It’s probably not the best idea to start my week with therapy, because I’ll inevitably be walking back into work with my eye makeup looking like Avril Lavigne circa 2004.
“Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?” -me to my therapist, probably
Today’s session left me a big teary mess once again, but now I think I realize why I’ve been a big sad lately.
I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that all things eventually end. Places you loved get torn down, your pets will all die, and even if something manages to stick around long after you’re dead, like a really cool sturdy rock or something, there’s still the inevitable heat death of the universe to look forward to.
But love lasts forever, right?
I’ve been through a lot of close friends, and the one thing they all had in common is that they invariably went their separate way from me. Crass is the only best friend I’ve ever had who stuck around, and I’m still paranoid she’s going to get tired of me someday and leave me. Even though we’re legally married. You know the whole “til death do us part” thing? What if she dies first? What if there’s no afterlife and all of this was for naught? What if there is an afterlife and her spirit like, divorces me? What if I get ghosted by a literal ghost?
Rest in peace!
Family lasts forever though, right? Except the only members of my family I even talk to are my parents, and I’m acutely aware of the fact that they are likely going to die before me, leaving me with exactly no blood relatives I’m actually on regular speaking terms with. There’s always my brother, but he’s been weirdly squirrelly since he got all up Trump’s butt, and he stopped talking to me altogether after I dared to not be straight. “But what about chosen family?!” Ah, yes. That brings me back to the whole “friends eventually inevitably leave me” thing.
Maybe I do have abandonment issues.
I was today years old when I realized that this was a likely problem for me. Before today, I thought abandonment issues were for people who got left on a stranger’s stoop by their parents as a baby. It’s not like I have daddy issues — my dad and I are actually really close. Maybe that is a problem, since I know deep down he’s gonna die someday and I’ll be a wreck without him.
The logical side of me, the part I’ve beaten to death with a hammer and still comes popping back up like an asshole zombie, says that if I never let anyone get close to me, I’ll never have to worry about losing anyone. That’s such a sad way to live, though. The beauty of life is in the connections we make, and by shutting other people out to protect ourselves, we’ll never know how fulfilling it is to love someone else. Maybe that’s the feely side of me talking, though.
Facebook is an absolute hellscape, but I found something vaguely encouraging amidst the general dumbassery. I’ll share it here in its entirety.
Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect every relationship in my life to remain unchanged until the day me and all my loved ones die simultaneously in our sleep of old age. The world is in a constant state of flux, and things will change and evolve over time. Perhaps it should be enough to enjoy what we have in the moment and savor every second we get to spend with the people we care about. That way, when “goodbye” inevitably comes, there are no regrets. “Show love with no remorse,” as the Red Hot Chili Peppers said in their song “Dosed.” That’s the mantra that guides my entire life, and yes, I get my most treasured wisdom from four men whose most iconic outfit is one singular sock.
I’ll admit I haven’t been keeping up on my ADHD: An Owner’s Manual posts as much as I’d like. It’s almost like I have ADHD! Who’d a thunk it, right?
Nevertheless, I want to get back into writing these again, since I know a lot of people found them useful. When the daily prompt of “habits” came up, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to jump into some of my own personal habits for success with ADHD. These are simply habits that work for me, but feel free to borrow any or all of them for your personal life.
Without further ado…
What are your daily habits?
1. Read
This one is so important. I’ve always been an avid reader, usually of nonfiction. There’s so much out there to learn that it feels neglectful not to study a topic of interest a little bit every day. My habit tracker simply says “read,” but I try to aim for at least a page of something a day. That typically turns into several pages, maybe even several chapters, but the most important thing is getting your foot in the door with just a single page.
Here’s the cheat for ADHD — it doesn’t need to be a physical book. The cool thing about having a phone with you at all times is you can download whatever you want to read and have it in your pocket at all times. Whip it out whenever you have a spare moment. Hint: bathroom breaks are perfect for reading.
Another trick is to pick a topic that interests you. If you’re like me and have something (like a badass glam emo band) to promote, look into a book on digital marketing like One Million Followersby Brendan Kane. If you want to improve your communication skills, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a classic. If you want to better yourself as a whole, I highly recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear or Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. Another one of my favorite authors is Austin Kleon, whose books should be essential reading for any creative. Whatever book you choose, make sure it’s interesting to you!
2. Study a Language
Languages are the building block of human civilization — so why does there have to be so freaking many of them?! I’ve been to Sunday school, I know the story. A bunch of ancient assholes ruined it for us as always, right?
The hubris!
