Depression or a Broken Heart?: On the 'Illness' of Emotions

How many of you (us) who work in social work identify with having 'mental illness'? How many of you (us) have experienced some form of trauma in y(our) history that drove you into a field where compassion is central to working with folks who have also experienced trauma? I wager the answer is very different for these two questions, largely due to the framing of mental health 'issues.' What exactly are we talking about when we speak of mental health? Why have we succumbed to a medicalization of our spirits... the auspices of our hearts?

Despite the assumptions you might make about social workers or counsellors, many of us enter this work based in some experience of suffering. Some of us don’t subscribe to hierarchical ideals of ‘professionalism’ and come from our own histories and understandings of trauma which drive us to provide safe space for others to explore their experiences. Some of us (have) experience(ed) first hand what it means to be 'ill.' I put the word 'ill' in quotations because I do believe that the medical system has appropriated the experience of human suffering; sought to classify, contain, and treat it as individual disease as opposed to natural reactions to oppressive and traumatizing situations.

Some folks may differ in their consciousness of the impact of their trauma history on their desire to either work alongside, or to "save" others. Some folks believe they do not have a trauma history, and seek to consume the stories and suffering of others to placate a desire for meaning that is often facilitated by experiencing suffering. For folks entering into any activity that is aimed at being supportive or providing care to others, it is crucial to bring an awareness of one's own history and coping into full consciousness. Sometimes, we may seek to avoid the difficult work of reconciling our pasts, the emotional leftovers, and the unconscious desire to heal ourselves through working out our traumas on people who are already traumatized. This may happen in any realm of community, family, or social life, and is particularly loaded when entering into social justice work.

It is ironic that traumatic experiences - those which impact our hearts and souls - those which evoke strong emotional reactions in vivo, that may be carried with us as a blueprint for self protection for the rest of our lives, have been stripped of that very emotional content and processed into the systematic classification of psychiatric 'disorders.' It is striking, the degree to which simple human experiences and natural responses have become inconvenient and problematic, in the face of dehumanizing capitalist systems that alienate us from the possibility of self connection, and connection with others. Societal notions of competency and functioning are epitomized in the dehumanization of individuals who do not fit into a capitalist system. When folks are derailed in early childhood due to trauma, and are torn from the possibility of safe, nurturing relationships with direct caregivers, or anyone at all, survival can become contingent upon the numbing of pain. Witnessing mainstream society's disdain, degradation, and dehumanization of those visibly suffering with substance misuse and mental health issues becomes emblematic of the distance we have been conditioned to accept from our own hearts. We have become desensitized to the notion that we do have feelings. In order to function in large urban centers driven by capitalism, production, hours worked, goods bought, stress, and a lack of emotional space at all - it becomes necessary to distance ourselves from actual suffering, and instead, contain suffering as a 'disordered' experience in need of medical repair.

A Bit About My Story

I was driven to try to make sense of people, behaviour, communication, and why we do what we do from a very young age. That was my survival strategy. Growing up, I watched my small, isolated, working class immigrant family struggle to support my brother with scarce resources and funding. Doctor's error had resulted in my brother's breech position being complicated by an hour and a half of being stuck in my mother's birth canal with no intervention. The resulting suffocation of the umbilical chord led to my brother being born with profound disabilities. In our small town B.C. rural context in the seventies and eighties, social services were glaringly absent. There were no such things as careshifting, respite support, community rallies, automated doors, wheelchair stalls, chair lifts, ramps, motorized chairs (or even padded chairs), or sidewalk dips, for example. My mother recently recalled a story that exemplified her and my brother's struggle. They would go for a stroll regularly to get out of the house, get exercise, fresh air, and find human contact in our neighborhood. They would be on a shopping outing walking down the street only to have to overcome each cross street with a set of large, foreboding curbs. My mother would have to navigate by lifting, pulling, and teetering my brother's heavy, inflexible, non-padded, un-ergonomic chair and my brother would have to brace himself to be potentially dumped or at least jostled all the way to wherever they were going.

