“Emotional Bloodletting” (Or, Why This Blog Exists in the First Place)

Why do you blog?

Here’s the short answer: so I don’t lose my freakin’ mind.

The long answer is a bit more complicated.

I started this blog back in 2018 (I think). At the time, I was married to someone I wasn’t truly in love with and stuck in a conservative church that increasingly came to represent everything I didn’t want to stand for. I was still fresh out of college with a journalism degree I knew I was never going to use, but I still had the itch to write something. Anything. So my blog, which at the time was titled “I’m sorry I mean it,” simply became me screaming my displeasure with my current life into the void. “I’m sorry I mean it” was a double meaning — “I’m sorry and I mean it,” and “I’m sorry, but I mean what I’m saying.”

Writing has always been a catharsis for me, though, dating back to elementary school. When I was teased mercilessly and ostracized by nearly everyone, I made up characters to serve as “friends” for me. I didn’t have imaginary friends in the traditional sense of the word — I knew these characters were make-believe — but they were real enough to me to fill a void. My long school days were spent daydreaming about these fictional characters, and eventually, their stories spilled onto paper. I’d hurry up and finish my work for the day, then spend the rest of my time fleshing out these characters in stories I dreamed up, usually inspired by whatever I was into at the time. I had a whole series based around three pets trying to get home and the grand adventures they would go on.

My writing is nothing if not derivative, but it’s cool.

That’s part of why I find it harder to write these days. For the first time, I’m genuinely pretty happy. I don’t have to rely on my inner world to satiate my desire for human interaction. I have two amazing partners, a wildly supportive family, and more friends than I know what to do with. But I still love writing to clear my mind on the bad days. It’s how I handle negative emotions, as evidenced by the everything on this blog. If I couldn’t write about my music therapy journey on here, for example, I probably would have lost my mind. The entire experience was so traumatic, I needed to vent about it somehow. Just the act of hitting “publish” on a blog post gives me a sense of relief. As painful as it is to put these emotions down into words, once it’s over, it’s no longer stuck inside me. In a way, it’s emotional bloodletting.

There are other reasons I write too. I realize I have a unique lived experience as a queer polyamorous Christian woman, and I have a platform where I can tell my side of the story. In a world that’s become increasingly hostile to folks breaking the norm, I feel like my words give a voice to a lot of people who aren’t represented in media. I know this from private messages I’ve received. My blog makes people feel seen, and I love it for that reason. My mom always encouraged me to write about socio-political issues — the pen is mightier than the sword, as she would say.

I *know* I’ve made this joke before, but it bears repeating. It’s what Mom would’ve wanted.

Writing, to me, is my biggest catharsis aside from music, and the two often go hand-in-hand. I’ve written some of my best lyrics as a result of emotional turmoil. “Ladies Don’t Start Fights (But They Can Finish Them)” was written about a feud with a former best friend who betrayed my trust. “Queen” was written during a time when my bipolar swung into a deep depression as a way to lift my own spirits. My newest song, “Fake Nice,” is my way of coping with criticism from my partner’s mother, someone whose opinion of me I valued. If I couldn’t write about the things that bother me, I don’t think I would have made it this far in life.

If you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, I want to personally thank you for being with me through the highs and lows. It hasn’t been an easy few years, and this blog has seen me through some of my worst days. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to read my words and take them to heart. I do this not just for me, but for you, too! This is my way of screaming to the world, “Hey! You’re not alone!” I just want to be a light on someone else’s darkest times. I want people to read this blog and know that they’re in good company, that things will eventually turn out okay with time.

And that’s why I write.

Confessions of a Failed Music Therapist

Some nights are harder than others.

I feel like everyone has their “one that got away,” be it a love interest or a lost friend or missed opportunity. For me, it’s music therapy.

I’ve written extensively on here about my journey through the music therapy program at Eastern Michigan University and the subsequent disaster that was my internship in Fort Wayne. The internship was traumatic in a lot of ways and really disillusioned me to the world of music therapy. It’s still a raw wound, if I’m honest.

