The Hauntology of a Closeted Youth | That Dang Dad
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2024
- Jaques Derrida? Mark Fisher? Edward Hopper paintings? Religious Trauma? Spooky Music? Let's talk HAUNTOLOGY.
#hauntology #derrida #markfisher #pride
0:00 - OVERTURE
2:03 - IT BEGINS BY COMING BACK
5:44 - WHAT HAS VANISHED IS A TENDENCY
10:20 - A PARTICULAR KIND OF ANACHRONISM
19:03 - A GHOST NEVER DIES, IT REMAINS ALWAYS TO COME AND TO COME BACK
Works Cited:
The Communist Manifesto
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, libcom.org/files/Derrida%20-%...
Jaco Gericke, The Spectal Nature of YHWH, www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ote/v25n...
Line Henricksen, In the Company of Ghosts, liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get...
Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life
Mark Fisher, What is Hauntology? - memoirsoftheblind.files.wordp...
Videos Referenced:
Caelan Conrad, Queer Rage - • Queer Rage & The Chris...
Laborkyle, No Man's Sky - • The Late Capitalism of...
Korviday, Shrek - • Shrek is Queer culture...
Me, Beauty - • Beauty, Gender, and th...
Harker, Beauty - • Why Beauty Sucks: Beau...
Music: "What's the Use of Living Without Love?" by the Tom Clines Orchestra (1930)
Art: Edward Hopper, various
Transcript - justpaste.it/2y28p
One thing on a serious note: In neurology its generally accepted or at least understood that the brain grows pathways to better optimize repeat behaviors and ingrained knowledge/impressions. These pathways can get cleaned up with time, but that's a long process when they get built up to the entire way you were living on a daily basis. In a sense, there's a ghost of you hanging on, unsure of how to live in a world where its reactions aren't ideal and reality won't have it return to the void any time soon. So I think you do something healthy in trying to cope with it while it leaves, for at least while its here its a window into who you are not now, and who some people might still be.
Two things on a nonserious note:
1) I can't believe leftists are becoming necromancers!
2) Someone needs to do a video series on the hauntology of the Locked Tomb novels
Ah man, this is going to destroy me, isn't it? Commenting now in case I just can't later.
I'm disabled and queer and poor and... well the first almost guarantees the last. And both of those makes the second harder, because if I ever cohabitate with a partner, I lose my pension, cheaper healthcare and medicines, my home, etc.
We talk about disability being a continuous grieving process. Some days are harder than others, today wasn't a good one. Today I knew all the places I'd never see, the study I'll never do, all the communities (even in my area, even socialist) I want to be a part of but can't keep up with: financially, mentally, physically.
It gets tiring being happy for everyone else's achievements, even though it's always genuine. It gets tiring having to manage the expectations of the people around me, because I can't keep up with them. It gets tiring knowing that I live by the kindness of my government, and what that means is changing before my eyes.
Still, solidarity and hope for change - political, financial, social - helps a great deal.
✊😔
As a Bi/pan person who is in a straight presenting relationship, i think there is always a hauntological feeling of missing out on gay experiences... not that we're unhappy in the relationship we have, but that a part of the self is denied by not pursuing the 'other side'. I think often monosexual people can have similar feelings about people other than the one they are in a relationship with, but for a polysexual person, not only are you denying a specific person, but an entire culture by 'choosing' one over the other
Yup, definitely!
Haven't even watched the video yet but this comment is too relatable. I better buckle the fuck up!
Love that "Everywhere at the end of time" vibe
For me disability is one of those things. I've had mild cerebral palsy my entire life. For the most part I pass as able bodied though. As a result I never really engaged with other disabled people and I sort of engaged with my disability as if the primary aim was to appear as able bodied as possible all the time.
It's only when I reached uni for the second time and actually started hunting down academic texts on this sort of stuff that I realised how much of my experience had been coloured by internalised ableism and how much I'd bee trying to read into my life this hypothetical able bodied version of myself. It had even been my impetus for going to medical school (the first time I went to uni... My legs didn't cope with it well).
So now I've been trying to get rid of that spectre while also using the spectre of the me I could be if I'd known this stuff sooner to sort of motivate myself to learn more and be more open about this stuff sooner.
"I've sort of engaged with my disability as if the primary aim is to pass as able bodied as possible all the time."
Nodding. I look normal, but won't talk about working in pain unless I need to. Won't mention my asthma.
Just saying. I think I'd be fired if I talked much. It's illegal to do so, but it doesn't matter.
If you haven't seen it I think you might enjoy the Netflix show Special, about a young gay man with mild cerebral palsy, he also discovers his internalized ablism, maybe youll enjoy!
I feel like, what with climate change bringing about the end of our way of life, and everyone in power simply ignoring this fact, there is really no point in me investing in my future. Why would I work hard in school or build up savings if the world 30 years from now is going to be closer to Mad Max than it is to our life right now? This is my take, and I suspect a lot of gen z’s take, on the Fisherian ghost of a missing future.
big mood -_-
I'm learning to sew, and I'm a teacher, and I knit and I know a little bit about wound care. I keep myself alive with a job, but it's these skills, useful in the likely future, that I'm proudest of and will help me in the Mad Max times
The future, much like space, is really, REALLY big. Big enough that gathering resources, and cultivating spaces and connections that will be beneficial to our changing material realities is still worth our while, we're experiencing collapse, not cataclysm, we have time to exert intention on how we'll live in that future, even if it's in the form of adding effort to community organizations, rather than investing on a Roth-IRA or whatever people did for future planning in the before-times.
@@CptRennier Yes! Let us not be dragged down by a longing for a future of even greater economic growth so we continue to isolate ourselves ever further in our own hyper-individualistic lives. Let us begin now to entangle our lives in interdependence on others and welcome the coming suffering as an impetus for love and solidarity with those who already suffer under cataclysm.
You can still figure out how best to survive, it's not going to be easy but our ancestors survived a lot to get here.
i didnt know i existed until my late twenties. it is a different beast from trying to eradicate myself the way you did. it is not a ghost but an empty nothing space left entirely unfilled. i am your age(more or less) but you started living only a couple years after i was born. it is really messed up and strange to think we watched the same horrible commercials and knew the same games and may have even shared some love of something but only one of us existed
Well that sounds very intense, but I'm glad you exist now!
@@ThatDangDad and i am glad you can live
i relate so much. im transitioning now and it's like being born very late, after not having existed for the first 30 years of my life. weird feeling.
I knew from a young age I was attracted to men just not as much as women and it was socially easier to indulge in my attraction to women so it was repressed. I grew up with a very religious grandmother who regularly “spoke in tongues.” My dad is an extreme right wing reactionary type so that was no go growing up. Went to a small school in a small town in a state with a horrible track record on human rights to this day, directed at BIPOC, lgbtq+, marginalized people of course. Finally accepted it at 25 years old, I hope everyone can accept themselves no matter when you realize it
As a late blooming trans man, this video hit me like a truck. The idea of working with that ghost is really empowering, or it will be when I stop crying. Thank you for talking about this so vulnerabily.