The downside of there being a bazillion languages is that a portion of humanity is essentially behind a paywall, and the price you have to pay is hours upon hours of studying a foreign language. But as daunting as the task is, learning languages can be fun! Gone are the days of burying your face in a book and trying to figure out how to conjugate verbs on your own. Modern technology has game-ified language learning, which makes it accessible to even the most ADHD among us.
There’s two apps I regularly use — Duolingo and Drops. Duolingo is better for grammar, Drops for vocabulary. Both are good options and certainly be used together. As for which language to learn, that’s up to you. Obviously anything that uses the Roman alphabet is going to be easier for the most part, but if you want a challenge, take up something that uses a different writing system. I did the latter, choosing Arabic, which has the added bonus of being the second language of many of my coworkers. That’s another consideration — do you have people to practice with? Consider choosing a language many people in your area speak.
3. Clean a Thing
That’s it. That’s the habit. Just pick one thing in your dwelling space and put it where it belongs, or give it a good scrub. You don’t need to make an entire ordeal of it, and just cleaning a little every day will make cleaning your entire home less daunting. Sometimes cleaning one thing will snowball into cleaning another thing, then another, and another, but the important part is initiating the act of cleaning. Breaking up huge, seemingly impossible tasks into bite-sized pieces like this helps me to keep a clean apartment.
4. Do Something Creative
That’s it! I make it a point to either write or do art every single day. Whatever your passion is, indulge yourself in it daily for at least five minutes — and don’t stop yourself if you get lost in the sauce and want to keep going. Again, the trick is to overcome that executive dysfunction and get started, and once you’re in the zone, don’t fight it. Use your hyperfocusing powers to your advantage.
It’s crucial to do this every day if you can. Think of it in terms of identity. For a long time, I called myself a writer — but I barely wrote anything! What good is calling yourself a writer if you don’t, you know, write? Put your identity first. What do you want to be? A painter? A musician? A dancer? A chef? Once you establish who you are, be that kind of person, which means doing whatever it is that person does. Being and doing are intertwined. Ask yourself every day, “What would a real (insert whatever it is you want to be here) do with their free time?” Then do it!
My artist wife has a saying — “You gotta want it every day.” She makes it a point to draw at least one illustration a day, even when she’s having a creative block. Just doing something is better than nothing. It’s all about building those little habits.
5. Get Moving
This is another important one. It’s no secret that we ADHDers benefit from exercise. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of physical activity a week with two days of strength training. While that seems like a lot, it breaks down to less than a half hour a day if you do it every day.
Going to the gym might be a good idea for concentration purposes. If you try to work out at home, you’ll be fighting off every distraction imaginable, from video game console on your tv stand to the sweet siren call of your bed.
IT’S A TRAP!
When choosing a gym, your number one consideration should be location, location, location. You want to remove as few obstacles as possible and make the habit as obvious as possible. If you’re torn between an LA Fitness you pass every day on your commute and a Planet Fitness that’s five minutes out of the way, drop that little extra for the LA Fitness. Speaking of making your exercise habit as easy as possible to maintain, keep some running shoes and workout clothes in your car at all times. If you have to run home to grab them, well…
DON’T DO IT!!
Our natural ability to double task is useful for working out because we can easily get our cardio in while reading or watching Netflix. Also, music is a great reward for working out — listening to your favorite songs while putting in the work makes time go by faster. And if going to the gym is out of the question for whatever reason, just taking tiny steps to stay in shape still helps. Take the stairs, ride your bike, do some morning stretches, whatever gets you moving. As I always say, small victories are still victories.
Do you have any daily habits? Feel free to comment them below!
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My joke is that there are two kinds of emos — Jimmy Eat World emos, and My Chemical Romance emos. Like much of nature, however, emo can’t be contained into a binary system. Where do we categorize the Taking Back Sunday emos, or the poor, poor Brand New emos who have been languishing ever since it came out that Jesse Lacey kinda sucks? Another band that doesn’t fit cleanly in the JEW/MCR dichotomy is Motion City Soundtrack.
Musically, they’re probably happier sounding than most of their peers — lots of major keys, fast tempos, and cool ass synths. But their lyrics sound as if they’d been written by every one of my mental illnesses in a trench coat. I don’t even have to dig that deep to find songs that match whichever ailment is weighing me down at the moment. Like, their signature song is textbook obsessive compulsive disorder.
