"What’s the most vulnerable you’ve ever felt?"
"Vulnerability is an interesting place to start. Where you feel vulnerable tells a lot about who you are as a person. Vulnerability reflects what one person really fears about themselves because they know that to be vulnerable means to have a moment where you can’t guarantee the outcome, no matter how much control you think you have over it. Seriousness aside, I’ve felt the most vulnerable under substances, especially pharmaceuticals.  People talk about overdoses as if they are a cautionary tale but in the real world, they happen. They happen when you least expect it and to the people who you’d never imagine.

Some time ago, I felt that vulnerability as I nearly overdosed on Adderall during a binger. I remember the night it happened, it was the same night as that Orlando club shooting. After a couple days of popping them and drinking Vodka Redbull at every gathering I went to, I laid in bed trying to shake the feeling off to fall asleep. My mind was racing, I could feel the pulse of my blood in every inch of my body and usually that feeling doesn’t bother anyone until you can feel it stop. When I couldn’t feel my own pulse anymore, it sent me into a shock. I felt like I couldn’t breathe even though I was inhaling with all my force. When I was laying in that bed and experiencing that trauma, that is when I knew vulnerability and real fear. Nothing I could do would change the outcome, I just had to hope for the best and in that moment, I learned what I really feared. I feared death.

For six months after that incident, I was scared to go to bed. Whenever I would slightly doze off, just the slightest, that moment of subconscious would be all too like that moment I felt my blood stop. It would wake me back up and for six months, the common routine was talking myself into a peace of mind. To this day, I don’t like to hear or feel my blood pulse when I’m in bed."

"What differences are there between how people perceive you and how you perceive yourself?"
"How one perceives themselves really dictates how we go about ourselves in the world. I studied philosophy in college and for those reasons, I’ve always seen myself as some puzzling thinker like the classic “Thinker” statue. Of course, this is unrealistic. I’m no Aristotle or Marx, but I am a close Diogenes. My friends and family have always seen me as silly and goofy character with a lot of charisma. I’ve been called a “Chatty Cathy” many times in my life. I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh so I fed into that perception. How I see myself is quite different.

They say that who you are around people and who you are when you’re alone are two different people. I would agree with this. At the end of the day, I’m quite stoic. I keep to myself and I enjoy my simple, trivial things like playing video games on my phone and reading Reddit whenever I can. Unfortunately, over the years I’ve been rather recluse, and I keep people at a distance from me. I’m unsure what it reveals about my character, after all, they just think I’m funny."

"What’s something you actually really believe in?"
"Whoa big question here. I don’t know if you’re asking me if I really believe in Santa Claus or if I’m believing some whack-job conspiracy. With that being said, I’m just going to go ahead and give you answers to both. One belief that I hold sincere is the belief that people are bad people because they just enjoy being a bad person. You know how you find those people who enjoy playing devil’s advocate during a casual nonsense discussion? Bad people are like the people who volunteer to play Devil’s advocate but except for actual important things like policies and political stances. It may be that I might just be unable to wrap my head around whatever stance that they have, but I have too much pride to admit that, so I prefer Occam’s Razor and just think that they’re just a bad person because they choose to be.

I also believe that the United States created AIDS by accident and couldn’t control it. That’s just me though."

"Is there anything you’re trying to make amends for?"
“I like the questions you ask. In high school, I had a lot of issues with coming to terms with being a queer person and I took that frustration out on other people. In many ways, I was kind of a bully. People from high school may not remember me that way but I’ve experienced some serious guilt over the years due to the random acts of cruelty I would bestow onto my fellow folk.

Just in the past year, I’ve tried to reach out to some people and just apologize to those people for whatever shenanigans I did in high school. I don’t sugar coat it and say that I was confused or going through a lot. I can own up to the fact that I was a piece of shit for a while. For those reasons, I genuinely try to be a better and nicer person to other people, even strangers. I don’t know what other people are going through; why should I even take the chance of making someone else’s day worse?

I even came up with a silly quote like “the strongest swords are forged in hottest flames” to try and glorify my own redemption. I think that sometimes I’m just arrogant and I’m working on that too.”

"If you could speak to someone from your past, what would you say to them?"
"My ex-boyfriend Christian Turner. In March of 2016, he committed suicide. I’ve had people in my life die or pass away unexpectedly but nothing ever shook me to my core like Christian’s death. When I heard about his death, I was a complete wreck for days. His death was all I thought about; to the point that I couldn’t even leave my room. I just sat there and listened to the mix CDs he made me on repeat sobbing and trying to sing along with the outdated pop-punk songs. I had survivor’s remorse.

He was a philosophy type as well and since we were a long-distance relationship, we would scribble down thoughts and ideas we had in this journal and when we saw each other again, we would hand off the journal and read those thoughts and respond to them. One night, I was cleaning my room and I found that old journal that Christian and I would write in. To distract myself from cleaning, I read through the journal and I wanted to call him and tell him about all the great ideas I thought he had and how I loved the way he interpreted the world. It was already 2am so I decided against it.

The following morning, he was found dead. The single deepest regret I have in my life was not making that phone call."

