Walking north on Colesville Road last night was a group of about six high school aged punks, beautiful in their bondage pants, mohawks and t-shirts. I slowed down, gave a little squeal, was listening to Iggy Pop, wanted to wave but looked down and realized they would have laughed at me.
Somewhere in the last few years I have grown old. Or maybe I was always old, because I never really fit in anyway, but it used to be me in those trousers, with the pink and blue hair, used to be me with those spikes and defiant attitude.
Nowadays when I go out I have this button down white shirt that I wear, with a collar. It does not have any holes or tears, it does not have any stains or patches or badges. There are no safety pins or oddly colored thread sewn into it; it is just a plain white shirt. I wear grey trousers with straight legs, slightly baggy but tailored. They fit at the waist, and they are of the appropriate length. The bottoms are not frayed. My trousers do not have any defining marks, either. My socks match and while my shoes are actually shitkickers left over from my days in the scenes, the buckles are hidden by the trouser legs.
My hair is a neat, presentable bob and is dull in its natural mousy brown that I have inherited from my mother. I cannot seem to break myself of the habit of drawing my eyebrows on with a Sharpie, but it is no longer necessary as after years of waxing the entirety of my eyebrows off, I finally managed to get some of them to grow back in. The rest of my make up is minimal, natural — I rarely even wear lipstick these days; I got tired of kissing it off. I only have one facial piercing now, and it is a fairly socially acceptable 16 gauge eyebrow ring. I miss the days of my 14.
I look presentable. I still do not look average — there is still something about me, something everyone can put a finger on, something I can not quite correct — there is still something off, but I am passable.
Back in high school I used to go to school dressed as a drag queen. It was the only way I felt comfortable. Those were the only days I did not have panic attacks. The days I dressed differently from everyone else in the school — the costumes, the make up, the wigs and accessories — those were my armor. No one understood that.
I was never able to get into acting because that meant I would have to stop acting the role I performed every day. It was the same thing with role playing. I gave up being Cassie to become Cassandra — this role. This person removed from the insanity that was lurking around every corner in her mind.
A lot of actors have drug and alcohol problems because they get too lost in their roles. The lines blur between their role and their true selves and they take up with Mr Daniels or Mr Brownstone to get away from their identity confusion. When you do not know who you are supposed to be, when you are spending the majority of your time trying to look, act and think like someone else, your brain snaps and you need out.
I needed out. The panic attacks got worse as I delved deeper into my role. Cassie would come slipping back to the surface, stifled and needing air, and usually at the worse possible moments, like in English class, or at the prom, or while trying to give a blow job. Cassandra would take Cassie, who had by this point regressed to an emotional cripple, grab her by the neck, kick the fucking shit out of her, and force her back inside.
I was once diagnosed with multiple personality disorder because I had given the four different aspects of myself names. It was a medical student at Western Psych who gave me that diagnosis; but we find it amusing. Little bit of psych humor for you; sorry. The MPD diagnosis was later changed to Disassociative Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified by a doctor I saw for quite some time. It is not something I really talk about much. I think it makes me sound crazy.
I did EMDR treatment for a long time for the PTSD-DDNOS, and then of course the cognitive behavioral psychobabble with my current psychologist. Over the past two years, the combination of the two has been rather successful. I no longer need to have mental pow wows in a safe space every day to check in with everybody. I see my different aspects now more as mood swings than as personalities, and I rarely refer to them by name, even in my head.
I feel more at peace with myself these days, less fractured. I like myself more, and I have more self respect. I have more friends, and the people I hang out with respect me. I no longer fool around with every man I meet. Sometimes I miss being unhealthy. I tell myself I felt better then — which I know is a lie — and that I had more fun then, which might have been true on certain occasions, though on the whole I would say it is most definitely a falsehood. I just like to torment myself and tell myself I had more fun then. Why I like to try and punish myself and make myself miserable is another story.
So here it is, Saturday night, and I am remembering those beautiful punk kids, walking down the street, so free. I am all dressed up, somewhere to go, someone is waiting for me, and that is a good feeling, knowing that there is someone out there waiting for you.
Remember when you were little, and you would be out running around the neighborhood, just having fun, trying to keep up with the group of kids you played with, when suddenly you would fall and skin your knee? The abrasion may or may not be immediately apparent to the naked eye, but you could sure as hell feel the burning sensation on your leg, stinging into your skin, maybe bringing tears into your eyes that you would try to hide from your friends if you were not a dramatic kid. I always hid them. Imagine that, because now I write this kind of shit where so many can see it.
Well right now I have an emotional skinned knee, invisible to the naked eye, but it is stinging and bruised and it is preventing me from going out and getting on the goddamn grimy stage and taking my clothes off with Kristoff for hundreds of excited Bile fans in Baltimore. I am kicking myself hard because I had been looking forward to this for quite some time, and I am letting a little something like anxiety and a bad mood hold me back. I tell myself, do not forget, you are sick and have been having asthma problems all day, too, and yes, that is a good, mom-like reason to stay home, but it would never be a me-reason. My physical health has rarely prevented me from doing much of anything I wanted to do.
I cannot see Kristoff if I am feeling like this, at any rate. He would be able to see right through my \’I feel fantastic\’ act, anyway, and I would not want to effect him. He was always able to see right inside my head, scared the christ out of me, the way he could do that. Few people can, but then, I let few people in.
Ryan got mad at me because I never told him a thing about me. I have friends here in DC who still do not know a damn thing about me. Mae got mad at me back in November because I never talked about myself. Don complains of the same thing. Maybe I say it all in my writing and in therapy, so I do not need to talk. Maybe I am afraid that if I open my mouth, I will say the wrong thing and scare people away. Maybe I am afraid that once I start, I will not be able to stop. Maybe I am afraid that after all those years of solitude, I get too addicted to a willing audience and grow too dependent on it. Maybe I am afraid that I am boring. Maybe I am tired of talking about myself and want to talk about something else. Maybe I am afraid of being vulnerable. Maybe I am shy. Maybe I have low self-esteem, low self-confidence, low-self worth. Maybe I am afraid that I will have nothing interesting to say, or that I have nothing appropriate to say. Maybe I am afraid that everything I say really will be used against me one day. Maybe I am afraid that nobody is really interested in getting to know me, anyway. Maybe I am afraid that I am just a cliche 20-something with nothing to talk about. Maybe all these maybes are not actually maybes; maybe they are all the real deal. Maybe I need to shut up before I say too much again and live to regret it.