I'm glad it helped! I'm rootin' for ya!
I'm in a weird spot where I feel like my life is on hold but moving at the same time. Being trans on TERF Island means a lot of waiting for medical appointments. I feel like the life I should have is slipping away and there's nothing I can do to get those years back. I will never get to experience what it's like to be a teenage boy, and I'm missing out on what it's like to be a young man cause things are far too slow. I imagine a lot of trans folk feel similarly.
We sure do, but the best revenge we can take is survival. . ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
@@jacquelinelabarge3293 I take great pleasure in the fact that me simply vibing and being happy with myself is enough to get someone's pants in a twist.
43 year old, pansexual, disabled, transwoman and recovering Catholic who grew up in a small town in the midwest and came out in her mid 30's here. Also have a child I love and wouldn't give up for the world. But to be my best for him I have to be myself. . ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
This is magnificent. And I identify with much of it so hard, though I’m older than you (you fall smack in between my kids age range, 33-41). It wasn’t fundamentalist religion that muffled me, more the highly misogynist time period and an extremely conservative and heteronormative culture. My kids were raised in the SF Bay Area surrounded by diversity of all kinds, including a significant queer presence and were able to be open and aware about themselves in ways I hadn’t. And while I was out about my queer sexuality by my late 20s/early 30s, it’s taken until just the last year or so (I’ll be 60 this month!) to come to terms with my gender identity, finally coming out (to a few folks anyway) as genderqueer. I still have a ways to go, and it’s worth noting the inspiration I found from the journey of my trans grandkid who is living their truth in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of at twice the age. I found this whole piece so fascinating because I’ve thought about that “what if”-who I would be now if I could have then-for years. And I don’t know the answer to what or how is haunted…yet. But I’m not going to stop figuring it out!
And Edward Hopper slaps! I have a book that pairs paintings of his with a variety of writers who each wrote a short story inspired by that painting, it’s fabulous.
Oh, and I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to do some mentoring (or other help) work with trans kids. It’s challenging because I am disabled and have some significant limitations, but am reinspired to pursue it. Thank you. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Aw thanks for sharing! Glad you vibed on it (and glad you've been able to discover exciting new aspects about your gender)! Good luck with your mentoring, sounds like you have some valuable insight to offer!
As a disabled, genderqueer 18 year old, reading this bit of your story here was so comforting to me! It’s so reassuring to see people like you who’ve succeeded in just, living i guess. I’m sure that any trans teens you get to mentor in the future will feel the same :)
And happy birthday month!
I come from a fairly leftist (even for Germany) family, no religious background, and I still struggle with some of the same things. I didn't realise I'm bi until I was 27, and I'm still trying to figure out my gender. I have these thoughts - what if I had known any queer people as a teenager? What if any girls had been truly nice to me (or I to them) before my twenties, when I was already in a monogamous relationship with a mostly man? It's already an incredible clusterfuck of internalised homophobia, sexism, transphobia etc. before you bring in any explicit ill will towards queer people, and/or religious fundamentalism.
Dang, SAME. The heteronormativity and bi erasure is so strong that even though I DID know gay and lesbian people growing up, was conceptually aware of what bisexuality was, and my hometown is the home of the frickin' Kinsey Institute...I managed to miss all the signs that I also liked girls until my early 30s. I mean, I even waffled OUT LOUD if anyone called me "straight". (facepalm).
Although I suppose I spotted the "trying to figure out my gender" bit a little faster by analogy when I took TWO YEARS to pick pronouns for my email and started to wonder if my aversion to putting "she/her" instead of "she/they" might mean something in the same way that the dreams and the waffling had...
My family wasn't really religious and pretty open minded, so the worst I got was being ostracized at school for trying to hold my friend's hand. But what really haunts me is all the experiences I didn't know I could have and the person I may have become if I hadn't been severely neglected until I was 15. My whole life I've felt like I've been in a perpetual mode of late blooming because of this. I'm 37 now but I feel more like a 27 year old. Maybe this is why when I did start developing the social skills to make friends (which wasn't until my 20s since I never had any role models for healthy social interaction) they have always been 4-6 years younger than me.
I have some friends that were neglected as kids and yeah, a lot of their brain power went towards survival instead of other stuff kids should be learning. I can see how that feels very frustrating. But, I'm glad you DID survive and if you can make younger friends as an Old™, that just means you're pretty cool. ;)
This is such an amazing perspective on looking back at the life I missed out on from being shamed into the closet at age 12. I think too often about how unfair it is that I missed out on sooo many experiences that should have been normal to a developing teenager. Seeing this as a ghost I should work with rather than something that will always hold me back is going to be immensely helpful in channeling my creativity. Thank you so much for your insight!!
thank you friend, glad you got something out of it! :3
Don't you dare call your music a "shameless ripoff" of the Caretaker. I had a Proustian feeling of dread in the intro, my mind is primed for Stage IV as I get into the video. Very unsettling, great job!
After watching the whole thing I must once again congratulate you on the music, it fits perfectly. My ghost is that of the past I lost and of the present weighing on my future. I'm in my late 20s and I only came to understand myself as trans last year and I'm not in a situation where I can transition safely. I frequently cry over the girlhood I never had, the ravages of the wrong hormones on my body and the fact that those damages are still being done day after day. This is amplified by the fact that at one point in my teenage years I was caught in between a very queer friendly group and a toxic cisheteronormative one and I know if I hadn't been so terrified of being "different" I could have cut down on this loss by more than a decade. I wanted to be "normal" so badly I forced myself into a role that hurt me day after day in the hope that I would one day feel good about myself. Cue 12 years of depression...
my haunting is of an unknowable present i'll never have. when i was 14 (i'm 24 now), i underwent an intensive orthopedic surgery. it fixed what it set out to fix, but at the cost of a lot of my mobility. i was told if i didn't get this surgery i'd eventually lose my ability to walk, but i was also told that the surgery would improve my mobility dramatically. there is compelling evidence of the former, but the latter was a very poor estimate. i was born disabled, but i became more disabled after this surgery. could this have been prevented? would the same losses occur no matter what i did? did i not work hard enough to recover? i'll never know the answers, but my search for them has led me down treatment avenues that were never offered to me when i was young, so i hope i can find the peace you've found, too.
Wow, I can see how that would be very haunting. For me, a lot of the frustration comes because I can never really know. But that also contains a seed of peace in it because... I can *never* know. All I have is what happened, so I always quote Shawshank Redemption to myself: "[Might as well] Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'." Of course, my thing isn't disabling in the way that your thing is, so I have no idea if that same sense of finality is any comfort to you. But thank you for sharing your story!