Tonight, I broke down. I don’t know what my direction in life is anymore. I found myself excited at the prospect of working in a factory. Just like my dad before me. I know he wanted better for me. He wanted me to get that master’s, get that doctorate, and never have to set foot in a factory. He envisioned an easier life for me. He wanted me to break out of the blue-collar trap my family has been stuck in for generations. He believed in me so hard, he stayed alive to see me graduate.

Now, it’s hard to believe I’ll ever be cut out for anything aside from menial physical labor. I feel like this is my destiny. I’ve perished any dreams of becoming a music therapist, or a professor, or anything else to be honest. I’ll be lucky if I make enough money to have a family of my own someday.

I feel like the title of “failed music therapist” will haunt me forever, like a scarlet letter. I have this vision of me on my death bed, awaiting the end, and some well-intentioned nurse who knows I was a musician in a past life sends in a music therapist to comfort me. But I won’t be comforted. Instead, it’ll rip open the same wound that pains me now. I hate this for me. I don’t want to live with regrets, but I feel like I have no other choice. Music therapy has been ruined forever for me.

I’m tearing up at the gym writing this. That’s where I work now, and while it’s not a glamorous or esteemed position (and the pay is abysmal), there are perks. Just now, one of my regulars snuck up on me to startle me, and we had a good chat. I think talking to me makes her day — she takes care of her dad all day and seems lonely. Maybe that’s the best I can do, just try to bring a little light to wherever I end up working. Maybe someday I’ll bring in my guitar and serenade people as they come in, I don’t know. Maybe music therapy didn’t work out because something else will, and this entire thing will no longer eat at me. Maybe my cover of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” will take off and catapult me to rock stardom, or at least allow me to make enough money from my music to have a decent enough life.

I have nothing left but this reckless optimism that won’t fucking die. And that’s gotta count for something.

Why Jessa? Origins of a Stage Name

Where did your name come from?

I wasn’t always Jessa Joyce.

In fact, I came into this world Jessica Joyce Salisbury, which is a decidedly un-rock star name. Jessica Salisbury is a British schoolteacher.

My dad came up with Jessica, although my mom wanted to name me “Chelsea” or “Ciara,” the latter of which is infinitely cooler than the other two options in my opinion. Can you imagine how powerful I’d be as a Ciara?

But “Ciara” was not in the cards, nor was “Chelsea.” “Jessica” ended up being the winner. Unfortunately, it was the winner for many other girls born in 1993. In fact, it was the number one name for baby girls that year. And I had the honor of sharing my name with two other Jessica S’s in my grade, both of whom were my childhood bullies. The name “Jessica Salisbury” was usually proceeded with “ew.” As in “Ew, Jessica Salisbury? I don’t wanna sit by her. Let’s throw ranch dressing at her!”

(Yeah, my childhood sucked ass at times.)

In middle school, I started thinking of alternatives. “Jessie” was what my parents called me and still call me to this day, but it was too cutesy and reminded me of the cowgirl from the Toy Story films. I tried to get people to call me Sophitia, after the Soul Calibur character, but no one went along with it except my dad (until my mom made him stop).

When I hit high school, I discovered an Australian duo I liked decently enough called The Veronicas, and one of the members went by Jess. I didn’t realize that was an option for me! So I started going by Jess instead. I still go by Jess with family and friends. I guess it’s kind of my “default” name.

But it still didn’t have a rock star quality.

I remember, later on in high school, there was a girl a few grades ahead of me named Jessa. I don’t recall her last name — it was a bunch of consonants smooshed together — but I always thought her first name was really cool. She was cool. She was valedictorian and incredibly pretty and had a great sense of style.

Her name stuck with me until a few years later, when I joined a pop-punk band called Aim Your Arrows. We were semi-famous and even did some touring, and I knew I needed to pick a name for myself that had star quality. The name I picked at the time was Jessa Primrose, taking a surname from a distant ancestor on my mom’s side. But that last name proved to be a little clunky still.

Then I remembered I still had a middle name to work with.

Joyce was my grandma’s first name — I was named for her. Jessa Joyce had an amazing star quality to it, and it honored my late grandma. So when I restarted Wake Up Jamie as a band, I started going by Jessa Joyce.