One day, my mother became so frustrated and enraged at these physical barriers she marched herself and my brother right up and into the City Hall. She walked with my brother over to the front desk and demanded to speak to someone. The person obliged and my mother relayed with great frustration (in her third language...Bulgarian, German, then English, and 9th grade education level) the amount of distress the city was causing by not foreseeing the need to remove or minimize barriers such as curbs, and how this was limiting our ability to get around the city for basic things like shopping for groceries.

Several months later, the city began flattening the curbs.

My father had great difficulties processing his emotions around having a son with disabilities. He grew up in Germany as a small child during the second world war and undoubtedly internalized notions of disability as "personal defect" and a "dirty secret." He cut himself off from family as a young man and hopped a large steamer to 'Canada' (Turtle Island) to start fresh. When my brother was born, he refused to tell anyone in his family... fearing the judgments, stigma, and blame of a first born son who would not live up to the idealized expectations of manhood. In a span of four years during the war, under "Aktion T4" the Nazi eugenics ("mercy killing") program slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities by gassing, drugs, then starvation for what was considered "life unworthy of living." Carrying these judgments, fear, and lacking the appropriate resources to properly care for and support his son, sprinkled with long periods of unemployment as a machinist left my father feeling helpless, depressed and angry.

None of us had the language to understand my father's 'mental health' issues at this time. All we knew was that he would periodically, suddenly, shut down and stop speaking to all of us. He would be seething and distant, drink booze secretively, and burst into rage and violence when simple things frustrated him. My brother received the brunt of this violence. I watched helplessly at the kitchen table each night as my brother, misunderstood by us all (we did not understand his speech until he was 33; he is 38 now) acted in frustration and anger undoubtedly at the fact that none of us were able to properly understand him. My brother's anger became screams, then biting himself and convulsing in protest. Our unshared language provided fertile ground for explosive family violence. In response, my father would yell, scream at, and physically assault my brother to try and 'control' him.

This did not work.

Meanwhile, my mother would try her best to intervene and would get caught in the crossfire. My brother would scream at her, my father would scream at her, she would scream at my father and brother, and I would watch silently. This started from as far back as my earliest memories. Years went by, and frustration became rage, became violence, became suffering, became rage and so on, and the family dynamics imploded. I will spare you the details, but suffice to say, all of us were traumatized as a result. When I reached seventeen, the family finally split up. I had been praying for this since I was twelve.

As an adult, I unconsciously carried the weight of these experiences - and the overwhelming emotions I had submerged as a result - with me. I sought to create a safe and stable home environment with my friends, focussed on getting myself employed and educated and created some distance from the chaos and strife of my first 20 years. In coping with these experiences, not to mention my buried sexuality and gender identity, I became so emotionally distant from my self and my family I barely knew they existed. I thought I was doing very well for myself, and by all accounts I was... until the anxiety, nightmares, sleep issues and depression creeped in.

It is very difficult to distinguish the onset of something like depression. Obviously it looks very different for each individual, but I was completely unprepared for how this manifested in my own life. I was working with others who were resisting psychiatric labels imposed on their lives, and I had no understanding of how my own experiences of trauma had impacted me. It took at least six years for me to discover that I had, in fact, withdrawn emotionally from most aspects of life. Because I was able to function at my job, pay bills, hold an apartment, and have (often deeply compassionate) social interactions, I was unable to understand what depression looked like for me. I became frustrated and defeated at the sense of a gradual loss of joy, connection and meaning with everything around me. It became apparent to me that my experience of 'mental illness' was conflated with notions of functionality. My capacity to go through the motions of life obscured the drain my soul and heart felt. When it became difficult for me to do anything other than sit at my desk, in my office, staring blankly into space for long periods of time with no feelings to speak of... and picking up a phone to speak to a client felt like dragging my body through liquid cement, I finally realized my trauma had caught up with me. Simple tasks which I intellectualized the facility of, betrayed an understanding of the centrality of my emotions and health of my spirit in my capacity to do them. This was evident in all facets of my life, and I felt overwhelmed with a desire for rest and sleep... a desire which never seemed to be quenched.


