Longer About
Bio
I always feel weird writing about myself, because I often don't really know how to describe who I am. my personality, sense of self, and beliefs are constantly changing as I grow. at the same time, I suppose having a shifting identity is an identity in itself.
I am a twenty-seven-year-old living in Massachusetts with my girlfriend and retired service dog, for now. I don't really have an internal sense of age, just that I'm an adult, and not a young one. I celebrate my birthday on Valentine's Day, even though my actual birthday is in the fall.
I consider myself a guy, but not a man, and I'm gay in every direction—I'm a lesbian with my girlfriend and boifriend and I'm gay with my boyfriend. I use he/hym/hys pronouns because I like the sound of he/him/his, but wanted it to be a little more clear that I'm nonbinary. though I draw myself as more of a twink online, I have a beard and long hair in real life, and I wear mostly feminine clothes. I like the word pangender, genderqueer, and xenogender for myself. there's also a sense of genderfluidity in there, in a plural way. sometimes, I'm just a genderqueer gay man, but only when I've got a deeper voice and I'm more into science and nature than I normally am. other times, I'm just an agender butch lesbian, but only when I'm able to be a little more emotionally vulnerable, maybe because I've taken an edible. my sense of gender and sexuality shifts with who the main character of my current writing project is, too.
I attribute a lot of my growth to my writing. as someone that is slowly learning empathy that didn't come naturally in childhood, it gives me the capacity to not only deeply understand the main characters I write about, but to recognize just how many people are working with the cards they are dealt rather than being "bad people who do bad things." along with being a form of activism for the things I believe, my writing acts as a form of trauma recovery. my hope is that my stories can heal readers and the people they can reach out to almost as much as it heals me.
writing is a constant for me, but I often have one or two other things going on when it comes to hobbies after I finish my morning chores, either before or after the writing block of the day. sometimes, it's working on this website, but other times, it's drawing, reading, or playing a video game... though I try not to play video games before writing, because that doesn't get me in the right headspace for letting go and becoming someone else with a completely different life than my own for a few hours. I like drawing pixel art with a limited color palette, but a bit on the larger size compared to the average pixel art. I'm very particular about my art, sometimes to a fault, so having something that is inherently super exact calms my nerves. I prefer to read anthologies, because I need the reward of finishing small goals in order to feel motivated, and having short stories or essays that are contained to themselves rather than a long narrative that I have to follow chapter-by-chapter does just that. when it comes to video games, I only want to play things that either involve a character-driven story or give me the ability to be creative through things like building and/or customization.
I'm neurodivergent, plural, and mad. using those words is kind of new for me, even though I've had the beliefs behind them for a long time. I'm used to viewing myself through the lens of my old diagnostic labels after years of being oppressed by psychiatry, but there's so much more freedom in not defining myself with such stigmatizing words. what actually defines me is my determination and fortitude, my compassion, my self-awareness, and my deep gratefulness for life—the things completely omitted by labels made to highlight what an oppressive class think is wrong with me.
I'm a leftist, primarily a socialist with anarchist-leanings, but the thing I feel most strongly about is the abolition of prison, police, and as mentioned above, psychiatry. I'm not the best person for mass action, but I help in the ways that I can by being a penpal from the free world and a mentor for foster youth. in general, I try be the person I needed when I was younger. though I was primarily impacted by psychiatry, what happened to me would've been very different if I was born as a different race, or with a different AGAB, or to a family of a different socioeconomic class.
and, lastly, I'm a Unitarian Universalist. it's weird, but I've quickly realized that my faith is the part of my identity that makes me feel most secure. I spent most of my life as an atheist after feeling betrayed by God, thinking that it was supposed to be this big guy in the sky that should've responded to my prayers. eventually, though, I had a near-death experience and felt God's presence. I now see God not as a figure, but as a spiritual force that ties us all together with things like fate, love, and hope. I also believe that no one will be damned to hell, and as such, it is our purpose to make our world a better place rather than using this life to prepare for the next.
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