I don’t mind people calling me Jess still — like I said before, that’s kind of my “everyday person” name. Stefani Germanotta has Lady Gaga, Kayleigh Amstutz has Chappell Roan, and Jess Salisbury has Jessa Joyce. When I perform, I’m Jessa. I almost feel like she’s a separate entity, kind of like how in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yugi turns into Yami Yugi. (Is that how it worked? I haven’t seen Yu-Gi-Oh! since the Cretaceous era.)

Jessa is a confident and commanding rock and roll queen, something I tend to not be in my day-to-day life. Jess is the sweetheart, a total marshmallow. Jessa’s the bad bitch. But they’re both part of who I am. They’re both part of the tapestry that is me, and I’m comfortable with that.

Don’t Shame Me For Not Having Kids (When the Reason I Don’t is You)

If there’s one thing JD Vance is known for, it’s having sex with a couch. If there’s a second thing JD Vance is known for, it’s his “childless cat lady” quote. You know, the one where he said this:

“It’s just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Despite being, among other things, now incorrect (shout out Mayor Pete, who has two children), the quote incited fury from many, including followers of the #1 childless cat lady in the world, Taylor Swift.

I have to admit I felt quite a few emotions at this remark before settling on “wow, what a weird fuckin’ take.” I was angered at first — I don’t want to be defined by my ability to birth children. Women have fought for centuries to be more than incubators for men to use. I’m not going to take Mr. Couch trying to turn back the clocks on feminism laying down. Then, a kind of sadness. I really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things if I never reproduce. I’ll die and be forgotten, and then my existential OCD took over and that’s never a good time for anyone. But then I really thought about it. I do want kids, but I can’t have them. And a lot of my generation feels the same way. And why, you ask?

Because parenthood is a damn near impossible dream as a millennial.

Think about the costs of diapers alone. The vast majority of millennials are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford that kind of luxury. Add on things like an extra mouth to feed and clothing and medical bills for even bringing the kid into the world and over 18 years you will have spent $375,000. And trust me, millennials aren’t shirking parenthood because they’re child-hating monsters. Many of us want families, but literally can’t afford it. A survey found that only 25 percent of us want kids, and the biggest reason why a lot of us don’t is because it is too damn expensive.

What Couch Man doesn’t realize is that parenthood isn’t in the cards for a lot of us because of people like him in power. Think of which side is fighting to take away school lunches and rallies against universal health care, which would greatly alleviate the cost of having a child. And Democrats aren’t innocent either, having done little to alleviate things like inflation. Keep in mind, the minimum wage you’d now need to survive (at least where I live) is $19.17, and the Michigan minimum wage is $10.33. Where is Gretchen Whitmer when we need her?

I desperately want children. As I write this, a couple of kids are playing on the beach, innocent and carefree. I hope someday I get to have a few of my own to lovingly raise and teach everything I know to. But the main roadblock to that dream is the fact that I’m barely getting by with my three jobs. Don’t shame me for not having children when that privilege was taken away from me — and from so many of my peers.

Addicted to Outrage: A Rant About Journalism and Social Media (That Needs to Be Said)

Fun fact: I was a journalism major. I have the degree, actually! Did I ever do anything with it? Not particularly, save for a few human interest pieces for local papers. It was a largely useless degree, a $60000 piece of paper. But I know way more than anyone needs to about the news and how it works. And sometimes, just for funsies, I put my journalist hat back on and study the field again. You know, for the lulz.

Which led me to a book on political journalism by notable reporter and former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi called Hate, Inc.

It goes in depth about the way modern journalism has devolved back into the party press era in recent years, with news outlets turning into cheerleading platforms for their preferred political party. And no small part of this “cheerleading” involves turning Americans against each other, right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal/leftist, red vs. blue. We don’t have a common enemy anymore — the enemy is our Trump-supporting neighbor or the left-leaning lesbians down the street, depending on which news site you’ve sold your soul to.

There is a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with politics.

It’s all sweet, sweet cash.

You see, according to Taibbi, news outlets sell a product. Why else would Fox and MSNBC run commercials? We’re being sold at the expense of peace of mind, constantly being told that the “other side” is out to get us. Outrage is addictive, and it’s good for business. If the news can find a boogieman for us to hate, we’ll be invested, more so than if the news ran stories on all the good stuff happening in the world. Hate is simply more profitable.