I’m sick of the things, I do when I’m nervous Like cleaning the oven or checking my tires Or counting the number of tiles on the ceiling Head for the hills, the kitchen’s on fire I used to rely on self-medication I guess I still do that from time to time
-Motion City Soundtrack, “Everything is Alright”
I remember when my dad was in the hospital for a heart attack that nearly killed him, I discovered “Time Turned Fragile,” a song about cherishing the relationship you have with your father and realizing he’s not going to be around forever. “Son of a Gun” takes me back to the drunken tiffs I had with my wife before deciding to sober up, when my stupid antics were all about “pissing you off just for fun.” And “Even If It Kills Me” was the song I played on repeat as I put in my application to music therapy school for the third time, because I too was “so sick of making lists of things I’ll never finish.”
There’s something powerful about a lyricist that can write words that relate so uncannily to one’s life. That feeling when you realize a song is unmistakably written for you — I call it the Motion City Soundtrack Effect, because I can’t think of a band that does it better than them. Taylor Swift comes close at least.
Real recognizes real.
It’s something I aspire to as a songwriter. The only feeling better than finding that song that you relate to so deeply is being the one to write that song for someone else. It’s why I write music in the first place. It’s more than just a catharsis for myself. I write everything in hopes that somebody out there will hear one of my songs and perhaps realize they’re not alone in whatever they’re going through. You know, the same way I realize I’m not alone in my struggles when I listen to MCS.
I’ve written about the power of music and its ability to affect people on a deep level before. I’ve written about discovering it in my own life. I’ve even written about the dark side of these parasocial relationships with musicians before. But it’s worth mentioning again and again — music is a powerful tool, probably the most powerful tool we as humans have, more powerful than bombs or guns or even words. I believe music has the power to change the world, which is why I chose to do it all those years ago, and why I still choose to do it after all this time. Songs can save a life.
I forgot to mention the final few lines of that verse I shared earlier.
But I’m getting better at fighting the future Someday you’ll be fine Yes, I’ll be just fine
-Motion City Soundtrack, “Everything is Alright”
I’ll admit I teared up a little when I heard this song played live last night, despite it being one of their happy-sounding uptempo numbers, because it reminded me of how far I’ve come in my own fight with mental illness and OCD. I remembered listening to those words and wishing for a day I’d be just fine, and now I’m finally in a place where my fears are (mostly) under control.
That song and this band have been with me through it all, and I owe a lot to them.
Do you have a band or a certain song that saved your life? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments! If you like what you read here, feel free to support the blog by donating via Venmo (@jessjsalisbury)or CashApp ($TheJessaJoyce). Thanks for all your support!
Hi! I have ADHD! Did you notice from the everything about me?
ADHD is an example of neurodiversity, or a brain “wiring” that differs from the societal standard. Because of the societal norm being, well, not ADHD, it is also considered a disability. Think of it this way — if humans could fly, but a few couldn’t, those people would be considered disabled by that society’s standards, because that society would be set up for people who flew. Similarly, we as ADHD-havers live in a society that isn’t made for us.
There are quite a few medications out there that up our productivity and attention spans to “normal” by these societal standards, but none are quite as effective as good ol’ Addy. There’s a reason why Adderall near the top of the list of prescribed medications. In 2021, 41.4 million prescriptions were dispensed here in the US alone.
So why is it so freakin’ hard to get?
Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think there should be so many hoops for disabled folks to jump through to get their meds.
There’s been an ongoing shortage of Adderall, which is highly regulated in the US due to its status as a C-II drug. C-IIs are the big boys, the Norcos and Percocets, the meds ranked just below the scary stuff like heroin and uh, marijuana (unless you live in a cool state like me). Adderall does have a high addiction and dependence rate — but so does alcohol, a drug that’s not medicinal in nature at all, yet is widely available and even promoted in our culture. Due to all this, you’re lucky to get an Adderall script in the first place, and thanks to the shortage, good luck finding it anywhere.
“Have you tried not being ADHD?“
Imagine if we treated things like wheelchairs and service animals like this. Imagine if the very thing that allowed you to function in society was vilified to the extent that Adderall is. I’m not saying we should do away with its prescription only status, but I feel that its C-II status makes it prohibitively hard for people who need it to access it. It’s already hard enough for ADHD folks to make an appointment and go through the long diagnostic process. “But making it easier to get will encourage people to abuse it!” Of course people are going to misuse drugs like Adderall. But people misuse things like Benadryl and cough syrup as well, and those are over-the-counter!
And I’ve heard some downright terrifying Benadryl trip reports.
People underestimate how much of a disability ADHD really can be. It’s hard to hold down a job when you’re not able to focus. It’s hard to even acquire a job with our variety of executive dysfunction. Honestly, in severe cases like mine, it can be a safety issue — I’ve nearly swerved off the road looking at a particularly neat billboard. Adderall makes things a little easier for us, and we should be able to obtain it with as few barriers as possible.