Moving Forward

Working in a formal mental health care environment and experiencing things that are quantified as mental illness carries a particular gingerness in terms of self disclosure, and seeking help. For me, there was this desire to deny that I indeed, needed help, because I was the helper. I was supposed to be giving help. Furthermore, in many social services and healthcare settings who do specific work with folks labelled as having 'mental illness,' there is a silent *othering* and distancing of agency and staff dynamics from the possibility of sharing in the complexity of emotional needs and support that are the crux of diagnoses. This distancing indicates a desire for those occupying the institutional helping machine to uphold some sort of immunity from the baseness that begets a stigmatized status as mental health consumer. In the same moment that such agencies are advocating alongside survivors for the right to equity, humanity, centering of resiliency and emotional connectivity, toxic staff and management dynamics make true advocacy and support of mental health and the recovery of spirits and souls invisible, self-reinforcing issues. The desire for authentication and reification of 'professionalism' in such institutions perpetuates a medicalized, distancing, 'objective' approach to broken hearts that manifest in a mental health mismanagement system, and the neglect and death of spirits. The impacts of this broken system are especially felt on those spirits disproportionately carrying the weight of years of systemic, intergenerational traumas, colonization, racism, genocide, and scapegoating of their bodies and souls.

So, how do we disrupt this medical model machinery from the inside, in support of those hearts most vulnerable, and affected? If we are to work at the task of helping others heal from terrible, inhumane systems, we must do everything in our power to make those systems human again from the ground up. Taking responsibility for our own health and wellness by seeking therapy, counselling, spiritual guidance, friend and family support and so on, is imperative. By engaging in a reflexive process of accountability, healing, and cultivation of joy we become better able to relate to others, especially our colleagues, in compassionate, grounded, authentic ways. Bringing an emotional presence and awareness to one's daily life, and the group processes that often bog down interpersonal relations in well meaning systems of care, can go far in changing the affective tone and conditions under which systems impact others attempting to heal, or simply survive from their traumas. Bringing a heart centered lens to interactions with all levels of the systems we are entrusted with can enable a welcoming and greater centering of client/service user/community member needs, desires, strengths and capacities.

Beyond this, shifting the language used, especially in medical settings, that constantly seeks to erase personal experience and narrative and replace with pathos and reparative, knee jerk treatment, can bring about the slow process of shifting conceptualizations from illness to wholeness. Centering a language of trauma, and contextualizing trauma in relation to systems and processes, while emphasizing resiliency, strength and coping strategies in all conversations of wellness and health management can subtly usurp the fundamentally flawed notion of objectivity. The idea of practicing *on* others' bodies, can be sublimated and considered in the context of additional weighted options for care, as opposed to the be-all of care or assistance. Inserting a language of radical affirmation and validation, particulurly when problem solving with medical practitioners regarding clients dealing with complex issues resulting from intense, sustained and repeated experiences of trauma, can re-introduce the centrality of the spirit as a driving force in recovery. Over time, shifting of language away from detached rationalization and immediate problem solving to the gradual recovery of the heart from traumatic experiences through supportive, lateral relationships with fellow humans can transform individual practice and connectivity, team functioning, institutional frameworks and systemic practice as well.

The roles of psychiatric classification and medicine can begin to be deconstructed as flawed tools that often isolate and harm individuals and groups. If such tools are seen as having disproportionate power of imposing definitions of functionality on individual experiences, and this logic of individual pathology is replaced with understandings of resiliency and coping in reaction to oppressive systems - the stigma of diagnosis can be externalized. Medical options can be weighted in addition to building upon healthy resistance strategies that positively impact health and well being. Understandings from instruments like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders can be extracted in discussion with, and if they hold meaning for the individual, while distancing from the all encompassing patholigization of being.

Indigenous (feminist) communities have been practicing what we (social justice activists and practitioners) call community strengthening and resiliencey for years. Consideration of all aspects of a spirit's health, wholeness, and happiness, by addressing indadequate housing, food access, culturally sensitive, client centered health care, relationships, and the connection of all these things and more to the pain and heartbreak experienced by individuals labelled with mental illness can transform a heartsick care system.

What role can you as a community member, family, friend, activist, worker, or supportive other play in this? If you are already practicing or living with these concerns and awareness, my challenge to you is it fully bring heart centered practice (and what that means to you) to all of your communication and relations and break the cycle of emotional violence that disconnects us all from each other. This does not mean toning down our passions or our fight, but it is a challenge to incorporate empathy and compassion even when we are demanding accountability and change within those fights.

