a black dog named depression. Have you seen that comic?
I have, yeah.
No. Um, I actually have a couple of different images that I use and it’s… you know, for different contexts. Um, I refer a lot to my like “logic brain” and my “emotion brain”. Um, or… or like the me brain.
J: How DBT.
Yep. Or the like… the “me brain” and the “mental illness brain”. Um, and I try… I’ve done a lot of work trying to like separate those voices in my head. Um, and the more that I can identify the, the voice that’s not mine, the more I can argue against it. Um, which also takes energy, something that is sometimes overlooked even by me, how much energy it takes. Um, but other things, one of the ways that I’ve tried to describe what depression feels like… in Dante’s Inferno. I don’t remember which circle of hell it is, but in one of the circles of hell, these people all wear cloaks made of lead and have to walk around in a circle wearing these clothes made of this have lead so they’re weighed down. And that’s really what it feels like. It feels like I’m wearing a cloak of lead, um, maybe in the poisoning aspect too (Meghan laughs). Hashtag there’s lead in our water, probably.
Oh no…
It’s fine. Anyway. Um, it feels, you know, it feels like there is a physical weight, but it’s like, you know, the cloaks not just on my shoulders, it’s on every part of me as if every part of me were coated with a layer of lead, um, or something equally heavy. Um, and then I’ve also… I’ve… this is, you know, a pretty common one, I’ve also definitely visualized depression as a black cloud, um, or veil. That was more… more so in high school. Um, where it clouds my sight, but it’s been more of a part of my life recently. Um, I don’t remember… and maybe I just didn’t have a name for it at the time, but I don’t remember dissociation being a big part of my mental health experience in high school. Um, and that’s definitely been a thing in college. Um, uh, the… walking home from work cause I found out that Kavanaugh had been confirmed while I was at work in the reg and walking home from work, I just… I didn’t feel real. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body and that’s still kind of new for me. It’s like… it feels new and it’s really terrifying.
Um, and so in that case, like the, the cloud or the veil between me and the world is definitely something that I’ve experienced. Um, and I’ve talked a lot about depression and anxiety and I haven’t talked as much about OCD. Um, partially because it’s newer, it’s both the newest and the oldest. I mean, that’s one that I came up with on my own and I was like… I told my therapist, “Hey, I think this might be a thing”. She was like, “Oh, why do you think that?” “Well, I have these rituals and if I don’t do my bedtime ritual, I can’t fall asleep. Um, and it’s like a whole countdown. And it used to be very elaborate and take like 40 minutes when I was younger, I’ve pared it down”. Um, and uh, and you know, if I… I like double-check doors like multiple times to see if they’re locked. And I, um, oh my god, the knowledge of like uncleanliness especially like on my own body or something like that I’ve touched, you know, the… I can’t not think about it sometimes. Um, but that’s, you know, that’s just always been a part of my life that as long as I can remember. Um, and now I come by it honestly.
I mean, I told my parents, I was like, “Hey, so brand new diagnosis, guys, OCD”. And they were just like, “Oh, me too”, “Me too”. Um, I mean it’s, it’s like a familial thing. Um, you know, my mom’s books have to be perfectly alphabetized and if one is not alphabetized, she knows and it bothers her. Um, you know, it’s… so it’s a thing. It’s like a family thing.
J: Cute
Um, yeah, it’s adorable. But you know, that one it feels more like… more like an old… an old friend or something that I carry with me, but it doesn’t feel quite as weighty. Um, because I’m so… yeah, I have a name for it now, but I’m so used to it. I mean, I’ve been living like that my whole life and it doesn’t… it doesn’t really negatively impact my life that much. Um, there are very simple things that I can do to make myself feel better. Like I’m not going to cut out the bedtime ritual. I just do that. I’ve learned to be able to do it silently in my head if I’m like… sharing a room with someone else, you know, it’s… I have worked around. I carry hand sanitizer with myself, hand sanitizer makes me feel better. And I’ve done a lot to educate myself about… um, you know, like good bacteria or what exactly constitutes like germs or a health risk, um, or a biohazard, um, as in my bathroom this summer. Um, and so I’ve tried to like… use scientific evidence to narrow down my hygiene concerns to things that I actually need to be concerned about, um, and come up with concrete solutions. So that one, it doesn’t feel like a weight. It doesn’t feel like it separates me from the world. It feels almost like a personality trait.