"Has your sense of self ever been compromised?"
"I struggled with agency when I would abuse Adderall in college. It is easy to take one tell yourself that you’re going to knock out all the things you’re behind on and focus on writing that paper or finishing that presentation project, but it never goes the way you really plan. When I would take Adderall, I would just lose myself in some delusion and I’d spend the next several hours feeding into the hedonistic thoughts that would inevitably sneak into my mind. This was never fun the following day when I would snap out of it. My memory would be shot, my throat would hurt from smoking too many cigarettes that were smoked to keep the buzz going, and all I had done over the course of a night would be feeding into desires that didn’t need fed anymore.

To secure your own agency, you must make a contract with yourself. A serious contract. You need to make standards for yourself and when looking at your goals, one must find a way to tread that line without cutting corners, lest you slip into another sleepless night that you won’t remember the following week."

"Is there a piece of art or media that really speaks to you?"
"Whenever I’m sad I look at this meme of a dog in a construction outfit saying, “I specialize in roofing”. That usually does the trick."

"What terrifies you the most right now?"
"Fear is another weird topic for me. I’m still on the fence about what fear really is to me. Is fear a judgment I have about something or does something inherently possess characteristics that embody the concept of fear? If the former, then is my judgment about fear valid? These are questions I tackle.

Reflecting on myself and what I’ve said already, I want to say that death terrifies me more than anything else. It is not death itself that I fear but rather all the possibilities and ideas about what happens after that I fear the most. If there is another side, then how will I get there and how will I know that I’ve arrived? If death is just this overwhelming darkness, then will I even be able to be conscious my current lack of existing? It sounds contradicting but that’s because it is.

To add to the uncomfortable feeling, whatever judgment I have about death and its aftermaths will determine how I feel about people who have already died. It would be inconsistent to think that there is nothing on the other side but that someone else’s spirit lives on. It really comes down to if I believe there is another side because I want there to be another side. Worse, if I believe there is another side so I can cherish the memory of someone.

I’m uncomfortable just thinking about it."

"Is there something important from your childhood you don’t really talk about?"
In the summer, when I was very young, my grandfather would take me to the airport and we would sit outside off the side of the road and watch the airplanes. He would give me these little packets of strawberry fruit snacks and I would sit on his shoulders and we watched the planes come and go. It was a really exciting day if we saw a helicopter. One time, we saw one of those army black stealth planes come in.

Shortly after this time, my grandfather got into a car accident and he wasn’t there anymore mentally. We never went to the airport again but whenever I drove past it, I think about those days. It may seem like something trivial, but it reminds me of my grandfather and a special memory I had.

I’m thankful to be sharing this with you."

"What advice would you give yourself when you were at your lowest?"
"There was a time when I felt like I didn’t fit in at all anymore. My family and I weren’t close; we didn’t communicate. I didn’t have many friends at the time. I was using Grindr so I could have a place to sleep at night. I fell into substance abuse at an early age. All of these traumatic things happened because I was outed as gay at 14. If I wanted to give myself advice, it would be this:

               Look. Everyone has bad days. For some, a bad day can turn into a bad week which becomes a bad month and next thing you know, you’ve had a bad year. It doesn’t have to be that way though. You’ve heard it countless times that “it gets better” and though it may not look like it right now, I promise you that if you just keep on pushing then 6 years from now, you can look back on all of it and it is nothing in the grand scheme of things. The strongest swords are forged in the hottest flames and the fire is only going to get hotter. You can either forge yourself into something stronger or you can melt. Just know that nothing good comes out of melted steel."

"Who do you go to when you need support and comfort?"
"Depending on the situation, it goes one of two ways. Either I can receive genuine support from my best friend, William or Courtney, or my boyfriend, Robert, to help me cope or I can get half-assed support and comfort by screaming my issues into the void on Twitter. 65% of the time it is the latter."

"Is there anything in your life that you’re glad didn’t work out the way you wanted it to?"
"For a while I dated a guy who was very emotionally and physically abusive to me. When I was applying for colleges, he insisted that I stay in town so that we wouldn’t be apart. In an act of defiance, I applied to my dream college and was accepted. I was able to leave him before I was accepted to Ball State but it was refreshing to have my cake and eat it too. I’m just glad I was able to take back my autonomy."

"What do you try to live your life by?"
"Philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle advocated for the best life being driven by virtue and the pursuit of knowledge. I’ve taken these principles upon myself and I try to live my life by temperance, humility, justice, and wisdom. I think it is important to have the temperance to control one’s desires, the humility to know when you’re wrong, the wisdom to make the correct decisions, and the justice to do the right things. You cannot just be a just person because you did a just thing, it is the habitual practice of being just that makes you a just person.

Always learn new things because new things lead to new opportunities."

"Is there a symbol that’s important to you?"
"I’ve always been fond of the simple delta. In chemistry, delta commonly means “change” and I think that it is a friendly reminder that we are capable of changing and adapting to whatever life brings us."

"Most of us, at some point of our childhood, begin entertaining the idea of the self. In our society today, we’re told to be ourselves; as if it was as easy as that. In this process, we’re told we’ll figure out just who we are. To me, this is where things go wrong. In our desperate search for ourselves, we look for a stable entity. A “me” that we can carry with us and show the world.

