No superpowers, just spandex: the other half of my story
Most of my posts online alternate between me smiling, being a manic weirdo, or impersonating a famous person. Occasionally something indicates I’m having a bad day, but only with a funny or ironic hashtag to diffuse the discomfort of sharing something genuine. But this year, in large part due to #HalfTheStory, Brunch Theater, and Kindred, I’ve connected and collaborated with more and more people involved in the mental health space and I’ve come to feel that it’s important to share my own story in a sincere way.
So here’s my shit: for the last twenty years, I’ve collected a portfolio medical diagnoses starting at nine years old with migraine headaches. I tried every medication on the market and had to be permitted to see adult neurologists to further explore solutions. In high school, these became “chronic daily-migraines” with “chronic fatigue from the chronic pain.” Logical! Some more studies were done and more meds were tested. In college, an anxiety and mood disorder with panic attacks entered the picture — all of which made it impossible to find a good upper or fatigue medication without spiking the other issues. The medications kept piling up, adding one to balance out the other. Amidst all of this, I struggled to get through periods of being really fucking depressed, which no pill seemed able to touch.
No matter what I’m working on or posting about, I still deal with one, two, or all of those things on a daily basis. A big factor in my sharing this is that I know for some people, anxiety and depression are paralyzing and debilitating when it comes to personal life and work. But I also know that there are others that cope the way I do, by over-compensating and escaping into work and projects. This makes the migraines, anxiety, and fatigue more extreme, but having a mass of things that I finished makes me feel like I’m worth more. The danger here is that everyone assumes you are fine…because you must be! The most ostentatious of my escapist coping mechanisms came when I was back at Cornell after a year-long mental health medical leave. After convincing the administration that I felt better (I didn’t, I just wanted to get back to school and not feel like a waste of space), I returned to a campus covered in fences meant to prevent student suicides. This immediately rattled me, but I felt tremendous pressure to prove to family, friends, and faculty that I was ready to be back.
So after classes, I began filming music videos, making silly stuff for YouTube, acting in projects for other colleges, and eventually, something a bit more out there: I got a yellow-gold spandex suit and created a secret persona named GOLD BOY — “the happiness superhero” — and set out to cheer up the other students on campus.
None of this was a far cry from me doing voices or making dumb (funny???) internet videos, and to the few who knew about it, it probably just seemed like me being back to my normal goofy, if not slightly manic, self. But it meant a lot more to me than that, although I wasn’t comfortable being open about it at the time. A lot of students had fun with Gold Boy, a handful posted on social channels to come hang, and many probably ignored him altogether — but this yellow fellow made me feel happier.
When I was running anonymously I wasn’t sad, I didn’t feel socially awkward, and I wasn’t gripped with panic —I felt like someone else, which is a feeling I would have otherwise paid money for. It was also the first time in my history of (what I now know is) my body dysmorphia that I could go around essentially naked without hating myself — despite being on drugs that made my weight fluctuate wildly. For me, this was a huge step up from pathetically avoiding childhood hangouts at the pool.
Even after my medical leave, I had a lot of shame talking about my mental health struggles — and still do — but over the past few years, Gold Boy became an entry point for me in these conversations. Once I tell people that I sprinted around in yellow spandex, pretended I was British, and thought I might actually cheer up the campus with high-fives and somersaults, no one is really phased by the mental illness half of the story. It took a device as absurd as Gold Boy for me to feel ok sharing that I had been drinking too much, feeling too much, and wondering if I should live or not.
Gold Boy didn’t have a long life, and I eventually dipped to my darkest place right before graduating when I went off all of my medication without telling my parents or doctors, shaved my head, and decided to smoke overpriced cigarettes for a month or two. I was in art school, so this probably didn’t even register with anyone. I never went back on anything (because it didn’t work for me), but l now have a therapist, acupuncturist, and meditate regularly. Things are still tough a lot of the time, and I’ve realized that a lot of what I do in the various projects that I share is create or play personas. These are really the only times that I truly feel comfortable in my own skin — when I’m pretending that I’m not.
So, if anyone ever needs to talk about what they’re feeling, what they’re not feeling, or stupid fucking side-effects from medication, I’m here. And if you prefer, I can do a voice.