Um, you’ve talked a little bit about this, but what on the day to day are the things that make you feel better or worse? Like what triggers depressive episodes and what can help alleviate them?
Let’s see. Um, I’m really sensitive to sleep. Like if I haven’t gotten enough sleep or if I had a bad night, um, or if I’m just off my sleep schedule for some reason, even if I went to bed early, but if I have to wake up early, that triggers migraines for me sometimes too. Um, and it can also just really mess with my mood.
Um, the social factor is very important to me too. Um, I’m between introvert and extrovert. Like I really need to have time to decompress and to be alone, um, every day. But I also feel better if I spend time with other humans, specifically with my friends. So like these past couple of weeks when I’ve been having a rough time, I’ve been making an effort to… instead of curling up in my room and feeling sorry for myself, be in the living room, be with my roommates, you know, talk to them or not talk, just be in the same room. Um, and I feel better when I do that. So I’ve been trying to do it more.
Other things that make me feel better… people like sending unexpected kind words. I really like pleasant surprises. You know, I’ve had some really unpleasant surprises in my life. Um, many of them family member deaths. Um, and, you know, if my mom calls me and we haven’t had a phone call planned, the anxiety rises up inside of me cause it’s, “Oh God who died?” That is my first thought. Every time. “Oh God, who died”. It’s kind of a problem because she butt dials me.
Oh no! (Both laugh)
Yeah. But I mean, this was… it’s not unfounded. Like this is…an unscheduled phone call from my mom has meant someone is dead or someone almost died or there’s a catastrophe. I mean, it means there is something wrong or it has meant that there’s something wrong enough times that that is my thought. Um, and sometimes it’s not. But that’s where… that’s the first place where my mind goes.
But like, you know, pictures of my dogs tend to make me feel better. Um, and my parents are pretty good about like sending me pictures of the dogs fairly recent regularly. Um, got one from my dad this morning of my… one of my dogs looking a little bit disgruntled because it rained in the desert while they were running and she got a little wet and had to be dried off. That makes me feel better. Spending time with friends. I think I mentioned, but it’s especially friends who are… who lift me up. Or with… friends who lift me up or with whom I can be completely myself, which… they don’t always overlap. Some of the people with whom I can be most completely myself are people who have a lot of shit going on. But honestly, I think one of the things that’s been… that’s been really affecting my mental health recently is that I haven’t gotten to see (insert name of friend) that is, which is a topic of conversation for outside the interview.
Being able to see people that are close to me and that know me really well… and my friends tend to be very protective of me. Even the ones that I don’t expect to be super protective of me like last night when I was crying, um, and (insert name of roommate) got really protective of me, um, with things that (insert name of then-boyfriend) had said and it was really nice, like it feels really good. To feel like people… when people spontaneously show that they care about me. I think that’s a good way of putting it. When people spontaneously of their own volition, without any cue from me show that they care about me. And to me that is a pleasant surprise. It is a surprise when people care about me. Still. but it makes me feel better.
And then other things that make me feel worse… Um, boredom, um, temperature. I’m really sensitive to temperature and especially like when it’s hot and humid, the humidity makes me feel really, really like… both like gross and out of it, but also just really on edge and cranky. Diet… caffeine levels, you know, a lot of physiological things. I’m having to see my assaulter on campus. Not a fun… fun experience or any of th…, the various people on campus who were related to that event. Spats with friends are a surefire way to get to the mental health down the toilet. Even when they’re resolved, it takes it out of me (Jade reaches into a bag of pretzels and crunches on hem). Jade and the pretzels!