@@ThatDangDad thank you for listening! it's complicated stuff, but i'm getting there, thank you for the support :)
As a 27 yo cis woman who’s been in a monogamous relationship with a cis man for most of my adult life, but is also tentatively being more open about bisexual feelings I’ve had since high school, AND ALSO was literally on Stage 5 of my first listen of Everywhere at the End of Time when I saw the link for this video, I have rarely ever clicked on something so fast in my life lol
god i love that album
Came out to all friends at 35, I'm 36 now, still haven't told all family just the cool ones. Former Mormon here. Don't be too hard on yourself anyone. It legit gets better once you find the right ppl. If you're suffering I hope you find help and to all that can I hope you help anyone you can. Even a post or convo with someone can literally save a life. Stay strong
jokes aside, im a trans man and ive just discovered my mother had an abortion before me, of what could've been a boy. this is quite a literal hauntology.
l'm a latecomer to my queerness. Demisexual (30's? 40's?), Cassgender (more recently in my 50's)(or demimale/"male-ish) which means I'm ambivlent towards gender and it has no relation to my identity. Even as a child, I thought the whole gender roles were pretty messed up (that whole BOYS do THIS and GIRLS do THAT), and didn't limit my feelings, which got me picked on alot. I can't spend too much time thinking about what "could have been," I can only realize where I am now, and feel more comfortable in my own skin. And be able to remember things about myself in the past and be able to relate to how I am now. "Oh, that makes total sense now" Gender is such a con, IMHO. Anyways, Happy Pride y'all
I didn't hear the term asexual until I was 25... or cassgender until I was 37 somehow, thank you.
@@lorenrealname1326 much love
thank you for this. as a young adult navigating sexuality through the lens of religious trauma and Christian family, I am well aware of the confusion and the avoidance. the choice between comfort and keeping the peace versus living honestly. I deal with the ghost of who I still could be, but that requires discomfort, disapproval, and denial from people i love deeply.
Thank you for sharing this video. Hayao Miyazaki said, "Problems begin the moment we're born. We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live." Lately all I can do is grieve my past, present, and future. I feel there's no way for me to ever exist truly as myself, and I really only am here for others. It's really hard to imagine being me in the real world, I only feel right when I'm able to disconnect and read a book or imagine myself as a character. But I'll never be able to stop myself from feeling this way, no matter how much I act. Maybe my existence isn't letting me give up.
here from theSerfsTV! I really enjoyed the calming vibes and the interesting content
Sweet! It's an honor to be in Serfs orbit!!
This is a damned handy introduction/application, so thanks for that.
Also, makes me think of William Gibson's story "The Gernsback Continuum," which introduced the whole mood of cyberpunk as a grittier, more flawed present haunted by the visions of a future that didn't happen.
Growing up as a closeted bi/poly/trans woman who went to Bible College for four years, this cut deep! It can be hard imagining a future where I build friendships with more history than the ones I got in Bible college; who have mostly abandoned me now.
I feel ya!
I also came out as bi to myself in my 30s. I also grew up religious, and I also had same-sex experiences and managed to "not make them count". Which meant years of shame, self-hate, and those lovely feelings. I'm also happy with my current life, but this video hit a very tender spot in my heart. Thank you so much for sharing ❤
This one has taken me a bit to get through. It's been a tough one but I knew I'd find value in hearing this stuff expressed by someone else. Coming up in an abusive household as an autistic trans woman often meant making myself small and hiding however I could, most often that led to being locked away in my room on chatrooms to connect with anyone. I'm not particularly happy or proud of the ways people used me, and I do often wish I was further along in finding the nuggets rolled deeper in this big yarn ball of repression. Almost everyday I think about if I had realized at the same time as a grade school friend at 10 that I was trans. But I'm still young, and I'm still here, and thank fuck I know who I am now, even if I won't ever get that girl I could have been.
This may sound corny, but i never really “got” hauntology on an intuitive level until Bernie lost in the 2020 primaries. Even months after, I found myself mourning a vision of a world that could have been, that felt so real and tangible.
Im not sure if it was how entirely possible that reality was at one point that made it so painful to lose, or if it was the pain of having it ripped away that seemed to give it a life of its own in my mind.
is this making any sense? idk. i just felt all of that squandered potential so powerfully that it felt like an entity all its own. like reality split and somewhere out there we’re missing what could have been.
but maybe this is just cringeposting lmao. it’s also totally possible that things would have been business as usual even if he won. he was just my last hope, personally, for a stable & prosperous future in the US, and now I truly feel we’re doomed. tho maybe we were doomed all along
Posting long after the wave of other commenters, but this spoke to the grief I feel with respect to my late ADHD diagnosis at 21. I continue to fight the feelings of loss and anger at not having known this about myself for two decades, and the self-hatred and social isolation that permeated my pre-diagnosis years have made deep roots in my psyche. I think my main ghost is there in the past, and in a way that means it's more static, understandable, and resolvable than a ghost of the future, but by no means does that make it easy to resolve. Thanks Phil!
I like this video essay (and others) not just because I can learn stuff in an easier and digestible way, but because I can legitimately understand concepts since they resonate with me, and they're being applied to real life situations.
Recently, I'm kinda feeling unsatisfied with the things that I'm learning in school and how I learned them. Sifting through walls of text presented in an uninteresting way just to learn one concept is painful. Plus the lessons don't resonate with me. The things I learn don't feel intrinsically important.
I kinda realized, "Oh wait, isn't that hauntology too?" Makes me think what kind of things I can learn if education was better. What if I had the freedom to learn the things that I want? What if the process of learning is actually fun? What if the busywork and repetitiveness are gone? It would be nice to have.
Oh definitely! I think of how many kids grow up thinking they "aren't good at math" or "don't really like to read poetry" but only because school tries to one-size-fits-all everyone in both content and execution. Hell, I thought I "wasn't into exercise" for a long time because I haaaaated gym class, but then I found MMA/Krav Maga and learned to love fitness. What school REALLY teaches you is how to play the game, which is a shame because learning is so much fun. And the best part about learning is sharing it with others, deepening your own understanding and then learning new stuff back from them.
Is it possible to feel all three flavors of Hauntology? The Derridian, the Fisherian, and the Dangdadian? Cause I definitely feel all three.
Also those liminal spaces the chuds get banished too are 100% the Backrooms and we all know there no no clipping back into reality from the Backrooms.
I didn't even grow up in that environment and even I feel similar. Though my situation is different. I was mostly raised by my father, until he died when I was young. My mom barely knew anything about me, let alone had much knowledge and experience - her life was her job. It was hard for her, she did the best she could but there's no way a single person could balance all of that. She was completely unaware of the trauma I had faced in school as a result of teachers abuse until I told her much later in life. She ended up putting me in therapy in middle school only after seeing how I looked while in some sort of meeting at school, at home I would always put on a facade because expressing any negative emotion would stress her out. By the time I had an ASD diagnosis, I was almost done with high school. Same with asthma. My school had resources available, but it had long been too late for me to get them. I could have accessed other resources for children from single parents, or my other conditions the whole time. They were there and my life could have gone totally differently. But it didn't. I had few friends growing up. My one friend moved away a few years after my father died. With classmates who at worst harassed me and at best avoided me entirely, I similarly turned to internet chatrooms and also only later in life realized I had been groomed. 20 years later I have two online friends who live on a different continent, I don't know anyone in person anymore. I'm afraid to talk to people because of horrible experiences with so called "friends" to the point where I've given up. I'm afraid of even having a consistent identity online, making it hard to make connections even here.