We want to feel as though we are roughly the same as yesterday – stable enough to feel sane and normal, at least. The truth is, we change all the time. In many ways, we remain similar. But it is in the difference between “similar” and “same” that determine how free we are to truly be ourselves. However, for many, this is not the root of the true damage. When we reduce ourselves to this “same” person, that we can “figure out”, we naturally believe that others abide by the same rules.

This is my roundabout way to answer this question. We create images of others which we super-impose over them, limiting our potential to be our ever-changing selves. The short answer is that I like being free, some others would like me to be “Nat”."

“Dude, it looks like you’re bleeding coffee.”

"What’s the most vulnerable you’ve ever felt?"
"I used crystal methamphetamines for a little while. That comedown is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced: It makes you feel less than human. Seeing (and occasionally talking to) people who aren’t there, serious fatigue and extreme anxiety are a potent combination. I felt utterly broken—like I didn’t deserve my place on Earth—and the worst thing is that you know you’re totally out of your mind but can’t do anything to regain control."

"What differences are there between how people perceive you and how you perceive yourself?"
"People see me as ridiculously tall, while I am under the firm belief that I am a normal-sized person on a planet inhabited by severely small people."

"What’s something you actually really believe in?"
"God does not exist. Most (not all) faiths seem selfish and hateful. Let’s acknowledge the triumphs of our fellow humans (modern medicine, science, technology and progress) instead of giving credit to an entity—or entities—that we can’t see or prove the existence of."

"Is there anything you’re trying to make amends for?"
"I have wasted so much time chasing the bottom of a bottle. For that reason, I am trying to make amends with the people that have stood by me while I struggled so badly: colleagues, friends and members of my family, especially."

"If you could speak to someone from your past, what would you say to them?"
"I would tell every teacher I’ve ever had (pre-university) that I am sorry for being such a little shit."

"Has your sense of self ever been compromised?"
"Certainly. I think we change all the time, and sometimes change can be very scary. The important thing is sticking to a code of ethics while respecting and looking out for one another."

"Is there a piece of art or media that really speaks to you?"
"I appreciate meaningful/introspective works but I don’t have any favorites in particular."

"What terrifies you the most right now?"
"The future. Financial and health-related security.

Perhaps the scariest thing is the state of media and free information? The purpose of journalism isn’t to deceive anybody or distort the facts, though biases definitely exist. The important thing is to double and triple check what you read to make sure it is accurate, up-to-date and backed up by a couple reputable sources."

"Is there something important from your childhood you don’t really talk about?"
"It took me a long time to learn how to be a mature, functional human being (and I still don’t have it down yet). I “teased” too many friends/peers/classmates, which I feel badly about. I was too young to understand that a lot of negativity growing up can have a big influence on how a person develops, and I would like to apologize to a lot of different people for my behavior."

"What advice would you give yourself when you were at your lowest?"
"“Your pants—and I think your shirt?—are backwards.”
“Don’t text that.”
“That mountain of laundry isn’t going to do itself.”

There are so many sunrises worth watching. They are a good reason to wake up in the morning.""

"What do you offer that can help save the world?"
"In the case of a zombie outbreak, I’d be great for looting. I can reach the upper shelves of Costco for you if you let me into your post-apocalyptic band."

"Who do you go to when you need support and comfort?"
"Definitely my other half, Courtney, who is always a voice of reason and support when I most desperately need it. An A+ snuggler. She is the only person who can say to me “fuck off” and “I love you” using the same tone of voice."

"Is there anything in your life that you’re glad didn’t work out the way you wanted it to?"
"When I was young I had a mullet, thinking mullets were and would be cool forever. They weren’t then and they aren’t now, and I’m glad I recognized that at some point."

"When have you felt the loneliest? The least lonely?"
"I was diagnosed with severe depression about two and half years ago. I remember sitting on my bedroom floor for weeks without speaking to anyone (except for my roommates that would occasionally check on me, and to whom I am extremely grateful), which was the most alone I’ve ever felt.

I now take comfort in the fact that every day I talk to three+ people. When I wake up, the first thing I do is call or text my girlfriend to say good morning. I usually tell my parents what I’m up to for the week, and I have a couple of friends that I talk to on a daily basis.

I also make more of an effort to talk with strangers/new friends."

"Is there a symbol that’s important to you?"
"I appreciate infinity symbols, mermaids, boat anchors, dreamcatchers, butterflies and words like “dream” or “hope” in Latin."

"What do you try to live your life by?"
"Find something you enjoy doing. Take occasional breaks from that something. Don’t impose your values on anybody else. Have some fucking fun."

"I just realized the other day how afraid I was. Am. Have been.
This morning, I randomly flipped to a page of one of my journals, to an entry I wrote exactly one year ago. I wrote to believe in myself, and to not fall into the helms of the rat race. I wrote with a sense of adventure, asking self to not find solitude in comfort… to always seek out new, unknown, the uncomfortable. That’s where you grow.

This past while, I’ve been really unbeknownst to myself. Haven’t really given myself a second to step back and look at where I’m going. I think a lot of young people do this right after graduation.

I wonder when I’ll find where I truly belong.