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Um, so it seems like in general people around you know about your mental illness. Um, are there any people that, like you don’t tell… and like ho…, how have you been talking to the people…like people that you care about, about it? Like what have you been… does that make sense as a question?
Yeah. Um, I’m trying to think if there’s anybody in my life who doesn’t know. I mean like professors don’t, um, cause I haven’t… I could go to SDS and get accommodations, but I can’t think of any accommodations that would actually be of use to me particularly. Um, so, you know, I don’t talk about it a lot in like an academic and professional context. But like, I think all of my friends know. I’m really open about it cause depression and anxiety and now OCD are really big parts of my life. You know, they aren’t me, they don’t define me, but they have shaped me. Like a river in a canyon. Um, they’ve eroded some things and they’ve eroded some bad things too. You know, I mean, I am… they eroded some… some shame and some inhibitions because I don’t have time or emotional energy for it. Um, if people don’t like this, then they can fuck off. Politely fuck off, but fuck off.
Um, when I… and I also end up… I think people… other people who have mental illness, um, gravitate to me or I gravitate towards them. Um, sometimes both. And so I have a lot of people in my life who are going through similar things, whether their beasts have names yet or not. Um, and so for me, being open about what… what I have… what this part of my life is and what I can do about it, I hope that it has put some good ideas in some heads.
How do you generally interact with other people with mental illness? Like you… you have a lot of friends who also deal with it, but like how do those interactions generally go?
The worst case scenario is people using me as a therapist, which is what I want to be when I grow up.
J: But getting paid for it.
Yes! Please!
J: And also time limits.
Getting paid, time limits, being able to fucking escape and also not treating my friends because seeing people that I care about in that dark place hurts me. Like I care and I’m really empathetic. It’s annoying. It’s a problem… Well it’s not really a problem cause it’s like also a strength. But it’s frustrating. Um, so the worst it can go is like people using me as a therapist. But the best it can go is like sharing things that work for both of us or um, you know, collaborating, um, being… you know, if we’re going to be miserable, we can at least be miserable together. (another roommate enters with a haircut and a pack of donuts) Hello– your hair! Oh my god, it’s so cute!
J: I love it
Hello, it is me your fifth roommate (said jokingly, referencing the fact that Cassandra is always at the apartment
Roommate: Hello.
I’m interviewing Meghan.
Roommate: Then there aren’t enough donuts
After the interview, I’m heading out so you should take my donut (said to Cassandra).
I’m not going to take your donut.
Take my donut.
I’m not going to take your donut. My next question was going to be a leading one…
Also, (insert name of roommate), your computer was talking to us. So Jade put it to sleep.
Roomate: What was it saying?
It was a DND podcast? And we couldn’t make it go away cause it was locked!
Roommate: What D&D podcast?
I don’t know!
Roomate: I wasn’t listening to a D&D podcast… I think she’s safe.
I heard them talking about advantage.
The computer missed the D&D podcast while you were gone. It wanted to listen to it by itself.
J: It needed to get caught up.
Roommate: Apparently.
So my leading question is, um, do you think people would expect you to take on this role of caretaker if you were gendered otherwise. (Pause, both laugh)
That’s extremely leading!
That’s why I’m acknowledging that.
No, the answer is no. Um, femme identities are very much expected to take on the brunt of the emotional labor. (Cassandra laughs)
Sorry, I know this is just getting you to say what I’m thinking.
No, but it’s also… it’s very true… like what you’re thinking is true. Um, being in a relationship now especially. It’s very much like… I am the one keeping the conversation going. If we’re both like having bad mental health days, I am the one who keeps my shit together. Um, and who tries to like make it more comfortable and nicer. You know, the emotional labor falls on me by default and, and I take it on by default. Like it’s not just like, “Oh, this is an expectation that I have to live up to”. It’s my own expectation of myself too. I just sort of like… you know, that’s how it goes in platonic and romantic relationships in my life, I end up taking on emotional labor, um, in many cases.