I started experiencing dysphoria around 11. I never told anyone about it. I didn't know it was a thing. I didn't know what "trans" was. We had a GSA when I was in high school which I was a part of - the Gay Straight Alliance, but gender stuff just wasn't ever talked about. I had long since been treated like I was some sort of nonhuman anomaly. So to me, it was just another thing that made me a freak that shouldn't even exist, in my mind. I grew up not knowing that not only were there other people like me, but also that something could have been done about it. Puberty was traumatic to me. It didn't have to be. My mom loves me, and is very open minded, but I'm still too afraid to really communicate my experiences to her. I wouldn't even know where to begin.
I always wanted to be an artist. But I wasn't guided through that process. I thought if I just drew enough I could get good at it. I didn't realize that I should have been taking lessons from a young age. Instead I ended up taking tennis lessons, which I did enjoy at first too, but a combination of the dysphoria and untreated depression lead me to quit. Somehow a kid refusing to take their coat off even when playing sports never raised any red flags to anyone. When I expressed to my guidance councilor in high school that I wanted to be what I now know would be called a Concept Artist, she laughed at me and told me that such a thing doesn't exist and I shouldn't pursue it. Now I'm just a self taught hobbyist who barely even draws anyway.
I ended up developing MS that left me even further physically and mentally impaired. I once had a part time job, and a car, but I was laid off and could no longer afford maintaining the car. I feel like this is it for me. I'm 30 and barely have any life skills. I don't even know where to start. I don't have anyone who could teach me and I'm afraid and don't know what to do. I'm still financially dependent. I feel like a complete failure whose life is worthless, just a parasite relying on others with little agency of their own. I hate it. The worst part is being stuck between two lines of thought. I know that compared to many people, I'm incredibly lucky. For all my mom's failings at least she loves me a lot and helps me and thanks to her I can afford treatment for my conditions. Many, many people don't even have that. The therapy I ended up in saved my life. At the same time, I know that things would have been better for me had I known of the available options at the time.
Sorry for the random ramble. I guess I just felt like I needed to talk about it.
i appreciate you sharing your story!!
We are all here to share and support dear. And the need to get your past of your chest doesn't change the fact that still being here proves You Are One Tough Bitch! . ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Thanks for sharing your experience, I know that it makes a difference for those on their own journeys of queer discovery and self-acceptance. As a fellow youth mentor, our experience and struggle is important, an asset that we can turn towards good.
Thank you. Your story echoes mine, nearly harmonizes with mine. This video *means* so much to me. I'm a dozen years ahead of you in life's journey. I discovered my queerness at puberty, and pushed it deep in the closet until she came back to me at almost 40 years old. Even then I rejected her, pushed her away and tried to fight her. She persisted and I learned how much happier I could be as a queer person. It helped that by the time I was 40 I was fully outside the "First Baptitst/ non-denominational evangelical Christian" religious environment and among a community of supportive queer friends. It took 8 years but I was able to accept my identity, it took four more to re-incorporate her. In the meantime between 12 year old me and 40 year old me there's a full lifetime, relationships, a family.
I had that same feeling of "what if?" that I wasn't somehow "worthy" of being queer in a community where others my age had scars from the fight. I played endless scenarios in my head about what I might have done had I been out and queer in the fight over care and treatment for the AIDS crisis, or the rash of assaults on LGBT folks that flared up over and over again. But, it doesn't matter what I might have been , The fight is here, now. It's what I do today and tomorrow that reveals my character. It's today that matters.
Much love. I'm only sorry that the RUclips Algorithmic Tyrant brought your vid to me a year later than when you uploaded it.
That dang dad, it’s like I’ve been haunting your channel. This video scratches the cosmic horror itch. As a gay man who went through conversion therapy, the hauntology of who I could have been is always over me. Not just me either, all the queer people destroyed; queer joy that should have existed but was eradicated by inhumanity
I think the work of Mike Flanagan in his "Haunting" series is also a fantastic reflection on what ghosts can be. A memory of love lost yet still present, a feeling of depression and despair, guilt, shame...
I'm a big fan of Flanagan. A Fanagan. Or a Flanastan. whichever you prefer.
Man a lot of this resonated with my experience, except instead of the closet I was in deeeeeep denial. I'm also looking forward to making sure everything I lost because of it can be made useful for someone else, help them not have to go through what I went through. Thanks for this!
So normally I’m a very passive RUclips watcher. I don’t ever really comment much but after seeing this video I really couldn’t just leave it at that. I never expected anybody’s experience to so acutely resonate with mine. I honestly had tears in my eyes, hearing you speak about it.
So I’m a bit younger than you, being 33, turning 34 this year. I was born in a completely different part of the world, but one no less alienating to a queer person for religious grounds. In Poland, Roman Catholicism reigns supreme, and while it’s quite “progressive” compared to the denomination you described, it certainly played a part in me suppressing a part of myself for so long as well. Whether overtly religious in nature or not, there was a clear societal expectation that I could only ever be straight, and I locked away a part of me that I basically brainwashed myself into considering sinful.
Just like you, I am very happy with where I am in my life. I am in a very happy with my wife who, after figuring out her own bisexuality, helped me come out and embrace my truth as well. I was 30 when it happened and it’s hard to express the joy I’ve felt since then. We have an incredible son who is turning six this year and I hope I can always be open with him, my friends, and anyone I meet in these matters.
And yet there’s still this grief in there that you so perfectly described. Who would I be if I was born in a place that celebrated queerness, where I could just openly live my truth from the start instead of letting it atrophy for 19 years? Add to that the fact that I am in a straight passing marriage, even though neither of us are straight, and it’s exactly like what you said - you never feel quite like you belong with the straights, but you also don’t really belong with the queers either.
So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You’re an amazing creator and you’ve made me feel so seen. That someone’s experience could align so much with mine when it made me feel so alone in this time is something I never could have anticipated. I believe that art is all about making a connection with people all around the world and this was truly that moment. Though we’ve never met and probably never will, know that watching this video felt like a very important heart-to-heart with a dear friend.
My husband is 40 and just now coming to terms with his bisexuality. He doesn't put his thoughts into words easily. I have often felt these "hauntological" thoughts in an empathetic way that I'm not even sure would resonate with him. He has the freedom to explore his feelings however they might manifest, given good communication happens, but I don't think he knows where to start. This was a good video, thank you.