-July 31, 2017"

"As cliche as it may sound, university has been the best and worst time of my life. I came in to McGill thinking that I’d be in a very different place than where I am right now. The hardest change I had to adjust to was the fact that I can no longer live my life as I planned ahead; I wanted to become a medical missionary for a very long time and I had these schools that I wanted to go to and this education I wanted to pursue, but I was no longer interested in studying the human body, or even had the vitality to be serving other people. 

I started to hit my lowest near the end of the second semester of my first year. I was crying a lot, was worrying about almost everything and all of the things I used to love doing, especially learning, was not fun anymore. And when that really got to me once in a while, I had to drop everything because not only my physical system would stop, but my mind would only work to create more worry. It started to get worse in my second year. That “once in a while” wasn’t once in a while anymore but turned to almost every day. I couldn’t write my exams or even go to class, I couldn’t keep up with my personal relationships, and I cried. A lot. I was constantly beating myself up for not being able to plan my life ahead or not being able to follow through on my goals. Everything seemed to be my fault whenever people let me down, when they walked out of my life. I despised the fact that so many aspects of life after high school was out of my control. I started to have a lot more bad days than good days. I started to think something was not right with me, that someone’s not supposed to want to hide from people, responsibilities and my own emotions and feelings all the time like I was. 

I went to see someone, and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. They said I needed to get professional help. So I started psychotherapy. Then later on to meds. Fortunately, I met a very nice and warm therapist. What she told me really changed my perspective. I think it really helped with getting better. She emphasized the importance of being open to exploring. She told me that not being able to follow these steps I set was okay, and that I’m supposed to be living life so I learn about myself in depth through these alterations. She said it was okay for me to take a detour or to try anything that I decide to lay my hands on so I end up with what I truly like. She told me that I have to focus on my people who support and love me even when I’m on my floor bawling at 3 in the morning. So I started to do that. I started to think differently. It was not easy at first, but I got better at it. When I got lower-than-expected marks on exams, I tried not to call myself an idiot or useless. Whenever people let me down, I turned to my boyfriend then, my best friend and my family, who were always there for me. When I felt a change was needed in this grand plan I had for myself, I no longer hesitated. Even before depression and anxiety, I had always been a very, very neurotic person. I had been very susceptible to negative emotions. Being that person, being able to tell myself it’s okay to be not okay or it’s okay to be not perfect was a huge step, but I did it. It took a very long time for me to think healthier, but I ended up doing so, and I’m proud of myself for it.

I still get through my bad days being scared that I might go back to this rock bottom I used to be at. I am still neurotic; I still get very upset over small things. But I no longer hate myself for not being sure. I even enjoy this openness I newly discovered, and I learned to become more aware of my feelings, emotions and lessons I learn from my experiences. I would not want to go back to where I was before and redo everything I’ve gone through, but these struggles and this so called recovery really formed my identity, it helped me build who I am right now. I have a different outlook on life now. I am able to see things in a more broad perspective. If it’s good, then it’s great, if it’s bad, then I learn from it. I also became more interested and concerned with mental health. I am able to relate to people’s struggles. All because I’ve been there. If I digress for a moment, I personally hate it when people say things like "pain is temporary, GPA is forever.” No one knows how much pain one has to go through unless they experience it themselves. GPA may be “forever" on a piece of paper, but this “pain" has left a mark on me that will linger forever and has changed me for good, hopefully for the better. Although I still get scared of regressing back to where I was before and I’ll probably have to live with this for a very long time, if not for the rest of my life, I don’t want to and probably not going to forget anything from the two dreadful years as they are now part of me and they shaped who I am today."

"I get memes about 2016 being a disaster but not because of celebrity deaths or American Nazis (as a white dude, seeing police shootings or white supremacist partisan victories did not affect my body). Instead I’ve spent the year trying to heal from trauma without leaning too much on my friends and partners. Being a dude has complicated this because I’ve been trained to resolve mental health problems through distraction—most guys I know fuck around or get vicious to cover up their broken bones, but broken bones need casts to heal. And stoicism is bizarre to teach guys because it’s based on failure: silence often leads men to kill either themselves or the people around them (look at domestic abuse and murder rates from male to female partners; rates of childhood trauma in prisoners, or the gender divide of mass shootings and suicides).

Imagine if we applied this approach to building airplanes:

“So those are the engines that catch on fire?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We will take all of them.”  

Losing brilliant friends or partners in 2016 prompted me to research the communication behaviours of child abuse survivors. I learned that we’re prone to experience an ‘intimacy dysfunction’ where we are either too needy or too absent in order to avoid abandonment, either through an intrusive over-assurance or in being ‘not all emotionally there’ so that our ‘true selves’ are not rejected in a future breakup. I learned that male abuse survivors should be weary when seeking the support of women, considering the imbalances in our socialized expectations of unpaid gendered labour. I learned that above all we should avoid becoming Liz Kinnamon’s Male Sentimental, who manipulates women to avoid the discomfort required to change shitty behaviours.