And it’s… I don’t know if it’s like… it’s kind of just the way it is and it’s not really fair. Um, but it’s not something that’s going to change particularly quickly because, you know, I think Jade said earlier, it’s like, “Oh, this is how women are socialized”. And that’s a really good point. It’s like women have been socialized this way and men aren’t. So realistically, I do a better job. Like it is the most efficient for me to be doing that, for me to be the one doing that. So it’s… it’s understandable. At least.
This segues into my next question, which was what was your general experience as someone growing up femme identifying… I know, very broad.
Um, I… I don’t get catcalled very much. I don’t know why. I’ve never been catcalled that much. I mean, you know, occasionally, but really, really infrequently. Um, compared to like other women I know, like my darling roommate who gets harassed on a very regular basis and I like… don’t get that. And I’m kind of like, this isn’t fair. I should have part of the… the crappy emotional labor, diffuse the catcalling equally, we’ll all bear a smaller burden if everyone’s bearing part of it.
Unfortunately I don’t think that’s how it works.
Shhh It’s catcall math. Um, but like I, you know, I do remember one point, I was walking to a girl scout cookie booth. Um, and I was like a teenager at this point. Um, but I was walking to a cookie booth and this guy in a red convertible, like pulled into a parking lot and was like driving really slowly next to me. I was on the sidewalk between the parking lot and the street and was like talking to me and like trying to offer me a ride and it was really creepy. Um, and that felt like a really gendered experience.
But in a more overall way, like what…
I have had more femme identifying friends than masc identifying friends… like vastly more, um, despite plenty of exposure to masc identifying people. But I tend to be friends with people who have… who are more emotionally open. Um, and my experience has been that… people are like masc identifying folks have not been socialized to be as emotionally open. And to me that just feels like a more shallow friendship. Um, I want to have real conversations and that’s one of the things I’m happiest with in my relationship is that we have real conversations.
Um, so yeah, that was… it’s very much like… I am expected to be more emotionally available and emotionally open and realistically I am, that’s who I am. Um, and it’s sometimes irritating that other people are not held to the same expectation. Um, but I think for me also… trying to… like being femme identifying, trying to like discern my own feelings about masc identifying people has been a big topic of thought at the very least. Because at times I felt very, um, very much like a misandrist. Um, like just, “I hate men” and I really had to think that over cause it’s like, but there are some men that I really like and this is still gender discrimination. Like I am discriminating against them by their gender. Um, and so trying to like come to terms with that and realizing, “Oh, you know what I really hate? It’s the patriarchy. Like actually. Um…”
It’s the system.
it’s the system. It’s toxic masculinity. It’s, you know, everything that tells me the… especially because I’m going into, um, a profession that has a lot of women in it. Um, and like it’s a… being a therapist is something that is definitely associated with women. Even though there’s some fantastic male therapists out there. You know, and then seeing friends who are going into more male dominated fields, um, seeing… being, um, the child of a stay at home mom, my mom decided to stay at home with me because she was a freelance writer anyway, so she was like… able to, and we were financially like… solid enough that she was able to, and that was really great and I loved having my mom at home with me, but she had a lot of, like… she had a really complicated relationship with it that I think passed to me because she’s like, “You know, this is… this is what women were expected to do and I’m choosing to do this. I’m not, you know, bucking expectations”. Um, and so it’s… identifying femme kind of comes to like, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”, it’s like somebody is going to be mad at you, whatever you do. If you do the more like gender, stereotypic path, then there are people in the feminist community who are mad at you and I hate that. But if you, you know, buck the system, the whole reason that it’s all that it’s exciting is because you’re, you know, bucking the system, which means there are people who are mad at you. (Roommate hands Cassandra a piece of food that she promptly puts into her mouth) So what exactly am I supposed to do?
What am I eating?
Roommate: Spicy.