Taibbi didn’t go very far into social media, but that’s a factor in this too. Look at statuses like this:

No sane person would write this incoherent dribble. But it presses the right buttons. People who are scared of immigration are going to read this and type “amen” or “nailed it,” and people who support awful things (like other people coming to the US for a better life) will rage-share it. I know, I’m guilty of this too. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on. We are all guilty. And the person who articulated this nonsense will go on to get views and engagement, which, in the social media world, is king. Who cares if any of it actually makes sense?

We need to be more vigilant about what we share and who we share from, because we’re becoming addicted to hate. You experience a little adrenaline rush every time someone says something that pisses you off, and just like watching a scary movie, you get that thrill. Then, you start to feel self-righteous. “I’m better than these people, because these people believe this.” This line of thinking gives you the worst kind of power trip.

Friends, remember that your fellow Americans are just people. Yes, even the ones you disagree with. If we’re going to have a peaceful transition of power this election season, we’re going to need to relearn that as a society. Trans people are not the enemy. Childless cat ladies are not the enemy. Hell, Trumpers aren’t the enemy. The enemy is our hatred, and if we let it fester, we’re in for a terrible time. Just shut off the news and Facebook. You’ll be a better person for it.

Why It’s Hard to Put My Work Out There

When I was in high school, I dreamed up these characters I’ve kept with me for almost 15 years. They were colorful characters inspired by guys and girls in local bands I looked up to, each one with their own unique backstory. There was Alex, the sort of fish-out-of-water heir to a tire company. There was Charlie, the Moog synthesizer-playing cheerleader with a ostomy bag. There was Kit, a Lebanese emo teen who was basically three mental illnesses dressed up in skinny jeans. And so many more who became good friends to me this past decade.

As of writing this blog post, I’ve finally written the second arc of the story. And it feels good, like I’m finally accomplishing something. But in a way, it feels almost empty.

What’s the use of writing a story if no one reads it?

I’ll admit I’m not the best at self-promotion. If I was, I’d probably be a much bigger writer and musician. I’d say I don’t know how to put myself out there, but I think it runs deeper than that. I’m scared of putting myself and my work out there, because doing that opens up room for judgement, and I don’t handle that well.

The only time I dealt with massive amounts of hate online, it was from right-wing asshats who hate me for being queer, which fucking sucks. But I feel like if someone hated me for my work, as opposed to who I am as a person, that honestly feels worse. I can’t change who I am — that’s a problem with the haters. But to hate the things I lovingly created, that I put time and heart into, that really stings. A lot.

But that’s the price of fame, right? I want people to fall in love with my characters and become as invested in the story as me. If I want my story to get “out there” and gain a following, I’m going to have to be vulnerable, as difficult as that may be. I don’t want my story to be forgotten to time.

I may never be the next great creator, but I want to make a name for myself.

The Shot Heard Around the World

I’m sure everyone and their cat knows the news by now.

The most iconic thing to happen to an ear since Mike Tyson.

I’m not a fan of Trump, and at the rate he’s going, I’ll likely never be. He’s done far too much to further marginalize people like me and my friends. He literally made hate great again, after so much progress had been made for women, LBGTQ folks, and people of color. He and his followers have literally tried taking us back to the 1950s in terms of rights and freedoms. I wish nothing but the worst for him in all aspects of life for what he’s done to this country and society as a whole.

That being said, I don’t want him to die.

I consider myself something of a pacifist. I’m not an advocate of violence except in cases of self-defense. Violence only begets more violence, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of with this recent attempt on Trump’s life. Conservatives are already blaming the left for this attack (despite the shooter being a registered Republican), and they did not need more reasons to dehumanize us. They’ve already been pushing the “groomer” rhetoric in relation to queer folks because framing us as pedos would allow them to hurt us with no remorse. People are more inclined to hurt others when they view them as subhuman, and framing the left as these wildly violent lunatics would put an enormous target on all of our backs.

I tend to think about the saying “live by the sword, die by the sword” in this situation. Trump has been promoting violent rhetoric, so it’s only karmic that political violence is directed toward him. At the same time, I don’t think we should be trying to kill him. We need to show that we’re bigger than that, that we are the party of love and peace. What’s important right now is winning votes while we still have a vote. If we fumble this, we might not have that option soon.