I certainly resonate for myself as I come to terms with infertility. I have 2 wonderful step children, and am satisfied on one level with the new plans we are making for our life as they get older. In some ways, a baby would derail that at this point. On another level, there's definitely a mourning for the other future I always imagined.
I feel haunted by the ghost of the future I was promised as a kid. I know we will never have it now but being raised on these ideas of comfort and prosperity have left such a massive hole in how I perceive my day-to-day life.
I wish I had been raised in a more honest way.
big mood
You're telling me you make an incredible, amazing video, AND you have fantastic vibes throughout it all? Say it ain't so, doc!
Seriously though, fantastic work. Even from a less personal standpoint, hauntology fascinates me - CAN I imagine a future that is not a recreation of the past? Some aesthetics of previous videos have been very 80s vibes. Is that too playing into an inability to imagine a future? Fucking fascinating concept.
I really appreciate this video, and all the insights you've given into it, and the comments on it are really great too and gave me even more insight. Again, just... fantastic work.
15:40 my sister and I were talking about this the other day. I think I would be an entirely different human than I am now. Some things that I'm just coming to terms with I could've figured out years ago. I had gotten slight pushback in my own small rebellions and didn't have a community, so I just let some things go and didn't explore certain thoughts and feelings. Like you mentioned, I assumed we all were struggling and had those thoughts. We just didn't say them out loud.
The better late than never message is more important than i think is often given credit, the work you do has been inspiring me for a while but these last couple have hit very close to home. It is incredibly beneficial to be reminded that we are not alone, whatever path our journeys have taken.
I hope everyone has a wonderful day!
This video is profound. Great content. 👍
I certainly lost time in my closeted phase. I missed out on a beautiful friendship I could have had and while I am friends with them still I can't go back to the time when we were still living near each other.
hey i love Edward hopper, he was my favorite old timey artist back when i did an art history class
I'm glad I stumbled across. I can relate, and I'm still confused. I live in a southern area dominated by such religiosity. I'm 38, too. Hauntology is something I hadn't heard, but it accurately states my situation. Thanks for that. Have pride always❤🧡💛💚💙💜.
I feel like this so much and agree with you on so many points. Especially that the totality of my experience is who I am and I cherish my family, friends, viewpoints, and especially the years I got to share with my husband who unfortunately passed away. We loved each other very much and I certainly would not trade everything and for what? Yes there were very difficult years isolating and constantly tearing myself apart mentally but what instead? Sleeping with a bunch of randos I didn't really care for extra validation? Ultimately give in and conform into neo liberalism? Lose the dark sense of humor/ ability to see through emotional paper tigers (well most of them) gained from expecting the absolute worst for years?
Or maybe everything would have went just fine and I still would be roughly where I'm at, even maybe have been able to afford healthcare so my husband wouldn't have to die of cancer weeks after giving in and rushing to the ER when he couldn't suffer in pain any longer? I don't know. But yeah that other person we could have been is definitely something that consistently does haunt those of us raised in a homophobic environment and/or with an abusive parent, lack of community.
All I know is we must try our best to fight back against this reactionary force because no kid deserves to almost completely faint just because someone they are close to said "gay" and now are on the subject of LGBT. Or feel the sinking feeling of "oh shit I'm going to have to kill myself aren't I? These thoughts aren't going away AT ALL and I can't live without my family if they disown me." It's too fucked. We might be making the best of hard times but we need to use that fight back against intolerance in any way we can. It looks like a rough time ahead but nah I'm ready to give into these fascist sick fucks on the court quietly.
Already lived with the grip of a fundamentalist unloving god holding me back and fuck that shit forever.
RUclips didn't put it in my feed for some reason 😭 I'll go watch it now
Somewhere at my teens my dad came up to me and simply told me that he will kill me if ill turn up to be gay. What fun.
Great video! And extra-big thanks for getting the eng subtitles - that gives me a chance to show this vid to my non eng-speaking friends cos autotranslate from subtitles is actually decent, and if you auto-translate from auto-captioned subs.... well go try it on some german or spanish video, see how it checks out.
Мощный видос, клепай ещё!
This was beautiful. I don't have much else to add, but I wanted to make sure I left some sort of comment.
Thank you for making me feel seen. As a 30 something cis closeted bisexual man in a straight passing marriage with kids, I don't think I will ever be in a position where I'm able to come out. My story is somewhat similar to yours, raised fundie, the only context for my queer thoughts was that I was a horrible sinner who needed constant repentance. I only really started to accept my sexuality and realize that it's just who I am, and that it's ok around 2019. But again, I am in a straight passing marriage, and I have no idea how my wife would react, so at this point, I'm just trying to figure out if I can ever come out. I don't know what the point of this rant was, maybe I just needed to vent, but thank you for listening.♥️💜💙
That's a tough spot. My partner is super supportive and affirming, which is very nice, but I know not everyone is so lucky. All I can say for sure is that there's no one right way to be queer, no way that you're "supposed to" do it, so whatever you decide that works for you is a-ok. You don't owe the community any particular expression or execution of your bisexuality so it's okay to just explore it for yourself (or not, if you don't feel like it!). I hope you find what you need!!
Coming to this video a year later, but thought I'd add my 2c. As a queer trans woman, I think I have a couple haunting subjects. One of a life where I figured it out about 7 years sooner, which lives in my own head. I think a lot about how I almost asked my parents for gender therapy at the age of 14 only to shove myself deeper into denial and the closet, who I'd be if I had mustered the courage to bring it up. The other lives in the heads of people I interact with who don't know I'm trans. It takes the form of the assumptions about my life that they make, assuming a cis childhood. It takes the form of questions about my childhood that I can't answer, of assumptions about shared traumas that I only partially share, of inferences about my political and social positions that reference a history that doesn't exist. It's a bit of a mindfuck to think about, really.
I appreciate you sharing!
I freaked out at the start cause the music sounds like the albums "Everywhere at the End of Time" and I know you know about those albums you'll know why I was confused why the topic wasn't about the crippling depression of the loss of memory
An accomplice is a kind position for an hauntological self. I'm glad for you, and wish you and your other self a happy present regardless of how it is
Love this, it gives us all so much to think about. Really good #pride content
I was following you a year ago but I guess my outer ghosts decided I wasn't ready to see this🤷🏼♀️ Thank you for sharing this, it's making my brain go brrrrr enough that I should have left for work 30 minutes ago but I've been writing an essay instead (Don't worry, it's a gig I can't be late to lol). I realized I was trans a few months ago at 24, and now my inner ghost is finally stepping out of the shadows. She's a girl who didn't have to feel so lost when puberty hit her with a mountain of dysphoria nobody had ever given her the words for. I was born late enough to grow up on the internet, but too early to have found queer community there when she needed it.