Oh my God. Ahhh, why how would you do this to me? (as the spiciness kicks in)
Roomate: It tastes good. (All laugh)
As my poor interviewer is dying… (Cassandra is fanning mouth and tearing up)
Roommate: Do you want yogurt?
Yes please! Um, how… what does your femmeness mean to you? How would you define it and what is your relationship to it?
That’s a deep question.
Um, this is a question that I think everyone’s struggled with the most.
There’s a really the community aspect to it for me. Especially being in the Girl Scouts, um, and being in a very non traditional troop, you know, a lot of the girl scout troops, um, as I was growing up were like crafty, um, you know, they were always… they were always really into crafting. Um, and we were like… my mom describes herself as crafting challenged, and she was our leader. So we would be going like camping and learning survival skills, um, and being Boy Scouts without the homophobia. And so being… being in the Girl Scouts and really shaped my femme identity because it was… it was really, it was a women’s… a women’s only space. Um, and it was really nice to have a women’s only space, um, especially in like middle school because middle school guys are the worst. Oh my God. I mean, middle school girls are also the worst, but we didn’t have any of the worst ones in the troop. (Cassandra is still tearing up) You okay?
(Quietly) It’s still spicy.
Oh no!
Roommate: Sorry. But not that sorry. It’s pretty funny.
So my femme identity has been… it’s… it’s a lot of mixed emotions of pride and rage and frustration and despair and hope and hopes dashed and hopes reborn. And it’s a really interesting time in history right now. Um, and I’m not sure how it’s going to pan out. So there’s a lot of uncertainty. Um, but it’s exciting seeing so many different voices heard. And there’s some guilt at me not being one of the many femme voices that are speaking up. Um, you know, I’m not writing a passionate Facebook post. I’ve thought about it multiple times, but I haven’t. It just hasn’t felt right.
Well you’re speaking up through this.
That’s true. That’s a good point. I Mentioned earlier in the interview, um, kind of jokingly, but like I’m extremely empathetic and I feel like it sounds really braggy. Um, but like it’s also just the fact of my life is that like I pick up on… I, you know, take on other people’s emotions. I sense them, I adopt. Um, and it’s very frustrating to me when other people do not do the same, particularly masc identifying people. Um, and it just, it seems like less empathy is expected of them and less empathy is shown by them in public dialogue. Um, I mean the whole, like, “It’s a scary time for boys”. Um, it’s like, have you ever asked someone femme identifying about her experience? Because… really? Really? I was also very much like, “Not raping somebody is not difficult. I do it every day. You can too”. Um, and I think it does a disservice to people of masc identities, assuming that they aren’t capable of empathy or of the basic human decency of like not walking around and raping people. It’s… maybe have more faith in our… our mascs, our men and our boys and people identifying like that. Like maybe they’re also equally capable of this and it’s just been beaten out of them.
So I’m sick of as a woman feeling like I have to do all the work. Um, and I’m frustrated even though I know it’s not always an individual fault. It’s, you know, a socializing failure. Um, yeah, I’m frustrated at the other half for not stepping up. Um, because if I can do all of the emotional labor that I do on top of my own mental illness, then a guy without mental illness should be able to step the fuck up.
Also, it’s getting close to seven, so I will need to leave soonish. How many questions are there left?
Um… (Cassandra reads through her notes)…I don’t know what I meant by that… like two.
Okay, perfect.
Um, and then I will probably obsess ask like portrait question. Um, so… but you can like give short answers to these. Um, and you kind of already answered this one, but is there anything that you haven’t said about femmeness or mental illness that you have particularly struggled with?
Internalizing the stigma. I mean, I know it sounds like such a buzzword, but all of the stigmatized things that people say with mental illness about like the like, “suck it up”. Um, or you know, “there are so many people who have it worse”. I mentioned how frustrating it is to hear that, but the person that I hear from the most is myself. Um, because I have… I’ve internalized all of that and I fight against it. But fighting it is exhausting. And every time it comes in, externally, it’s like… it just makes that fight that much harder.