Invisible disabilities are already hard. Maybe let’s not make it harder by restricting access to the medicine we need.
This is the latest installment in my memoir project, written as a series of letters to my future daughter. Here are the previous entries: Part One and Part Two
My earliest memory was waking up from a nap on top of a stack of rugs inside a sketchy flea market. But my second earliest memory was watching Wheel of Fortune.
I didn’t know what it was – the colors, perhaps. That’s the only reason I can think of why a toddler would enjoy a words-based game show. I got a little older, and I found myself scared of cartoons because they were so loud and bright compared to my beloved Wheel of Fortune. And CNN. My dad always had our boxy TV on CNN, and it became such a thing to me, I’d freak out if anything else was on. And I needed the History Channel on my bedroom TV to sleep. I wouldn’t accept anything else.
I was really sensitive to noises. If my mom was vacuuming, I’d hide behind the recliner and cower for my life. There were some sounds I liked a lot, like the sound of the bath filling. I’d curl up in the corner of the bathroom and just listen to the sound of the water until my mom would inevitably pick me up and put me in the tub. Sometimes, I’d make little sounds just because it felt right, usually bird noises. And music. I always say music was my first language. Growing up, I didn’t talk a lot to people who were my age. I could and would give my entire life story to the cashier at Kmart, but I had a hard time socializing with peers. But I loved singing for absolutely anyone who would listen. My classmates would even throw coins at me for singing songs at recess.
What I didn’t realize, though, was that they were making fun of me.
I was 17 or 18 before my mom said the “a” word to me. As in autism. It’s a scary-sounding word to a lot of parents, and when I was a child, there was an even steeper stigma attached to it. No mom wanted their kid to get diagnosed with autism. So she never got me diagnosed, not even when my childhood psychologist had mentioned it. And my teachers didn’t bother to check up on me either. So little Jessie spins around in the back of the classroom during lectures, obsesses over 8-track tapes, and has no friends? Well, she gets good grades and doesn’t start problems, so we’ll just pretend there’s nothing weird about this child.
But I knew there was something wrong with me. There had to be. I had an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage music, but I couldn’t make eye contact or even speak a coherent sentence to someone my own age without feeling wildly uncomfy. And my ever-present weirdness made me an easy target for the innocent cruelty of schoolchildren. I remember how sensitive I was to the smell of ranch dressing. As soon as the other kids found out the stench alone made me gag, I had to start eating lunch in the library, lest I be pelted with ranch dressing packets.
Two memories stick out in particular. One was of my “frenemy” Carissa and her crony, another Jessica, framing me for hitting Other Jessica, simply because they didn’t like me. Because I didn’t “fit in.”Jessica had made a red mark on her face and claimed I’d hit her, and Carissa corroborated her story. It was my word against both of theirs, so I ended up getting sent to the principal’s office over it. I lost my trip to McDonald’s over that, actually.
Another time, I got punched in the stomach by some guy. Ouch.
My point is, if you’re anything like me — and I’m guessing you’re a lot more like me than you’d like to admit — you’re gonna be weird, and that’s going to make you a target for unsavory people. They’ll hurt you because they think it’s funny. They’ll take advantage of you because they know they can get away with it. And a younger, less-wisened version of myself would have said your best course of action would be to change yourself, to fit in.
Because that’s exactly what I did.
I meticulously studied what the “cool girls” were doing and started copying their mannerisms and adopting their interests. I learned to shut my big dumb face when I wanted to obsess over Bon Jovi or Pokémon. I ditched my 70s rocker style for a more conventional preppy look, and my beloved red lipstick got thrown in the trash. I stopped talking about my special interests and “smart kid things” and put on a bimbo facade because it made people tease me less. Everything that made me unique got watered down to something more palatable.
I broke my own bones to fit in someone else’s box.
Sure, I made friends, but inside I was miserable. It took so much out of me to hide parts of myself. And I knew deep down I still didn’t fit in entirely. I was last to be picked in literally everything. I remember going to on a trip to Chicago with the marching band and my “friend” group chose to room together without me. I did manage to get voted senior class president — because no one else ran.
My saving grace was that around the time I became an adult, the “manic pixie dream girl” stereotype became the hottest thing, and suddenly everything that made me eccentric and weird made me desirable. In college, I started dropping the act and grew into what I was all along — a confidently autistic woman, quirks and all. And it won me way more genuine friends, people who have stuck around in the long run, who would never ditch me or pick me last. My college years were filled with so many experiences of legitimate joy, the kind that only comes when you’re living as your authentic self.