So, after this research, I’ve decided to try and accept my imperfect reactions to revisited trauma. This has been complicated because the style of masculinity I was taught associates success with a myth of perfection (achievable by consuming material or stockpiling women). Being a survivor of emotional abuse also complicates things because I take critiques ‘fully,’ reinforcing the violent narratives told to me about me that I survived, bringing me to affirm critiques instead of defending myself. It’s been difficult not to take the critique of a female friend or partner as ‘absolutely true,’ and so I’m trying to consider them a similarly flawed human being with similarly flawed critiques—while not dismissing them entirely, as I’ve been programmed to do.

I’m ending 2016 by cutting toxic people out of my life and working to accept when I’ve been cut. That’s an easy line to write and harder to work through when it aligns with abandonment and the ideal dude as woman-hunter/consumer, but believing that women know what they’re doing when they cut us out is something a lot of guys I know could benefit from. While it makes sense that we act this way (our media romanticizes lines like “I asked your mother out thirty-eight times before she said yes,” suggesting that successful courtships are just a matter of the ‘determination’ of the man–erasing female agency, besides being pathetic), I do believe that we as men can reprogram ourselves. It feels necessary to me if I say that I care about the lives of the people around me now and in 2017."

"My therapist once instructed me to look at myself eye to eye in the mirror, and list all the positive things about myself in order to rewire all the negative that our brains focus on. So, I decided to give it a whirl. I looked at myself and told myself: “You are smart. You are handsome. You are likable. You are okay being single.” After telling myself all these things, I realized that I felt nothing, because I didn’t believe any of it. 

Growing up, I was always different. I had surgery on my ears as requested by my mom, so others would not bully me throughout my schooling years. That did not stop others from picking on my “buck teeth” (that were eventually eliminated by the glory of braces) or my skinniness, in which others always perceived me as weak, therefore, an easy target for whatever egotistical, power-driven human being wanted to pick on me. I guess you can say that ever since a young age, my self-esteem has been compromised. In exchange for my deemed “abnormal” physical characteristics, I developed a strong and unique personality. One that to this day is goofy, clumsy, intelligent, ambitious … but then again, this is my subjective opinion of myself. I have kept this side of me, because I realized that changing my fundamental self would be to completely rewire my brain into someone that I know that I am not. But my true self is still subjugated to other people’s perceptions, and this is on my mind more often now than ever.

I genuinely like to think that I do not care what others think of me, but more realistically, I’d say that thought varies depending on context. On one hand, I could be partying with my friends, living in the NOW, and everything around me is background noise. I socialize with others, do things that make me happy, and enjoy every moment I am in. On the other hand, when I am feeling lonely or surfing through the infamous dating apps such as Tinder or Grindr, I feel invisible rather than carefree.

We are social creatures, and me more than some, so yes, I do crave what I have yet to have: a romantic relationship. You heard that right, for almost 21 years now, I have been single. As many would probably say along with some pitiful eyes, “you are still young.” Yes, thank you, I realize that, but time is relative and I like to live in the now, and in this now, I want to be loved romantically. Ever since starting university, I have been hurt, rejected, subjected, and friend-zoned more times than probably any other person. Every time this occurs, I immediately think to myself over and over on a continuous loop: “I am NOT good enough.” This sounds painless, but with my already established low self-esteem, this brings it underground. There are days where I feel like a dark cloud follows me around on a sunny day, waiting for me to start crying so that that cloud can begin to rain. I keep the pain I feel inside though, and it brings along a tightness to my chest and throat that is only released when I cry. There are days, where I look around and see an attractive man, and instead of thinking “wow, I can get someone like him,” my self-esteem says, “wow, he’s out of my league.” Thank you self-esteem. 

So, after being hurt and disappointed so many times, I resort to the temporary self-esteem fix: The Hookups. Do I regret any of them? No. Because everything I do makes me who I am today, and teaches me for the future. Losing your virginity though, to a Grindr hookup from someone kind of older than you, though, is not the ideal “How I Lost My Virginity” storyline I may have wanted. And even if these people may find me attractive, it still feels like a meaningless, hormone driven temporary fix. After all these hook-ups, I felt no different to how people see me. 

I went on legit dates as well with people, but was always left disappointed. In this process, I developed a wall that protects my expectations, and protects me from getting hurt in any way shape or form. I am never shy or nervous on dates, but I am on edge about what the person is seeing in me, and whether they will take a shot at my self-esteem or not, just from lack of interest. My recent solution in the past couple weeks has been to delete ALL dating apps, in order to just seriously focus on myself, as well as preventing myself from getting hurt all over again. Everyone tells me that you meet people in real-life and not through these apps. The sad reality is though, is that our superficial society is starting to solely rely on these apps for romantic/hookup support. When ever happened to good ol’ letter writing? People also told me, that I must learn to love myself before I can ever love someone else. My counter-argument, that may be faulty, is that once I find someone to love, it’ll restore my self-esteem, therefore restoring my self-love. This is simply a hypothesis though, built on assumptions that deep down I know are false. 