It's also really reassuring to hear you talk about Surviving the Southern Church of Christ. Growing up, we split time between a Baptist Church (more "liberal" than the official Southern Baptists because they let women be deacons) and a Christian Church (more "liberal" than Church of Christ because they sang with musical accompaniment). I tend to minimize it because my family is considerably less extreme than the people they exposed me to, but it was bad. I'm still pulling off little phantom leeches of the "sin" mentality. It took me a whole decade after leaving the church to finally be emotionally ready to ask myself if I wanted to be a woman. Even though I spent most of that time learning about gender and fruitlessly questioning my own. By comparison, it was easy to admit I was bi (just 3 years After Leaving), but I still repressed that so completely that I thought I was basically asexual for most of my teen years. My attraction to men was too dangerous to acknowledge, but even my attraction to women was tied up in enough Sin that it was easiest to say it just wasn't important. I think attraction to an enby would have broken my brain a little, but that probably would have been good for me. I haven't gotten to know my ghost very well yet, but we have shared a laugh over all the homophobes who accidentally encouraged us to be a lesbian along the way!
Well congrats on your realization and whatever transition looks like for you, I hope it goes smoothly and brings you lots of delightful discoveries and joys!
I commented here already, but the bit about lost futures really struck me this time. It reminded me of sovietwave music, which is very echoing and spacey, and meant to evoke the future among the stars that many believe was lost with the fall of the Soviet union.
Yeah I like sovietwave for that reason. Same (albeit not exactly) with a lot of the soundtrack to Disco Elysium, in particular the music from the Whirling-in-Rags hotel or the Boat Ride. There's this sense of "life going on" but really shaded in by melancholy and really weighed down by the failure of the future to arrive as expected.
That's also sort of my hauntological subject. I constantly feel like I was born too late, if I had been born around the turn of the 19th century I could have taken up arms with my fellow leftists and really made a difference in the world. Though I will say, it seems like every day it looks less and less like I missed my chance.
I’ve shared your channel with my therapist before and I’m absolutely going to be sharing this video with her next session. 🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
For a long time after I got out of the Navy, I felt like I lost time as I saw a number of my friends from highschool with established careers, living fun lives, starting families even, while I struggled to even figure out what it is that I wanted to do with my life. It's been 4 years since I got out, and I still don't know. But I feel that it doesn't affect as much as it used to because I realized that NO ONE knows what they're doing. Even the people who seem to have their life "together" are flying by the seat of their pants. Anyone who says they've figured it out is lying because what works for one person may not necessarily work for another. I learned to take life a day at a time and to be happy with whatever it is that I currently have or in the position I'm in.
Yeah I'm 38 with a family and a house and a career and i'm for sure just holdin' on for dear life trying to keep up. We're all on a runaway train just trying to lay down some track fast enough to survive.
@@ThatDangDad That's the best way to put it! I'm gonna start using that train analogy
I just discovered you so I hadn't watched the beauty video; but as a fellow bi guy, who grew up in a fundamentalist household and didn't come out till much later in adulthood, I could tell from that bi ass lighting what you already meant haha.
Edit: light hearted comment written before I was brought to inexplicable tears hearing someone put words to something I've experienced and could never really put words to. Thank you for that catharsis Dang Dad.
Great video! I don't so much feel haunted as frequently re-experience a disorienting sense that I am the ghost. None of the pronouns fit, gender is weird enough to me that I find myself silently practicing how to use the terms, and I'm marginalized in multiple marginalized communities for different reasons. I stopped looking for community, and decided a long time ago to do what I can to help others not feel alone when they're with me. People shouldn't feel persistently lonely in their lives.
... resonates with me. I'm multi-sexual (in some form, i have trouble putting the 'right' label to it) and learned this while in Christian school. So you imagine how that went. I struggled with it constantly and privately, and still am not out yet.
It wasn't until watching The Half Of It and then half of Nanette by Gadsby during lockdown that I really realized how much it messed me up. How much of myself I hated, and how much of my future I couldn't imagine me having, and how much it felt like some old, open wound, clumsily wrapped by an amateur and ignored to the best of their ability.
It prompted me to take the time to fully acknowledge the despair and self hatred I had been carrying for years, and ended up going into full blown mourning over it. I'm sure lockdown didn't make it easier, but the space was what i needed. It helped tho. I came out of it still hopeless, but things improved a lot since then. I cleaned the wound and re-wrapped it, and while I had no clue what I was doing, it ended up being the attention I needed to start healing.
I identify with this a lot. The idea of making the spectre of the would-be self into an accomplice is super interesting. It seems difficult but worth exploring introspectively... maybe with some special fungal assistance to bridge the gap to the other reality.
Hauntology. Love that word.
8:47 Mind… fucking… blown 🤯
I’m so glad I came across this video and this page. I’m a queer social scientist with religious trauma and this checked all the boxes.
The person I was supposed to be, the person I was going to be before I experienced ongoing trauma ... I don't get to be that person anymore. That person will never exist. i was supposed to be a better person, and I'm not.
This resonated with me in a deep, painful way. Truth is, as an autistic non-binary person with a significant history of depression, I’m haunted by past, present, and future. I’m haunted by the healthy, functional body I will never have, and the life that would have gone along with it. I’m haunted by a past where my struggle with gender identity would have been recognized when I begged my gynecologist for a hysterectomy at the age of fifteen, instead of her laughing it off and making me feel stupid for even trying to be seen, where I would have even heard the term “non-binary” before I was in my twenties. I’m haunted by the childhood I could have had if my parents and teachers had tried to accommodate for my autism and helped me develop coping mechanisms, instead of forcing me to hide it and then blaming and resenting me when it went poorly. I’m haunted by the self I could be now if I didn’t spend years believing that receiving mental health care would mean acknowledging that I was being unreasonable and selfish and that my feelings weren’t real. The lack in my life is so huge and overwhelming that it’s hard to bear, and I can’t count how many times I’ve been told to move past it or let it go. I am perpetually mourning. I am the ghost of the person I could have been.
That sounds really tough. A lot of people who should've had your back let you down, and that's super f--ked up. I don't have any great advice for that, but I'm glad you survived it and I hope you can at least get the resources you need moving forward. And, while this doesn't really help *you* out very much, I'm really glad that the next generation of neurodivergent, nonbinary kids out there is going to have you out there who believes in them, who they can turn to for encouragement, and who can help them feel less alone.
Another really interesting perspective, I appreciate your courage in sharing your vulnerabilities.
A couple of thoughts: Firstly, I think it's really important to acknowledge the impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis in this context, especially for people around our age (I'm 43) in the global North. Not only the direct effect of HIV/AIDS, but the intersection between that and the upsurge in homophobia which accompanied it. This changed the landscape for all of us who came after, even those who came out as teenagers into a post-combination therapy environment - one of the common impacts has been the scarcity of mentors from the previous generation. So many queer people of that generation died, and many of those who remain are still processing trauma from that time, or were closeted (often in 'straight' marriages) and had their own issues to confront.