(Trans)Formation: Self Portraits

A selection of self shot images taken the night before chest reconstruction surgery.

Transphobia in Relationship: A Sampling of Abusive Behaviours

This topic has been percolating for some time. Folks have spoken about it somewhat, but a misappropriation of terms and complexity of factors have served to muddy what is actually quite clearly inappropriate, and sometimes abusive behaviour on the part of some friends, family, and those we are intimate with... lovers and partners alike. These following behaviours go beyond mere ignorance of trans issues and land squarely in the category of harming others.

The following is an unrepresentative sample of some behaviours which can be emotionally harmful to trans people:


1) Refusing to accept the exploration of trans identity.

eg.) You bring up the possibility or curiosity of what it means to be trans and your partner doesn't want to talk about it. They claim they are "overwhelmed," "not ready for it" and that it is unfair to do so.

What's wrong with this?

While it is fair that a partner may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of exploring a change which may reflect back at them a lack of fit for their own identity, or a complication of how they know themselves, or you.... shutting down a partner sends the message that there is no space to talk about the possibility of being trans. It effectively sends a message of shame and fear to a potential trans identified person.

What can I do differently?

Address your own transphobia. Explore the resistance you have to talking about your partner's transness with trusted friends, or a counsellor. How can you be supportive while dealing with your own complicated feelings? Why are your feelings complicated? Explore all the facets of fear of loss, change, and assumptions about identity you may have. Deal with yourself first, do not make being trans the problem. After getting support to process your feelings, don't be a "martyr" and stay with someone you are not into. Trans people don't need people to pity us, we need folks to accept and love us unconditionally, and there are plenty of folks capable of doing this.


2) Refusing to gender/name your partner or loved one as per their request.

eg.) You tell your partner/family member/friend you would like to use a new pronoun/name. They may laugh in response. Maybe not. Sometimes they tell you flat out they won't "be able" to do that. Sometimes they will complain about how difficult it is to use your new pronoun/name. Sometimes they agree to use your new pronoun/name and continue to introduce you to anyone and everyone by the old pronoun/name. Sometimes they apologize. Most of the time they do not even acknowledge their disrespect. They claim you are being unreasonable when you correct them.

What's wrong with this?

Introducing a trans person by their old pronoun or name can be a selfish act of avoidance "cis" people engage in when they aren't brave enough to confront gender norms. It is based in a sense of shame and fear of being "othered" along with the trans person.

What can I do differently?

Take a risk! Stand up for your trans loved one and deal with the consequences accordingly by putting people in their place if they have a shitty response. Standing in solidarity with trans people sends the signal to others that transphobia is not okay. Quite often, people don't even have a problem with it! Address your own shame around what it means, societally, to be trans. Get support for this. If you make a mistake, immediately correct yourself and apologize.

3) Talking about how much you love the person's original parts and how you don't believe they should go through with surgery. Characterizing surgery as drastic, too traumatic, unbearable or even some form of mutilation.

What's wrong with this?

Partners or lovers, or even family members, of trans folks may have particular attachment to a trans person's body parts and plenty of imposed meaning on those parts. Reacting to a trans person's desire to converse about the possibility of surgery with shock, fear, revulsion, or avoidance signals to trans people that a major option for their embodiment and potential release of anxiety and discomfort is unavailable. Acceptance of the trans person and risk of abandonment become tied to whether or not that person desires surgery as a form of embodiment.

What can I do differently?

Acknowledge your feelings around the potential loss of relationship and particular meaning associated with your significant other's body parts. Commit to spending time with supportive others/a counsellor to properly do this. Change your language so that acceptance of the trans person is not contingent on their potential embodiment. Do not project your grief onto your partner as a way to manipulate the steps they may take to come into themselves wholly.

4) Claiming the language used by trans people to own their bodies is offensive.

eg.) Trans folks may often use "blended terms" to refer to our junk, as a way of reclaiming the meaning imposed on our bodies. We may call our parts "man boobs, chesticles, mangina, hole, gurl pussy" etc. etc. In response, others may view these terms as degrading or misogynistic without consideration for the context.

What's wrong with this?