I am sure all this is making me sound like a depressed sac of potatoes around the clock, but that is truly not the case. I still wake up with a smile, have fun with family and friends, and try to see the positive in myself. I go to the gym, with the main purpose of boosting up my self-esteem, and the physical aesthetic is simply a glorious bonus. I still make new friends at school and at work, who I know love me for who I am, and quite frankly, that should be all that matters. I know that life is not like the movies, but one aspect that I’d like to believe from them cheesy rom-coms, is that everyone one day finds that person to romantically love, whether it lasts or not. I should not let my thoughts about what others think of me hinder how I live my life. There is way more positive than negative in my life, so I should let the positive take center stage in my mind rather than the other way around. Self-esteem is ladder, and I just have to slowly but surely make my way up. Once I am at an optimum level where I do not care about what others think of me regardless of the context, then I think I will be ready to jump back into the dating game. To be honest, I am not there yet, but I will not give up. One thing I realized is that now when people ask me “Why are you still single?”, I respond with a resounding: “No rush, it will happen someday.” I guess looking at myself in the mirror and saying all the good I know is in me does pay off in some ways."

"I'm terrified that I won't be able to save the world. Every day I'm confronted by two conflicting realities. The first, that the world is going to shit and there's not much I can do about it. The second, that I want to do something about it.

It leaves me feeling terrified, to the point that sometimes I can't get myself out of the house, can't get myself to work or read or even talk to my friends and family, because I don't want to be confronted by reality. For just a few hours, I want to escape the truth.

This truth – that I, a tiny, insignificant human, am not going to save the world – it doesn't even phase some people. It keeps me awake at night, but it isn't even worth a second's thought for some.

It terrifies me, not only because I am faced with the enormity of the challenges we human beings face and I don't know which one to tackle, but also because I know I could dedicate my whole life to one of those and it might not change anything at all. What am I supposed to do? Is it not worth it? Should I just give up? These questions go through my brain dozens of times a day. And every day, I have to calm myself down. I have to remind myself that it's not just about me. Yes, bad things are happening. Yes, things need to change. Yes, it'll take a long time for me to find my path and contribute to this change. But one step at a time.

I can't save the world. But I may be able to help it."

"Back in middle-school and high school, I had the biggest crush on this guy from my hometown. He was the dark, mysterious cool-guy that every girl probably dreams of dating. He was the kind of person that only let a few people get to know him really well. Everyday after school, we’d talk on MSN Messenger (it was still relevant then) and sneak late-night conversations for hours on end. By the end of my freshman year, we ended up dating. He was about 3 years older than me, so I was overly excited to be dating this “cool” senior. For a while, everything was like a dream come true for the young 15-year-old me in love. He drove me around in his own sports-car, and took me on fancy dates around town. He was my first kiss. We still have our initials carved on a tree at a park somewhere back in my hometown. It was the epitome of a Taylor Swift love song.

We eventually broke up after many months of dating on and off. I remember being so heartbroken on our final breakup, because he just disappeared from the face of the Earth and I couldn’t contact him at all. Turns out, he spontaneously decided to go on a solo backpacking trip to South America. I knew he had a bunch of demons in his life, but I didn’t know that he was the kind of person to just drop everything and move on so quickly, as if everyone that he left behind didn’t matter to him at all. I remember crying for days, and always calling his phone to see if he returned.

I’m glad it didn’t work out with him, because I’ve dated some incredible people afterwards. Through my experiences with him, I got to understand myself better, what I wanted from a relationship, and how to handle relationships maturely. I still think he’s a bit of an ass for just taking off like that, but I also don’t hold a grudge against it. Looking back, I’m also glad our relationship didn’t last any longer, because I think the younger, naive me could have easily gotten lost in the fairy tale moments of the relationship, lost the sense of who I was, or sacrificed my own well being to help him with his demons."

"As a first-gen Indian living in a predominantly white suburb of metro-Detroit, I, like many with the same story as me, tried so hard to push away my Indian heritage in order to fit in with a type of people that were so far away from who I was. I stopped wearing a bindi to school, I took my hair out of the braids that my mother so painstakingly did for me every morning, I never took Indian food to school. I made being ‘brown’ a small part of my identity, a part I only took up on weekends and after school. My parents had lived in America longer than they had lived in India, they were not the ‘fresh-off-the-boat’ Indians so many sitcoms display. I lived a normal life, yet I tried so hard to hide my heritage. I remember once being strangely happy when someone told me “Pooja, I always forget you’re Indian because you’re so different”.

I ended up going to a predominantly brown (South and East Asian) school where almost the entire senior class was first-generation, either from Asia or Europe. Being in this environment was not something I chose (my parents enrolled me into this higher intensity school), but looking back, I am so grateful my parents forced me into that decision 4 years ago. Because, after four years, I now love going out in my Indian clothes. I do henna for my friends. I eat Indian food everywhere I can, and I introduce my friends to Indian food. In fact, many of my friends are first gen now too. And I love it. And now, more than ever, being Indian does not define me. Before, it defined the person I hid, but now it complements the other aspects of myself. I’m bold, curious, witty, opinionated — and Indian. Looking back, it is tragic to think that so many generations of south Indians had honed this beautiful culture, and there I was, being ashamed of something that was hundreds of years in the making. I will keep making amends to my culture for the rest of my life in the only way I know how to now: by living in it so completely without shame."