Secondly, there is an overlap here with ideas of Queer Time and chrononormativity, as explored by J. Halberstam and others. Like you, my husband came out in his 30s, whilst I came out in my teens - although there is a chronological age gap, our 'gay ages' are similar. In our relationship multiple timelines haunt the present, not only the parallel timelines where he came out as a teenager (or didn't come out at all), but I am potentially an embodiment of his past haunting the present, whilst he potentially embodies my future, which I interact with every day.
A final minor gripe - it seems common for you 'Merkins to use the phrase 'religious upbringing' to mean specifically a conservative Christian family background. Many people have healthy and and joyous upbringings in a wide variety of different religious and spiritual contexts, please don't conflate all of these with those which are conservative or extremist. My (relatively moderate) Christian upbringing wasn't good, but I have friends who had great childhoods in families that followed various religions, including Quakerism, Judaism, Paganism and Celtic Christianity.
I appreciate the response. One of the things I often really feel in my time as a mentor for a queer teen group is that missing cohort of queer elders that were killed in the 80s/90s. I think that's another hauntological object for us: we feel the absence of a generation of queers who should be here alongside us enjoying their found families creating families of their own.
I think you're also correct about Queer Time though it's something I've wanted to read more about.
As far as your minor gripe, fair point. When writing my scripts I sometimes vacillate between wanting to use a shorthand so I can get to my point and wanting to "name and shame" as it were. In a more recent video, I decided to specifically call out conservative (American) evangelical Christianity precisely because I know there are plenty of religious folks to whom my complains did not apply. So yeah, I'll be more precise in the future for sure.
My first semester transferring out Community College to CC was super dope. I was a really go-get'er student who was happy to talk to professors after class, I was engaging in extracurriculars and working at the same time. But I was essentially sexually assaulted by one of the people in my extracurriculars and initially it was alright. But come the next semester I absolutely crashed and burned and had to drop two of my courses just to handle the mental load I was carrying at any given point in time. Every semester after that has been a struggle and everything feels like it's slowed down immensely. I just can't bring myself to that same point I was at three years ago and it feels like I've lost touch with an important part of myself.
I feel like some of my best years for development and grown have been robbed from me and now it's hard to even remain on track. COVID only made all of these problems worse too. It's hard to look at yourself from a previous point in life, remember the experiences you had at that time, and feel as though you can't do it anymore. I swear I should be able to, but it's so far removed from me right now it feels impossible. Now I'm just left picking up the pieces trying to get anything to work, and it's a struggle.
But your point about taking that alternative self and working with them to create something beautiful resonates. If it was possible back then, then surely it's possible now. It just, it's hard to remember how to do it.
i feel like i'm not hauned by the present only because everything thta i ahve done is what i would have done anyway. i am however haunted by everything that for the lack of a better word the world owes to me. a future, community, security. i will have to build those things myself, and i don't think thtai should have to
Thank you for being so open in this video (and in so many of them). I’m 28 currently, and I’ve JUST started exploring my gender identity in a more intentional way. My religious background wasn’t as stifling as yours seems to have been, but it was present, and certainly left no room to even consider queer theory/personal queer identity. Watching this video makes me grateful toward those who put in the work so that I could eventually be exposed myself to new ideas which ended up applying to my identity (with more to come I’m sure). Funnily enough, I think it was about a 19 year period for me as well (starting with an interesting late night/early morning at my grandparents’ house when I was 9). My masculine walls kicked in and prevented me from crying, but I cried inside for you. I’m glad you’ve managed to find love and joy despite the world. I’m hoping to do the same.
Aw, thank you for the kind words!
as a leftist academic with the focus on queer/gender themes in art/cultural history the theory part of this was so gd sexy, oh lord oh my god the inherent hotness of theory. as a depression plagued bi woman with religious parents your personal account and the notion of the closet or a lost youth as a haunting knocked me off my chair. thank you I love it
hell yeah
So, as a trans woman, it is extremely common for trans people to wish that one had transitioned sooner. For me, I started taking HRT at the age of 28. Unfortunately, I am too old to have my hips widen and it is something that I will always mourn.
However, I have been on HRT for 10 months at this point, and, having actually been able to medically transition, it doesn't bother me as much as it once did and I am happy with the way I look.
Meeting a bunch of other trans people of all ages really hammers home the fact that it is never too late to transition, and it is never too late to pursue happiness. One doesn't need to be a teenager or in one's early twenties to come out.
While I didn't grow up religious, I did grow up with undiagnosed ASD and lacking education in neurodivergency and queerness.
And yeah, sometimes I wonder how life could have been had I understood my asd or being on the ace spectrum earlier, but mostly I try to use it as motivation to work for a better future for other people like me
Sounds like you've found at least some degree of peace with your Spectre. I still struggle with my own, about gender. That youth group you describe... could indeed have been (or in the future be?) a useful thing. I feel caught in an in-between space between cis and trans, and... I don't really have nuanced language for it, nor many folks to talk with about it (though there are some, and i sometimes do). Anyway, I didn't have the mental energy to take this in on first attempt, but I'm glad I came back to it. Thanks. And, yeah, cool captioning (re twitter thread). ;)
The peace that I've found (such as it is) is essentially just the quote from Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'." ;)
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than having your own place on ssi.
Love you ❤️
The movie - The Shining - I believe touched a little on Hauntology. 🤔
I would think mine is probably cliche: the version of me who didn't experience the mind f*ing developmental trauma of warring parents- might be one of my major ghosts.
Really appreciate your video(s) 🙏 b/c I've never thought about those emotions that way before. Only acknowledged them as disembodied disappointment, anger, etc. I like this better. I can learn from ghosts.
Thanks 👍
Anytime! :)
hello that dang dad i love your videos
Fishfiend! I'm going to start using that
Great video!
As some who is slowly working through their buried queerness, I can relate to a lot of your words. I didn't grow up in a particularly repressive environment at all, but my timid, cautious, impressionable disposition and some really bad (traumatic?) experiences with bullying in middle school had me deny and repress any aspect of myself that would make me weak or a target, to protect myself.
All the talk about Caretaker makes me think that I should give Everywhere At The End Of Time a listen, but I have this strange fear that it will pull me into a deep spiral of depression, despair, feeling lost. I am currently on medication and mentally fairly stable, but that's mostly because I shelter myself from troubling experiences and thoughts.
It's a heavy listen for some people. It can be very sad and isolating for some, calm and mysterious for others.
I think I need some time to let these thoughts bake.
Anyways, thanks.
I figured out that I’m queer in my sophomore year in college, but I’m still in the closet IRL due to a crippling lack of agency in how I get to present myself in public. Therefore I’d say that I’m in a weird grey area between late bloomers and those who understand their gender and sexuality early on. I also can definitely relate to the religious trauma preventing me from coming to terms with myself.
As a bi woman who was raised Mormon, married, had a kid, got divorced, went to school, and remarried all before really embracing my bisexuality... I know this haunting
You're lucky to come along at a time when it's possible to come out at all. Two members of my high school class were gay men who died within a week of each other, at least one by his own hand, and possibly the other as well. .