So if your thing is trains, be the biggest freaking ferroequinologist out there. If you like dressing like a pirate in everyday life, tighten up that corset and straighten that eyepatch. If you love music like I do, sing and dance your heart out and don’t give a damn who throws coins at you and laughs. History forgets normal people like them, but weird people like us live on forever. Being yourself is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do, but it’s worth it.
I promise this will make sense. But first, we need some exposition.
I was born in the middle of a snowstorm on March 5th, 1993. Two other very important people were born on March 5th as well — John Frusciante, the greatest guitarist ever, and your grandmother, my mom. I was indeed a birthday present. In the immortal words of Kanye West, who may or may not still be a Nazi sympathizer by the time you read this (hopefully not), my presence is a present, kiss my ass.
This was planned, kind of. You see, I had the cord wrapped around my neck in utero. I was a suicidal fetus. Instead of letting me abort myself, the doctors decided to cut me out. My mom planned the surgery for her birthday, since my original due date was about a week afterwards anyways. There are a lot of other unusual circumstances behind my birth and how exactly I came to exist, which I will get into later on. (Don’t worry, I’m not gonna explain the birds and the bees in the context of your grandmother, uh… making me.)
Our family moved frequently when I was very young, or as your grandmother would say, we were a bunch of gypsies, which is a word that American baby boomers could get away with saying but is actually pretty offensive to actual Romani people. To be clear, we are not actually Romani, or anything exciting for that matter. I’m literally 95 percent British, which means you are approximately half-British. But most of our immediate ancestors came from Kentucky.
Your great-grandparents all moved up to Michigan to take part in the industrial boom that was happening in the 1950s, as did many other Kentuckians, settling in the working class southern suburbs of Detroit. This region, called the Downriver area, is not to be confused with the affluent WASP-y northern suburbs where your other mom came from. No, Downriver was hillbilly heaven. Trailer parks as far as the eye can see, confederate flags, NASCAR merch, the works. And our family, we settled as far into the country as you could get and still be considered a suburb of Detroit.
Your grandfather was a steelworker, and your grandmother was a homemaker, much like her mother before her, and her mother before that. The women in our family traditionally had very little contact with the outside world. This was less because of the misogynistic worldview that was prevalent in their formative years and more because of their crippling anxiety. As in, your grandmother was too scared to drive most of the time, and your great-grandmother didn’t drive at all after crashing her car into a bank or something during her first attempt behind the wheel.
Me, I was fearless. Or so I liked to think.
The reality was I was scared of absolutely everything. One of my earliest memories was at my grandma’s house for Christmas Eve, a tradition that persisted until her death. I still remember my brother and cousin pulling all kinds of shenanigans, like hiding jewelry inside a box inside a bigger box inside an even bigger box (and so on), then giving it to my grandma as a good-natured prank. I remember my uncle Arnie bringing weird smelly cheese and shrimp cocktails every year. The men in my family would have a few beers and play poker — that was the only time my dad ever drank around me, in fact. And then there was Furnace Man.
Furnace Man lived in my grandma’s furnace. He wore a plaid shirt and had no head, and every time the furnace made a sound, I imagined him kicking around in there, lying in wait, ready to like, eat me or something. Sometimes I would get close to the furnace, as if to test my theory that he was lurking, then got scared and ran away, terrified.
Obviously, Furnace Man was not real. In fact, my “vision” of him came from my dad going into the utility room to try on a flannel he received one Christmas Eve and getting his head stuck in the head-hole. I was too little to know what was going on, so my brain pieced together “headless man from the utility room,” and decided he came from the creepy blue-gray furnace that always creaked and croaked menacingly when I walked past it.
Looking back, this was when my OCD first manifested, and it took on a lot of forms throughout my life. As I got a little older, I was scared of my precious irreplaceable adult teeth falling out, so I’d wiggle them a little every day to make sure they weren’t loose. In kindergarten, we had a fire drill, and that sparked a fear that our house would catch on fire and I’d lose all of my stuff. A watched pot doesn’t boil, or something like that, so I thought if I never left the house, nothing would catch on fire.
Keep in mind this was how my brain worked in kindergarten.
It evolved into even scarier things as I got into my teenage years, like a fear of death or of hurting people I love. I was even afraid to have you for years because I was scared I’d lose my sanity somehow and hurt you. I wish I could say some inspirational “oh, I just prayed and God miraculously cured me” spiel, but the truth is, my saving grace was getting the help I needed from psychiatrists and therapists. Although, to give credit where credit is due, perhaps God put those people in my life to save me from myself and my crippling anxiety. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about this universe and how it works, and while that’s another source of anxiety for me at times, in a way, it’s almost reassuring that I’ll never have all the answers.