"Speaking up. Our voices are the most important things we have, and people don’t use them enough. Calling out injustice, protesting, and conversing about what’s going on in the world is so important to educate others, make sure everyone is equally represented in our communities, and promote love over hate. Politics divide people and create hatred, but if we just speak to each other, we realize that despite political differences we are all human and all of us deserve a chance to be heard and listened to.

There are definitely moments where I didn't speak up or get involved, but that changed about a year ago. Once you stand up, you can't really go back to being silent. I regret not getting involved in politics sooner, or following elections closely before the one in 2016. They give you an opportunity to meet such unique and interesting people who are driven by the common goal of change. I have made some very close friends campaigning, canvassing, and protesting. That community is one that is so open-minded, caring and motivated. Going up there and letting your voice be heard is one of the most powerful feelings. Moumita Ahmed is the first person who I contacted when I wanted to get involved, she is the co-founder of People for Bernie and Millennials for Bernie, and her voice as an activist completely guided the kind of person I want to be.

Moumita is someone who inspired from the day I met her because she is energetic, completely devoted to what she does and willing to teach me everything she knows. Working with her has been the greatest experience I've had, and has given me a lot of hope for the field of activism. I've organized a march with her in New York, traveled to South Carolina and New Hampshire to canvas and report the election, and continue to organize online with her every day. She's taught me everything I know about organizing, and is the reason I do what I do."

"My time here in Montreal is masked with so many more happy memories that I seem to have forgotten how it started, that first year I moved here, and how alone I felt. And when it rushes back to me, it awakens bad, dark memories.  

I moved to Montreal in September 2012, after spending months trying to find myself. This exhausting internal journey left me tired, and even more lost and vulnerable. I moved, with encouragements from my father, thinking Montreal will be the city where I will find myself, discover a passion, and be driven to pursue it. Eventually, it worked out well but these first, interminable minutes in the city left a bitter taste in me. As soon I stepped out of that plane, a feeling came rushing to me: that I was not going to be happy here.

I remember the first thing I did was go to IKEA to furnish my room. I chose only dark furniture — maybe as an implicit reflection of my inner feelings. Even as I was walking the busy streets of the city, filled with people, I felt alone and sad. 
I came with the plan to study at Université de Montréal. School started the day after my mom had come to visit my brother and I. That same night, I burned my kitchen while cooking. My computer crashed: sign #1 I should not be here.

Somehow though, I was excited by the idea of going to a new school and meeting new people, and more specifically, I was excited to become someone else, someone new, someone no one knew. I spent my whole education in the same establishment, in a small town where everyone knew me and my family. There wasn’t a place to hide. I thought Montreal would be my escape, and Université de Montreal the sanctuary to the new me — an improved and controlled version of myself. And that was the problem. I thought I would look stylish with the new clothes my mom bought me, cool with the simple bedroom, and hipster with that new backpack I didn’t need. 
By trying to become someone else, I lost who I was, and it came slapping me in the face not too long after. The week after school started, I was mugged in the streets of the city and my brand new, cool, and stylish iPhone was stolen: sign #2 I should not be here.

School was not easy. I hated my first class, and my second ... and my third. Already, I was trying to find an escape, another program to take, another school to go to, or even another country. I remember feeling so down I didn’t have the charge to speak to anyone. The commute in the metro was long and uncomfortable. The living situation at home were difficult and … extremely uncomfortable. I had no friends, Skype was not powerful enough to keep contact with my Swiss friends. Although I very silently started to socialize with new people, I had lost who I was by trying to be somebody else. I had no sense of me. Alone and lost, I felt incapable to face anything, so I hid. I hid on my couch, watching How I Met Your Mother again and again on Netflix, eating Nutella sandwiches every day for every meal. Escaping the outside as much as I could. Dragging myself to school and running away back at the end of these long, painful days  to my couch, with my Nutella and my show.

Came Christmas when I finally went back home to celebrate. I was terrified of the idea of facing my father. I told him I failed in finding what made me happy. I was so scared that I fell sick on the plane. It was the longest and worst 8 hours of life, feeling like I was emptying myself of the little bits left of me. Looking back, I was emptying my negativity and darkness during those same 8 hours. In Geneva, I decided I could not go back in Montreal and to my couch, go back to eating Nutella everyday, go back to this solitude. I decided I had to make a change, and I did. I found a plan. Something that motivated me, something to work towards, a goal to achieve. Going to McGill was the goal, and I fought for it — and boy I fought hard. 

I came back and studied extremely hard to get excellent grades. Threw away the Nutella and replaced it with good, healthy meals. Replaced my show with documentaries about film history. I joined a gym and lost the fat I had gained. I applied to McGill and got rejected once because of my English. But I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer so I took another test, went to the admission office with the results, and demanded re-consideration of my admission. They did. 

I fought every day and used every waking minute to pursue my goal. After months of hard work, I got accepted for the fall 2013 semester. I cried. Not because I got in, but because I realized I was going through a very dark time. A silent, camouflaged depression that I overcame. I was free, and finally able to breathe, so I cried. My love for Montreal began that day as well."

