life updates and so on (Patreon)

hey all. i keep saying i hope to get back on track, and then i do for like a week, and then i fall off again and can't get back in the mindset to say "back on track" again for quite a while. i've been thinking about why this might be the case, and i have some ideas.

i mean, aside from depression lol, because that's been a constant for the past year and a bit. though that is the starting point and probably catalyst for all of this.

i would say around the time my depression started, i kind of lost myself to sloth in a lot of ways. i wasn't bathing all that often (like once a week, sometimes a little longer), i was eating extremely poorly, i never got out, and so on. obviously this is all easily attributed to depression, and while these were issues in and of themselves, they were manifesting into a greater issue that i was ignorant of. i didn't really know who or what i was any more.

in the summer of 2014 i was doing excellently, but by 2015 it was starting to slip, and by mid-late 2016 i was making ER visits due to panic attacks that simulated heart attacks and trying to figure out what was going on with my body. it was what it was and nothing more: acute anxiety (more than normal, and that's saying something for me!), and a deeper depression than i'd ever dealt with. my therapist and i decided that it was time to look into medication to lay a solid ground floor to build on. antidepressants are a lot like a cast for your brain. you can't do much with it on, but it allows healing to happen while you're partially disabled.

as my energy started to come back, the first thing i did, aside from write music when i could, i started to explore who i was. again. for the millionth time. but now it was from a place of feeling like i had just been a collection of nothing for several months, rather than feeling simply like i need to change something. this came from the need to simply be. to exist in a way that i could actually perceive. this was my highest priority. it's where my energy needed to go.

who am i? how can my life and experience be summarized up to now and displayed? what am i? how do i identify, do the predefined ones suit me, am i outside of that scope? how am i? what led to now, how can i embrace it and make it something that gives me strength to keep being?

so, i've been exploring. and it's been... a journey. you can have a look:

there are a few big breakthroughs here - the first is in 2015. i bought that wig in the middle of 2014 and it completely changed my life. i still use it, but need to replace it, because honestly, it's a cheap piece of crap and i should invest in a really good one if it's gonna be worn on the regular. anyways, in 2015 i started wearing it more frequently. i'd get dressed up once every week or two, mostly for the fun and excitement. in 2016 i started taking it a little more seriously, and dressing up more frequently, just to look a certain way and be comfortable, rather than it being a consistently exciting and novel affair. you can see in the fourth pic i'm unshaven but still have makeup on - when i was at the worst of my depression and wanting to put in some effort, this is about as far as i got. i don't hate the look, but it really stands out in that respect.

from there on it's probably evident that i started to get some energy back, and i was eager to explore more styles, attitudes, presentations, and so on, to display on camera, and therefore to people around me, and myself. things i could do to realize a part of me to myself. that felt consistently good. there were missteps along the way that i'm not too keen on. the longer wig is one of those. i really wanted to like it but it's just not my style!

i kind of fell further and further into the Gay Hell Pit and started exploring things that outright turned me off prior. off-shoulder shirts, dresses, blouses, crop tops, etc. these revealed things about me that i didn't like once upon a time. my wide masculine shoulders. my weird brick-like shape. my stomach, the one that gained 20 or so pounds quickly when i fell into depression. but thanks to friends (and to be entirely honest, therapeutic substance use) i started to see myself in a different light. i thought, wait... i like big shoulders on strong girls. i love blocky, stocky, husky body types. and chub is great. these are things i love in people, can i love them in myself? signs were starting to point to yes when one night i got sufficiently high and took some more intimate pictures of myself. i looked back the next day and thought i looked really good. and a part of that was the confidence. the confidence that i realized i could fake. fake it till you make it, right? i started to fake confidence to myself until it became habit. now i'm doing shit like this:

a fun aside, i used to do the fake freckle thing almost religiously but fell out of it as a habit at some point, but got super back into it when i started messing with the fun "forest creature" makeup with the black nose and all that. that whole deal was inspired by this piece of jjfrenchie art, which honestly touched me in a deeply spiritual way that i've never really felt before, at least not from visual art.

it just felt like such a validating piece. i have it printed and framed on my wall, now. it's really beautiful, i think, and really made me feel comfortable with exploring some more atypical looks confidently.

beyond who i am and what i am, there is a side issue of immense loneliness that i've been dealing with, but it's less because i don't have anybody to talk to and more because i've been shifting toward being more of an extrovert and always wanting people around. y'all ever used okcupid? some of the people on there, oh my god. i've never seen so many "straight" guys call an obviously-gender-weird person a "beautiful woman". nobody says that unless you're trying to get in the good books (which is to say, the pants of a trans person with a dick). so many chasers, lmao. like i just wanna hang out and cuddle and listen to the Galerians soundtracks or something, don't play this game with me dudes

so like, that's a lot of shit to read, and i'm sure a lot of you gave up at some point, and i totally get that, but now we get to the good part: what the fuck does this have to do with my music. at all. it actually has an absolute boatload to do with it.

it's the reason i haven't been creating as much. it's because i have been creating, but it's been me creating myself rather than music. the energy is still there, it's just been repurposed, probably because my mind/soul/whatever felt that it was deathly important that i make myself now. what i have to show for it is... i guess a lot. i have me to show for it. i have concepts that help describe me. i have an archive of images of myself that document all of this exploration, and it's clear to me how much fun i was having and when i was at my best, and what i was enjoying the most.

it doesn't sound like much, i mean, it's selfies. but i came to understand it a little bit differently. if i could draw, i probably would have been realizing myself visually in all sorts of ways over this period of time. i would have created characters and put them in all sorts of outfits, styles, given them personalities, whatever, and put it to paper. but i can't draw, so i decided that i am the canvas. i have a body, and it was time to use it to say something about my life. as a bonus, i've learned a ton about photography and lighting as well. all of the aspects of the pictures i've taken are me finding ways to express myself and capture it, so i can look back, prune the best ones, and build on them in the future.

i'm sure it comes across like a vanity project, but ultimately, it's not for anybody but me. at most, i hope somebody can find some inspiration in it to explore themselves as well. i encourage everybody to fake it till they make it. put on a confident act, strut your stuff for yourself, have fun, laugh, and don't forget to cry when something makes you look weird. crying will help you get over it and get back to laughing. also, let friends help. let them see you. let them give you honest advice.

uhhhh yeah so that's it i guess. thanks for reading. i'm sure this is hellish or hilarious in one way or another. tl;dr i feel like i haven't been creating, but i have been, in the form of myself, which isn't something i had considered or understood as a creative endeavor until now. i feel like the closer i get to being comfortable and happy with my existence all the time, the more music i'll be creating.

thank you for the continued support, for reading, and for all the kind words as i've gone through whatever this is mostly silently. i'm a bit of a mess, but i think that's what i need to embrace and love. i'm New Chaotic*. and maybe a girl, i guess, too, i don't know. but what i do know is that i'm ready to say outright, without question:

i'm Emma.

cheers. i love you all. you are more than fans to me, and i apologize that i can sometimes be unapproachable. you mean the world, and regardless of how my day may be going, i don't want you to forget that.

*New Chaotic / Nu Chaotic is a term i came up with to describe somebody who is not genderqueer or genderfluid (ie. "today i feel male", etc), but instead finds identity in the fact that their presentation will continue to change and cannot be defined. this lack of direction and predictability is embraced as one's full identity.