Um, but I feel… I feel guilty for even having those thoughts in the first place, along with like feeling ashamed of, you know, “I have it so good. Why am I still depressed?” It’s just a really negative spiral. And so… one of the things that frustrates me the most is people just assuming that I and other people who have depression, et cetera, aren’t aware that like… aware of the things that we have going for us. We… we are… I am, it keeps me up at night. It tortures me thinking about the things that I have going for me and all of the good things that are reasons I shouldn’t be depressed. And I feel guilty for feeling guilty for feeling guilty. And so on.
How many levels of guilty deep are you? (referencing a meme, both laugh)
So many, so many.
Um, in terms of… we’ve also talked a little bit about this, but how do you feel femmeness and mental illness have interacted, if you feel like they’ve been interacted?
Oh, they’ve definitely interacted. Um, I mean from… from my mental illness being dismissed by many people initially. You know, it was either like PMS or people would also talk about it being like part of puberty because for women, puberty is very much associated with emotions. Even though that’s the peak age of incidence for a lot of psychological disorders. Um, coincidence? Let the record show that I am gesturing wildly.
Um, and then I think also… I sometimes feel that I’m not taken as seriously. Or that I need to do double the work to prove… It’s just like in a sexual assault case where the complainant, um, who statistically is likely to be femme um, is… has to do double the work and bend over backwards to prove that something happened. I feel like that happens to me with mental illness too, is that I have to bend over backwards to prove “yes, this is real. I have these symptoms”. You know, I’ve… I learned which things to bring up to people to make it most convincing. You know, what of my symptoms are the most… impressive. And I just have this like encyclopedia of things in my life that I could use to convince people that I’m not lying to them about being depressed. If I could just stop being depressed, if I could just like turn it off, you think I wouldn’t do that?
Um, but I think… I think for…I mean, I’m don’t identify at all as masc, so I feel like… so I can’t empathize. I know I can’t speak to this, but it seems like people from masc identities are definitely asked to buck up more. You’re not… they’re not allowed to express themselves as much, but when they do express themselves, it’s so shocking, it seems to be believed. Um, whereas I think people conflate my depression and my womanhood and so I have to prove that they are separate and it’s not fair to ask them to prove that.
Are there any other like identities in your life to have intersected with these… with these identities? Um, and changed your experience with them?
I mean, I think the fact that I am whiter than Wunderbread, it’s… it’s definitely given me a lot… It’s… I mean, it complicates the conversation in really important ways, um, and like making sure that feminism is intersectional is so important. Um, but like being, um, being white has also… I mean, white guilt is like a phenomenon. It’s talked about a lot and mocked, um, and rightly so. But like… I also do have a lot of guilt for all of the identities I have that make me privileged. Um, it’s… they intersect with my mental illness a lot because they make, you know, people… it’s like people with privilege do deserve to be called out on their bullshit. I do absolutely believe that. At the same time, the area in which I am… I don’t have privilege, which is really mostly mental health stuff, um, doesn’t enter the conversation. And the guilt… there’s an adaptive level of guilt and there is a crippling, you know, suicidal ideation, generating level of guilt and it’s just… it’s complicated. I think that’s how I summarize it. It’s complicated and I have enough… my mind has enough ways to hate myself, um, that any additional ones, even valid, um, group-based privileged based reasons… have been dangerous in my experience.
Um, now do you have any questions for me, whether that’s about this project or if you want to turn any of the questions that I’ve asked you around? Like, is there anything you’d like to hear from me as this is a conversation and not strictly an interview?
I don’t have any coming to mind at the moment, but if any come to mind, can I message you?
Of course. Um, and you know my answers to some of these anyway.
Yeah, that’s… we’ve talked about some of these before.
*See Jade’s Interview: https://whatsheswallowed.home.blog/2019/01/25/transcript-01-jade/
The Cassandra Transcripts 