I don’t know why He chose to pass along the generational curse of anxiety and mental illness to me, but I’d like to think it was to better prepare me for taking care of whatever mental health needs arise for you. I pray you never have to deal with the severe mental health issues that have plagued our family for so many years, but if you do, just know that I’m on your side. I’ve been to hell and back again — I could get there with my eyes closed. But now I know the way back home, and if I ever find you there, I’m ready to fight alongside you.
No matter how real he seems, the Furnace Man can’t hurt you.
Another post I originally shared as a FB status but figured it warranted its own post on here, especially since I haven’t posted on the blog in a minute. It’s been a crazy few weeks of coursework but my classes are over after this upcoming week, so expect more ramblings on here soon!
I see people posting their “I was gay but THEN I FOUND JESUS” testimonies all the time, but never any “I found Jesus but THEN I WAS GAY” testimonies. So allow me to share mine.
I used to attend an evangelical megachurch, first in my teens and again when I reached my lowest low after graduation. I was so broken and jaded I needed somewhere I could call home, and the church of my youth seemed right. I started going back, got deeply involved in the music ministry, and even married a man with an intention of starting a family, because that’s what you were “supposed” to do. But I wasn’t truly happy. I had to drink wine just to make household chores bearable. I had such a bad mental breakdown I had to go to a psychiatric emergency facility. I isolated myself from the people I loved and tried so hard to break my own bones to fit into a box that didn’t feel right to me. Even my own mom saw that I was miserable.
The breaking point came when my church announced a conversion therapy class for teenage girls — while I was standing on the stage about to lead worship. I should have walked off that stage, and I still kick myself for not doing it in the moment. But it planted a seed — something wasn’t right. I started to realize I was one of those girls! I’d been attracted to people of every gender, but I had to crush the parts of me that weren’t straight because I wanted so desperately to fit in and be “normal” by these people’s standards.
I was tired. And so I came out.
I’m so glad I chose to live my truth as a pansexual woman. I ended up leaving the marriage I rushed into for the sake of “staying pure” and married my best friend, who I realized I was in love with the entire time. I have a family of fellow queerdos who are truer friends to me than anyone at that church I left. My blood family even sees how happy I am now and is happy for me! And I didn’t have to leave behind my faith in Christ to embrace my true self — I found an affirming church that accepted me and my gay and trans siblings for who they are.
Being queer and following Christ aren’t mutually exclusive things. My faith is stronger for having been tested. God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and He truly blessed me with so much. I love who He made me to be, and I’m glad I can finally live in the light.
Feel free to share if my story reaches you in some way. I want the world to know it’s okay not to fit into the mold of American evangelical Christianity. God doesn’t love you any less. You are exactly who He created you to be ❤️
I originally posted this on my Facebook and Instagram pages (@thejessajoyce, if you’re curious), but I wanted to share this brief little write-up here as well. It’s so important to get this message out there since more often than not, the theoretical future of society and the fight to better it is co-opted by straight, cis, white, non-disabled people in an effort to tear down people who are not like them. I want to present a counter-argument. If all lives truly matter, as many on the political right say, and we must “think of the children,” my future children should be considered as well. There is room for everyone at the table of life, and we need to remember that this Easter.
Reading this book (Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer) at the suggestion of one of my favorite professors for my capstone project on autism, and it feels especially poignant in the days of #blacklivesmatter and #SaveTheChildren and #autismawarenessmonth and the recent fight against drag and transgender rights. The first chapter talks a lot about the Child — the personification of the future of society — who is often politicized and weaponized. Think of the children, people say. The image of the Child is more often than not a white cishet non-disabled child born to white cishet non-disabled parents. This Child absolutely matters. But I’m not interested in fighting for him, not because I don’t care about him, but because he already has enough people fighting for his right to exist in peace. Instead, I want to fight for my children.
In a few short years, I’ll likely have a child of my own. That child will likely have a disability of some sort, or rather, a difference that makes it harder to exist in a world that isn’t built for her. Considering my family history, she’ll likely be autistic or ADHD. Depending on our donor, she will likely be at least part black, and she’ll have queer parents who will support her should she eventually come to terms with her own queerness. And guess what? Her life will matter too. She should have a right to exist in peace alongside the theoretical Child described above. I want her to have a future too.