Trans people aren't referring to YOUR bodies, we are reclaiming OUR bodies. Whatever terms you use to describe your junk are your business, and vice versa. Terms for 'sex organs' are loaded with cis normativity and privilege and taking back words or creating new ones can be very powerful ways for trans folk to own and represent our bodies as we see fit.

What can I do differently?

Laugh accordingly, and use the terms we use for our bodies. Trans folks often have a wicked sense of humour which shows our resilience in the face of so much oppression, violence, and degradation. Many of us adopt a sense of playfulness about our bodies and how people view them. If you are having a reaction to this, check it out. Maybe your assumptions about body parts need to be reconfigured and your cis normativity and privilege dealt with.

5) Transposing notions of acceptable embodiment onto trans folk.

eg.) Your cis partner tells you how much your body frightens them. They disclose a history of assault and equate your musculature or size with their assault - stating they don't know if they can date you because of it.

What's wrong with this?

Trans people have struggled with our embodiment, and transgressing gender norms since our coming into this world. We navigate impositions of what we can and should be every millisecond of our lives. We have struggled hard to attain and live with physiques that provide a modicum of solace and comfort - at great expense, violence, and exclusion from many facets of society. Equating your abuse history with a trans person's physical embodiment - something which we cannot undo and is essential for our survival - is to say that the embodiment is the source of your trauma. In fact, size and strength do not determine who an abuser will be. Small/slight statured people can also be seriously abusive, and moreover, emotional abuse has no physical form.

What can I do differently?

Get support for dealing with your trauma history. Process through with someone other than your date or partner why it is you are feeling triggered and do not transpose this onto your date’s body. If you are feeling uncomfortable, end it respectfully, and work on providing yourself the safety you need.

6) Treating a trans person differently once you discover they are on hormones.

eg.) A trans guy has been taking T for several months with no noticeable changes. Suddenly, when it becomes apparent physical and vocal changes are present, the same friend(s) ask with suspicion if you are taking T. Their body language has shifted considerably, clearly suggesting discomfort and hostility. Your behaviour hasn't changed, but your gender markers have. This is immediately equated with what are considered to be the worst aspects of hetero-normative masculinity.

What is wrong with this?

What is wrong is that your assumptions are not in line with the person's actual behaviour. Two seconds ago, when you didn't know your friend was "transitioning" you treated them just fine. Now that you are aware of the changes you treat them based on how you expect them to behave. You assume that their masculinity, not their behaviour, is the problem.

What can I do differently?

Reflect on why it is you are feeling uncomfortable with your friend's shifting presentation. Look at your friend's behaviour, the things they say and do - not their bodies/voices. If they are using their bodies and voices to take up space in misogynistic or paternalistic ways (ways that infringe on you or others), then it is fair game to talk about such behaviours. But, do not assume or predict that this will automatically be the case.

7) Telling a trans person that they are far more attractive as their "original" gender and that they make an unattractive woman.

What is wrong with this?

This is seriously degrading and abusive. Don't ever do it.

What can I do differently?

Get help now. You are not the gatekeeper or barometer of "womanness." Seriously commit yourself to psychotherapy to process and deal with this. Avoid interactions with trans people until you sort this out.

8) Attempting to limit how your partner identifies. Telling your partner they are abandoning "Butch."

What is wrong with this?

Your partner may have very complicated feelings and grief around what it means to be Butch, if they have identified this way. Normative community narratives have made a congruence of butch and trans identities unavailable and shameful, while not recognizing some folks may identify as both, either simultaneously or sequentially.

What can I do differently?

You are not the arbiter or protector of Butch. It is valid to feel protective of Butch identity given the particular struggles of those living this reality... however, it is not your responsibility or place to determine what Butch is and whether folks can be Butch and Trans. Do personal work around expanding your awareness of the many ways trans/masculine people may come into their identities and be supportive of this.

9) Refusing to take a partner's trans/femaleness seriously because they have a beard, or body hair.

What is wrong with this?

Being a trans/woman/female/feminine person is not contingent on amount of body or facial hair. Some really hot trans women have full beards! Furthermore, many women have full beards (if they didn't wax). Projecting this onto trans women is unfair and loaded with transmisogyny/disrespect for their femaleness.

What can I do differently?

Do your own work around deconstructing the gender binary. Respect trans women for who they are, no matter how they present. Do not make validation and affirmation contingent upon normative standards of female beauty.