Jesus, what a tragedy
Basically predicted I Saw The Tv Glow
I can understand the feeling of feeling like "losing" the LGBT experience because I am in a straight passing relationship currently but my girlfriend is a closet transwoman so I know one day once she feels safe to come out that I am going to experience being outwardly LGBT for the first time since I was in high school (I am 30 now).
I think bisexuals feel left out a lot in the LGBT community because we are distrusted by some members of the community as well as that some of us are straight passing so we experience different types of discrimination than monosexual people.
But for the longest time I had to learn to accept that I was gonna be straight passing and not seen as a member of the LGBT community in some spaces to now learning that I will is a weird feeling.
As another person in a straight-passing relationship (and cis-passing too) , I can't help but chime in that, yeah, I feel you. I've had the feeling that LGBTQ communities would take me as an impostor for a while, and people who say that 'there's no such thing as bisexuals' doesn't help.
I'm more of a demisexual myself, but yeah, can't help but feel there are probably a number of people like us that float underneath the normality of every day life, unseen and unnoticed.
Well damn, I got a McDonalds ad during this.
bada ba ba ba i'm hauntin' it
AMEN
Yeah, I feel this.
My ghost would be just not knowing. I grew up in an evangelical household, and I was homeschooled all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade. My sex ed was... lacking (i.e. non-existent), so I just assumed I was straight like any good Christian would be. I sometimes envy people, especially young people today, who learned about this stuff and got to figure themselves out freely from a young age. On the other hand, I probably avoided a lot of potential drama and trauma by being a late bloomer. By the time I came out, I was in a position where I didn't need to depend on my parents any more, so if things got out of hand I could leave. I wish I could have had more experiences from a younger age, but I'm also glad I'm not as late blooming as many people, and there's no time like the present to start making up for the things I've missed out on.
Glad I finally have an internet dad to go with my like, 4 internet moms
all five of us are just so proud of you
I think you need an internet theybe to bring home to all your internet parents. Just saying.
@@HarkertheStoryteller I have one. Thought slime.
@@vladimir8891 Why not bring a spare? You can never have too many theybes
Dang, I'm loving the aesthetics on this one, puts me in that tragic, morosefully triumphant mood that makes me want to off my heart up in sacrifice with Jesus. My heart grieves when I hear these kinds of stories. It's so easy for us white male cis-het Christians to demand others to deny themselves and take up their cross and completely ignore that very calling for ourselves merely because we can, because our identities are already aligned with society's commands and we can easily hide our hearts that also rebel against the Christian sexuality. Just like the Pharisees who tried to hide spiritual emptiness under broad phylacteries, we scorn the prostitutes and tax collectors that may well reach a higher place in heaven than we. We are so afraid that we do not condemn enough those who reject God's gift of gender that we turn a blind eye to those who abuse and pervert it. I don't know if it's gatekeeping to assert that I believe that God gave us gender, that he turned adam into ish and ishisha, so that we could overcome our solitude amongst creation through the unity that bridges the sexual difference and, through an openness to procreation, reveals Trinitarian love, an image of the Divine. But if it is I submit myself to your judgement.
I too, am haunted by those endless hours I spent scrolling through the screen to look for an affirmation I did not find among my family and peers, though I am so blessed for how hard they tried and the love they showed and continue to show. I am haunted by the ghost me that transitioned into a woman. Perhaps she managed to date that girl she wanted to in high school, perhaps she let herself be accepted among her drama club friends and kept in touch with them. Perhaps she built a greenhouse of love and support for them all instead of crumbling under my bad habits, my distractions, my inauthenticity, my bad faith... but where would she be now? Even if she had a rich, fulfilling life and all the sexual partners and experiences she ever wanted, what would her eternity be? I do not view Hell as a punishment, but as the consequence of rejecting God as our protector against all the other beings who rejected God who cannot help but endlessly devour each other (as opposed to eating the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist). I don't mean to judge you for not taking the Kierkegaardian leap of faith that I have, but I find myself strongly desiring that you do. So I'm sorry for being so pushy about that all the time. I too am in a happy marriage now and I'm sure that my children will soon bring me joy, and even though I suffered for this choice, I, having known that suffering, asked God for more in imitation of Saint Maria Faustina, to be a flower crushed underfoot, whose fragrance could only be smelled by Jesus, who offered his heart to us wrapped in thorns,--and Mary offered hers to be pierced by a sword. In the long term, I do not believe the ghost would have been sustainable. I believe that this communion of persons prescribed by the Catholic Church will be the means by which I build a greenhouse of love and support for my friends and family and that my heart, though ablaze, when still burn brightly for the world and for my Lord. I think that's why Saint John Paul the Second called chastity the new martyrdom.
Like you, my heart reaches out to the youth in my church, and though we have very different ideas about how to help them to be authentic to their true selves, I sense we are united in a strong drive to remedy their feelings of isolation, to show them that they need not jump into the arms of predatory people or toxic coping strategies for affirmation but rather to trusting and loving relationships with those around them. I don't want to dominate their minds and impose dogma, but if they or my children wish to run away from home, I at least want to build them a nice home to run away from. I have asked much of you with my comments and you have been very charitable, so if there is ever anything I can do for you let me know, and if anyone else wants to weigh in on all this I won't push back more than you want me to.
Thanks for sharing all that!!
*tiptaps in existential dread*
As a Boomer Trans Woman I knew at age 4 my Gender didn't match my Sex. Won't go into detail how I found out but was raised in a Southern Baptist Church and later in Teen years an Independent Fundamentalist Church. Growing up in the South in the 60s and 70s u didn't speak of those things. Also during that time I started using alcohol and other substances to hide who I was. Was sent to Lester Rolloff Home's because I drank too much and my mom saw me kiss a guy when I got out of his car. Needless to say when u put queer people together who haven't had sex in a while what happens even if they're not gay get horny. Those same folk who used me proceeded to beat me up. Because I'm also a Vet and at the tender age of 63 I have an appointment with an Endocrinologist in April to start transitioning. I have 4 granddaughters who love and accept me for who I am. Sorry for long comment but hoping that people will just understand that we've been around forever and will continue to be around.
Congrats on transition! I'm excited for you!!!
I feel like a latecomer. I'm bi too, and probably got some weird gender thing. What makes it hard is I converted to Catholicism at 19, so while I didn't grow up in it, (I grew up in an evangelical background) I'm haunted by the me of now, like I betrayed the queer community by converting
The queer teen outreach I mentor with is hosted by a very affirming church, so we're happy to have allies and family within those spaces :)
My doctor is a practicing Catholic, and is Very Gay. Following the catechism of Vatican II, it's easy to read a queer and trans affirmation within the teachings of the Catholic Church, while recognising that their natural world theory assumptions are fundamentally broken.
So while their moral teachings are solid, their prescriptions for life are undermined by their own oversight.
Your faith is not a betrayal.