Ask Ms. Jessica Special Edition – The Mental Health of Mutants: Life with dysphoria (Patreon)

Ms. Jessica,

I enjoyed your articles on the help offered to the newly changed, but they were focused on physiotherapy, what about emotional therapy? I mean, these mutations must cause a lot of body dysmorphia, right?

Also, I wonder how those whose mutation causes them to share a body with a separate mind cope, not just because the loss of autonomy would cause a major lifestyle change, but what happens when they direct their negative emotions towards each other?

I think I’m going to let someone act as my guest responder this time, since this touches on something important to her.

(Caution: the following contains accounts of real mental health issues I have had in real life, and can be disturbing)

HI. My name is Angelina. You may know me as Leena or as Angela now… long story. Anyway, I want to talk to you about dysphoria and dysmorphia because, well it’s something I have, and it’s something a lot of mutants have and… well… it’s not fun.

First, I wanna talk about that the two are. So, dysmorphia is a perception of your body that is more negative than the reality. If you constantly think you are ugly, or too fat, or something like that, then you have dysmorphia. A lot of mutants end up with dysmorphia because they wish they looked more normal, or that their mutation simply gave them body parts that they think are ugly.

Then there’s dysphoria, and this is even less fun. Dysphoria is when you feel like you have a body that you don’t have. This can cause anxiety, depression, and even physical pain. Many mutants experience intense dysphoria before they mutate, since their brain is preparing themselves for a body they don’t currently have. Many more experience the same after they mutate, because their memories are always of them in another body.

Like I said before… it’s not fun. In the bad nights I found myself screaming for help, hoping anyone could hear me. Sometimes my clothes hurt to wear, and not in that sexy way that you might expect. They literally felt like my skin on fire. But if I took them off I felt like I was chilling to the bone. I would cry, I would scratch at myself, I would curl up into a ball, and if I managed to tire myself out in the morning, I would look at myself in the mirror and see nothing but an ugly piece of trash staring back at me.

And, you’d like to imagine that all of this goes away some day right? The happy ending is that we all get used to our bodies and we all get to be the sexy mutant pinups you see in the media. The sad fact is, reality rarely gives you a happy ending. There are lots of happy mutant girls out there who live very happy lives, but stuff like this, dysphoria, dysmorphia, it traumatizes you, sticks with you. It doesn’t necessarily have a cure like the common cold. Sometimes it’s chronic. Sometimes you just have to live with it.

I’ve been in and out of therapy a lot. I take medication to manage my symptoms and right now I’m having weekly sessions. Don’t get me wrong, from a logical thinking perspective I love my body, but trauma isn’t logical. Mental illness isn’t logical. Access, Sophie, and Lucy can tell you that I’ve been up some nights, crying horribly, asking them to just tell me it would be OK, even though I’m in New York and they are in a whole other hemisphere. I’ve lost a lot of friends who just couldn’t put up with my damage, lost family, lost jobs. I’ve had period of intense anger. I’ve had periods of suicidal ideation.

For the most part, I live a happy life. I have really great friends. Up until recently I had a good girlfriend. You can see it in all the pictures Access has of me. I’m always smiling, my five eyes bright, my fangs showing. It’s good to be alive you know.

But, as good as things get. No matter how many people I surround myself with, there’s still this shadow in the back of my brain, and sometimes it’s all I can see. It’s a constant looming threat. And it’s a threat I have to live with.

Mutations rarely “cause” dysmorphia or dysphoria so much as they can exacerbate it. The thing is, more people suffer from mild cases than you’d think. Mutations can also exacerbate all other sorts of mental illnesses, from anxiety, to depression, to ADHD, and more. But at the same time, mutations can help too. They can make you feel more like you belong in the body that you are in. Or, maybe they are just the push you need to be truer to yourself about who you are. About who you want to be. It hurts when your self-image doesn’t match up with the image you see in the mirror, but if you mutate, you might just go “what the hell, I look so different anyway, I might as well just go for it.”

Ever wonder why so many mutants have weird hair colors? It’s not just that their hair mutates. It’s that you don’t have a lot to lose trying out a new dye color when you just grew an extra pair of arms. Trying out a new hair color seems like small potatoes at that point.

I can’t speak to experience but I’ve heard about conjoined mutants struggling with their sense of identity. Am I two people? Am I one? Why am I stuck in this body? Stuff like that.

There’s no magic bullet for stuff like this. I’ve struggled with these issues all my life, from well before I mutated, to the present day. You just have to put work in, and that’s scary. You have to seek help. You have to lean on those around you when you don’t have the strength yourself. You have to ask professionals to help you out. Sometimes you have to just take a vacation and just ask “what is healthy for me right now?”

Depending on where you live, you might find it easier or harder to get into therapy or mental care. Port Solei has some amazing therapists and psychiatrists but, I live in good old New York, New York, and while our city is great, the American healthcare system isn’t fantastic at dealing with mental health issues. Small hiccups could suspend treatment for months or years. Heck, I just recently got back into therapy after being out for over three years… and I would e-mail my health insurance practically every week trying to get back in. If it weren’t for the pandemic and new emergency mental health services, I may have never gotten in.

So I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy. But I am going to tell you, it’s something you have to do. You have to use every tool available to you to survive until the next day, even if it’s painful. Things won’t always be good, but they won’t always be bad either. The bad times pass, the bad thoughts pass, the pain passes, and then you have good times again. You have friends. You have loved ones. You have happiness. It’s worth doing anything and everything you can, just for those moments.

If you suffer from dysphoria, dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness, remember, that you aren’t alone, and there are many people who want to help you, and many more than that, that want you to be happy.

Be kind to yourself.

Angelina