10) Refusing to date trans women, especially those who identify with having cocks, or who haven't had "bottom surgery" - particularly if you id as lesbian. Viewing dating a trans woman as some form of accomplishment and indication that you have challenged transphobia.

What is wrong with this?

Tying your refusal to date trans women with your lesbian identity reifies your inability to see trans women for who they truly are. It denigrates their identity and presentation and signals your perception that they are "less than" women. It is not an accomplishment to see someone for who they truly are (especially related to gender) - it is a basic ability as a human. Furthermore, if you are into rubber cocks and penetration yet you refuse to date trans women with cocks, penises, or pussies that are different from yours you are arbitrarily discriminating against these women based on their transness or transsexuality (credit to Alaska b. for this point).

What can I do differently?

Don't talk about how rad you are for crushing on or dating trans women. Don't treat or talk about it with friends as some kind of new project for yourself. Start to deconstruct some of your transmisogyny and how your behaviour is not tied to a lack of desire, but rather your unwillingness to validate transfemale realness. Do work around unpacking the "cis" male privilege you are incorrectly transposing on trans female bodies, whether they have cocks or not.


Published at: The Scavenger

*** If you come across hateful sites please report abuse (on the host site). To any readers who are facing hatred or cyber/bullying and in need of support please seek a local crisis line in your community or try this website AND KEEP RIGHTEOUSLY BEING YOU!!! LOVE AND SOLIDARITY. ~Xander Sly

Reconciling Dyke

I think it's time to take a little space to write about the intricacies of dyke and trans identities.

As you may know by now, I do not subscribe to the most *seen* trans/sexual narrative of being "born in the wrong body," of having a "clear destination" or "end point" in transition, of identifying strictly as male, or as a man at all. It has taken much trans visibility, activism, advancement in available options, and shedding of layers and layers of repression for me to even begin to understand how to holistically integrate my identity and embodiment in the most authentic, satisfactory way.

That said, I think it is important for me and others who may feel likewise to speak about that aspect of reconciliation - of making visible the linkages and coherency we have come to in our identities, historically and at present... despite a lack of foreground to do so. It's hard to reconcile having identified as a 'dyke' in a comprehensive way, and then feeling the right to retain that history as someone transitioning into a more 'male' appearance (for lack of better words). It feels like there is this pressure from various facets of our community to separate out these identity locations - to view one's dyke past as separate from themself; to disqualify it somehow. A trans male identity is often seen as the Great Departure from dykehood into the realm of No Man's Land. Community dynamics outside of (and still within) large, progressive urban centers such as T.O. highlight this separation and exclusion.

However, I believe it is the right of every person, trans or otherwise, to claim the coherence of their identity in the best way that it fits for them. This means creating space internally within oneself and in dialogue with others around having lived in both or many worlds of identity in an integrated way. The syncopation of a non-normatively linear path to identity may throw off others, but it need not exclude the possibility for rendering oneself and their narrative whole by including all aspects of their growth in identity and various periods of reclaimation.

In other words, I was a dyke. I am now trans. At once I was and am both. The historical urgency of claiming a dyke identity as the best possible fit for me at the time and subsequent emergence of my trans identity do not cancel each other out. They are deeply linked, not separate. For me, a dyke identity did precede and feed into my newly (consciously) formed trans identity. My understanding of my relationship to my body, my parts, my sexuality, my relationships with women (men, and transfolk), and the way I related between bodies in dyke identity was never complete on it's own (trans otherness always lingered despite lack of vocabulary). Yet those experiences were and still are an authentic part of my whole experience. My understanding of selfhood and the relationship to my and others' bodies have shifted, but 'dyke' for me was never a phase to begin with. It was simply the most suitable category I could live, thrive, and survive with.

That said, being a dyke has deeply shaped how I know myself as a trans person. It has inherently shaped my trans/feminist/humanist politics. My understanding of my own femaleness and having walked through the world for 30 years being read as solely female, with all the assumptions and impositions forthwith, define who I am comprehensively. These things do not form a lingering shadow of mis-fit or an unspoken past.

They are integral to my subjective experience of the world and will continue to shape how I learn and move through space and time.