That’s why it’s so important to keep fighting for equality. I feel like it’s important to note that it’s Easter Sunday as I post this. I am a Christian through and through, despite the fact that I don’t “fit” the American Evangelical mold, and I firmly believe that Christ died for EVERYONE. Not just white Americans or straight people or cisgender people or able-bodied and able-minded people. We are all wonderfully made and we all should have a right to inhabit this beautiful planet. This post is a call to prayer and more importantly, a call to action. We need to be a light to this sometimes dark and scary world. We need to keep fighting the good fight.
I write this from my hotel room at GLR, the annual music therapy conference for the Midwest-based students, practitioners, and academics. It’s hard to believe the last time I was at GLR, I was still legally married to my ex and COVID hadn’t yet happened.
So much has changed.
The last GLR I attended was in Cincinnati. I remember all too well. You might remember too, if you remember this post (HUGE FUCKING TRIGGER WARNING ON THAT ONE). That was the year my dream of becoming a music therapist was stolen from me, when the aftermath of the rape I experienced on that trip tainted the very field I longed to be part of. Suddenly, everything related to music therapy reminded me of the person who violated me. My mental health got worse. I started drinking heavily. Soon, I wasn’t able to keep up with the coursework, and I dropped all my classes.
I’d already left the music therapy program once, due to my mental health, but this seemed insurmountable. And reentering the program after that felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain with a toothpick. I’d already given up twice. Surely I was too damaged to ever be a real music therapist.
But I’m here. I’m still here.
As of writing this, I’m not only at the conference, but I’m gearing up for the prestigious Undergraduate Symposium, where I’ll be giving a presentation on music therapy and autism. All of my current grades are, by some miracle of God, in the A range. I’m meeting with my professor to discuss internships in a week, and I won a research fellowship that paid for my entire senior year, and then some.
It doesn’t seem real. I shouldn’t be here, but I am. And I owe it all to the people who have helped me through recovery — my wife, my family, my professors. And to myself. I fought like hell to get to a place where I’m staring down graduation at last, where I’m finally on the cusp of claiming the title of MT-BC for myself.
This GLR feels almost poetic. I’m back at a hotel not unlike the one I was assaulted at, but I feel safe. I feel whole. Everything has come full circle, and my dream of becoming a music therapist feels not only within reach, but no longer tainted by the hands that hurt me. I’m not going to let trauma steal the very reason I was put on this planet — to heal through music. I am not too damaged.
On my 30th birthday a few weeks back, dad said something that made me tear up a little. When he briefly died on the operating table after a massive heart attack, he said my then-very-young niece appeared to him and said he couldn’t die yet. But he finally told me the rest of the story.
She said he couldn’t die because he had to see me graduate.
I’m not turning back because this time, it’s personal. I love my dad — and myself — more than I hate my rapist. I’m going to get this degree and this certification in spite of everything. In the words of Motion City Soundtrack, I so wanna get back on track. I’ll do whatever it takes.
Well, today’s the day. I made it to thirty, an age I never imagined being as a kid. Mind you, I imagined being twenty-something and hot, and seventy-something and adorable, but thirty is such a weird in-between age. Too old to be cute in a childlike way, yet too young to be cute in a little old lady way. Thirty isn’t exactly an age you fantasize about being. When you think thirty, you think adult responsibilities and bills and oh God my biological clock is ticking and I still don’t have kids yet and holy shit is that a gray hair?!
…I say as if I’m not going to do something like this when I go gray.
But I’m kind of excited to turn thirty, to be honest. I’ve made my peace with getting older (mostly) and realized there are a lot of aspects of being young I’m ready to leave behind. Like I’ve said before, your twenties are kind of your free trial run of adulthood, your first playthrough on easy mode, where people still give you plenty of grace if you eff it up at first. But at thirty, the training wheels come off. You become a full-fledged person, and while that can be scary, it comes with some perks.
Here’s what I’m ready to leave in my twenties.
1. Irresponsibility
My twenties were marked by frivolous spending. Like, I impulse-bought a boat (which my first boyfriend hilariously predicted I would do someday). And I had to impulse-leave that boat by a dumpster with a “free – take me!” sign taped to it when we moved away from the lake. I rode that boat one magical time with my girlfriend when she came to visit—and never, ever again. That one boat ride basically costed me $500.
There were plenty of other things I impulse bought because it looked so cool in the Instagram advertisement. Like the two exercise machines I barely touched before realizing I can’t work out unless I’m at a gym with no distractions. If there is a couch available to nap on, lizard brain always picks couch. And don’t even get me started on clothes and makeup.
Cody, my financial advisor, gave me a stern talking to earlier. See, when we first starting working with him, he asked me and my wife our “whys” — why do we want to get out of debt and build our savings? My reason was simple. I wanted to start a family someday.