"The other day I was running late for a date after work and stopped by the nearest cafe to pick up a sandwich so that my tummy wouldn’t be rumbling when I faked my knowledge of contemporary art. The cashier was looking down when he was punching in my order and paused when he looked up and saw me. He clearly hit backspace on what he had just typed in and told me that my sandwich was on the house. I was thrown off and asked him to clarify what he meant. He told me the sandwich was free and I asked him why. He told me it was because I looked nice.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. It’s not frequent, but it’s happened enough times for me to realize that not everyone gets this kind of treatment. In the moment it feels nice to have cis men offer me free things and carry my suitcase for me when they don’t even know my name or astrological sign. But then I realize that they make all these grand gestures to me because they see me as a Pretty Girl. And the thing is, I’m not a Pretty Girl. I’m a Weird Lil Guy. I feel dysmorphic and strange and unsexy. I feel like my body is a corporeal burden, I feel a little jarred when I look in the mirror and realize that this physical form is what people interact with. Because on the Inside I don’t really feel like how I look like on the Outside. I feel like my Outside is a slimy skeleton that I shed when I come home and I get to sit in my underwear and breathe a sigh of relief.

There are a lot of things I do to maintain a certain level of sanity. I only wear thin bralettes that hide my boobs and I shave my face so that I can run my hands against the grain and feel the thicker hair growing back. I like letting my leg hair grow free like a wild plant. I wear a lot of loose trousers. I slouch when I walk and keep my chin up so that people can see the prominence of my jaw. I see myself more as a Space Alien than a Normal Human.

This doesn’t mean that I definitively dislike having feminine traits. Sometimes being femme is fun and I enjoy being a Girl For A Day. I just feel like I exist in some sort of purgatorial middle ground most of the time."

"At nights, I’m reminded how alone we are. 
It’s a constant thread of loneliness. We’re insignificant, just one speck, one person, in a world of seven billion, in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars, and in a universe of a few hundred billion galaxies.

Some people, motivational speakers, tell us to use this as a source of motivation. That, since no one’s watching us, we’re free to pursue the things we truly want. Why be constrained by the thoughts of others? 
But sometimes, sitting alone, these thoughts turn darker.

We enter this world alone, and we’ll leave this world alone. And there’s no promises of anything outside. Even within, we seek understanding, friendship, love, companionship, all things to stave off this existential emptiness. 
No matter what we do, people drift in and out, friendships and relationships fade, and eventually all things pass.

So few things we build last. Life is ephemeral. Some find meaning in the small things, in whatever they can experience, but in the long term, everything dies. 
It’s hard not to feel cut off sometimes, being in a now-strange city with few true friends.
It’s all too easy to look through the lens of others, in an evermore connected world. To see their happiness, their moments, while realizing that you can no longer be a part of those lives. To see them move on, hopefully fond of your past together, but ever-forward into the future.
And to look back upon yourself, with the worry that some of the most meaningful people, the most inspirational people, and perhaps… love, has already passed by.

Perhaps one day, we’ll be reunited. But some things have to be endured alone, without support, without trust. 
I wish we could build bridges that stand the test of time, that we could create an immortal dream, an endless legacy.
But alas, we cannot. 

We chase these faint memories, these faint dreams, in the hope of something better.
The waves of time carry us further from each other every day, uncaring of our efforts. Soon, the laughter, the tears, will be but faint memories on the horizon.

And then we’re adrift, alone. Perhaps to start again, and perhaps not."

"I was eight years old when I first realized I was different. It was recess at the french school I attended in the suburbs of Montreal, and while I was waiting for my turn to play chinese jump rope, I walked around the perimeter of the grounds, and just watched everyone else, the chaos of kids between third and fourth period. I felt so removed from it all, an observer of life, rather than a participant. And though I enjoyed it in the moment, over the years, it has made me feel like a shell of a person. Inhuman and robotic at times, my senses not as sensitive as I thought they should be. Other people felt a universe away. 

I've always been alone, solitary, never quite belonged, never quite had anybody. Adjacent. Almost but not quite. 'Oh...nevermind,' said to myself over and over. I've intellectualized that loneliness and have articulated my hurt into art. But I've also become desperate for companionship, and even though over the past seven years I've become a person I'm proud to be, and have gotten better at instilling authentic intimacy into my interactions with people, I feel...compromised.

I've lost the integrity of my spirit. It has been eroded and mutated and poisoned. I wish I was broken, instead of worn down by every instance of neglect, abandonment, misuse, and abuse. During my three years at university, I think I have used the phrase "no worries!" more than anything else, as time and time again, I have not been respected, shown basic consideration, or simply not made a priority. Sometimes that feels like rejection, of not being good enough. Other times, I know peoples' lives aren't as put together and organized as mine, and missed hangouts or unresponsiveness a manifestation of that. But that desperate agony for closeness has led to bouts of bad judgement, as I've accommodated and appeased and settled, all to a deafening resounding failure.

Now...I don't know. I've been taking a break from my social life, especially because I am terrified of showing what's under that image of composure I've spent so much time curating. I've been exposed to how damaged my sense of self has become. I thought it was bad how careless I am with my possessions, but for someone who has always prided herself on self-awareness and clarity, finding out how fractured I am has sent me reeling in shock. Repair mode has been activated, and I am so raw and vulnerable right now that it also means, if you're going to damage me further, please stay away."