Of course, Cody took one look at my spending habits recently and said something that shook me.
“Do you actually want to start a family? Because you’re spending like your don’t actually want to.”
And it hit me. I haven’t been spending with the future in mind. Every time I buy some bullshit, I’m taking away from my future daughter’s college fund. Every Tim Horton’s donut I buy could have gone toward a new dance uniform for her instead. Or I could have used the money to help start my private music therapy practice, or buy a cute home on a big plot of land. I’m not a huge fan of my old pastor’s theology, but I will admit he had some good adages I still abide by to this day. One thing he’d always say was “What you spend your money on shows what you really care about.” And I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I don’t spend like I love my future daughter. I spend like I love material things more than her.
So I think this kind of frivolous spending is best left in my twenties.
2. Sloppiness
I have to admit, I never saw the point of making my bed. Like, you’re just going to get it all messed up again the next time you sleep, right? And still, nothing feels better than pulling down the sheets of a freshly made bed in preparation for a long night of slumber.
Imagine if we had the attitude I had about making my bed about everything. What if I never brushed my teeth because they’re just going to get gross again next time I eat something? My teeth would end up rotting out of my face! Brushing your teeth is an act of self-care, and so is keeping house.
A book I read recently, How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, invited the reader to reframe daily chores as self-care tasks, rather than a duty that needs to be fulfilled for the sake of being fulfilled. We do these things because we deserve to have a clean, inviting home. We owe it to ourselves.
I recently got into the habit of putting away clothes after I launder them. It sounds like such a little thing to be proud of, but I am. I love walking into my bedroom and being able to make it to my bed without tripping over a pile of leggings. I love how it looks, being able to see the floor again. I feel at home in my home. What a freakin’ concept.
Sometimes, the change is as easy as making sure you have the right tools to clean with. I stocked up on some all-natural cleaners that smell nice and come in pretty bottles, and weirdly enough, that makes me want to do more around the house. It’s all about tricking lizard brain into doing what I want it to do, and turns out lizard brain likes shiny things that smell good.
This guy has an unsettling amount of influence over me.
In your twenties, everyone sucks, so you don’t go to other people’s houses expecting things to be perfectly in place and meticulously cleaned. But once you turn thirty, there’s this expectation that you’ll stop being a goblin and start keeping your home like a person. When I was younger, I’d probably say “Well, expectations are stupid anyways” and go back to living in squalor. But cleaning really is an act of self-care. It’s deciding you’re worthy of having a clean, habitable environment that reflects who you are, and gifting that to yourself.
3. Unhealthy Habits
I wish I remembered most of my twenties, but I spent a good deal of it drunk. Of course.
I didn’t have a drink until I was twenty, and I barely drank until I was legal, but after my 21st birthday, all hell broke loose. With the exception of the time I was briefly married to a very conservative, very Christian guy who’d never touched alcohol in his life, I spent the majority of my twenties with a drink in hand. Life was just hopping from one excuse to get trashed to the next.
I wasted a lot of time being wasted. I thought being intoxicated helped me be more creative, but it actually stifled me. I wasn’t writing or doing much of anything productive while drinking. I’d go to shows my own band was playing and get blackout drunk, looking like a fool at a time when I should have maintained a sense of professionalism.
As of writing, I’ve been sober about a year. Wild, I know. See, I’ve found healthier alternatives to alcohol to fill the hole in my heart. Like, did you know there are companies that make nonalcoholic beer? It tastes exactly the same! And I can be a snob about it — “Oh, just give me the Heineken 0.0”
“I try not to poison my body with that alcoholic shit, thanks.”
Snobbery is a kind of underrated motivator, and one of the reasons behind another life change I want to take into the next phase of my existence. I’ve started working out every weekday morning, no exceptions. This is partially because I have to take my wife to her gym job at the buttcrack of dawn, but it’s a good excuse to get moving. I love being one of those motivational assholes who are like “Ah yes, I get up at 5 am every day to do 45 minutes of cardio before work. It keeps me grounded.”
I’ll admit there are some areas of my life I have yet to earn bragging rights for. Like, my eating habits are still abysmal. But that’s the thing about progress. If you don’t have something you’re constantly working toward, you might as well be on your deathbed. Constantly aiming toward new highs is what keeps you young. And as hard as it is to say goodbye to young adulthood, I know it’s not the end of the journey. I have a good 30 more years at least — and that’s a conservative estimate. If I have my way, I’ll be around twice as long as that.
But even if I do make it to 90, as long as I still have dreams and ambitions and goals, I’ll never truly be “grown up.”
JESSA JOYCE 