Don’t get me wrong — I will not cry when Trump ultimately kicks the bucket, and I’m not above pissing on his grave when he does. But trying to take his life will not do us any favors. His ideas have grown beyond him like a deadly mold.

I’m not going to lie; I’m terrified for November. I’ve never been so uncertain of my future. I don’t even know if I’ll ever get to have a family. This shooting made already shaky ground even more unstable. The fact that Trump survived allows people to lionize him, and I suspect his followers will become further emboldened. Will my future children even know a free America, or will we fall to fascism? Everything feels so up in the air, and I want to believe we’ll vote this evil out of office for good, but I have a bad feeling things are going to get worse.

American Culture is For Everybody (Not Just the Straights!)

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a hillbilly. My family migrated from the hollers of Kentucky to work in the factories in Michigan, and they brought with them a culture I still really love. I grew up with Sunday family dinners complete with food cooked in literal tubs of lard. (I know because my grandma would keep her empty lard tubs in the garage when I was growing up.) My uncle was a racecar driver, and I have fond memories of going to the local speedway to watch him along with the bus races every September. Trust me, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen ten school buses going full speed in a figure 8. I listened to exclusively country music until I was about seven and discovered Bon Jovi. I remember going muddin’ with my neighbor and fishin’ with my dad as a kid. My wife’s from the bougie suburbs north of Detroit, so when I tell her about these things, she looks at me like I’m speaking Greek. But that culture was a huge part of my childhood.

Fish love me, women fear me, or something like that.

As I write this, I’m getting ready to take aforementioned wife to a racetrack for the first time in her life. It’s for the Fourth of July; they’re going to be lighting off fireworks at the end of the night. It should be a fun night, and I’m excited to show her part of what made my childhood special. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’ll be surrounded by MAGA hats and people who would want us dead if they knew we were together. It’s an unfair assumption to make, especially since racecar driving has been historically very “woke” and NASCAR is actually a pretty vocal ally to this day. Still, I’m not oblivious. I know the kinds of people these events attract, and…

They look like me. They look like my family.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being forced to choose between the culture I grew up in and living as a queer woman. I’m sure I’m not the first person to feel this way, but it’s jarring for sure, especially when you’ve been in straight-passing relationships for most of your life. Suddenly, your very existence is political, and it’s weird and uncomfortable. People who don’t care about you are making laws about you and you have to actually start caring about who gets voted into office. I’m very blessed that my family tends to lean progressive politically, but I still feel like I can’t engage in parts of my family’s culture without feeling “othered.”

I wish we could enjoy these little pieces of American culture without that weird feeling. After all, we’re all Americans, even the people the right-wing media say are not. Remember all the “This is my pride flag!” posts last month flaunting the American flag, as if the two can’t co-exist?

Shared by a “friend” of mine. Need I say more?

Hillbilly culture, and American culture as a whole, shouldn’t be restricted to only straight, cisgender folks. This land is my land, too, and we’re just as American as the flag-flaunting MAGA hat-wearers. (I’d argue we’re more American, as we didn’t try to, ya know, overthrow the government.) Don’t let stupid memes and conservative media convince you otherwise. My culture is mine. My heritage is mine. My country is mine. And I’m done letting people take that from me.

My Strange Addiction: Watching People Suck

Oh hey, a prompt.

How do you waste the most time every day?

I have a confession: I’m fascinated by the worst people. It’s probably detrimental to my mental health, but I often find myself looking in the comments section of absolute cesspools on the internet for hours on end.

In my more naive years, I’d often debate people like this. I’d craft some well-written argument about how yes, trans folks are valid, gay folks should have a right to be with who they please, and black folks should, ya know, exist. This is usually followed by guys with profile pictures that look like a frostbitten toe laugh reacting the post to hell. I’ve since stopped because it’s no use arguing with people who look like this:

Apologies to this man for using him as an example but like, do better bro.

I consider it a matter of knowing my enemy. I want to know what these asshats’ talking points are so I can watch for signs of that shit in everyday conversation. The second someone brings up TERF rhetoric or starts talking about how we need a “straight white pride” month, I know to run in the opposite direction as fast as humanly possible. But also, it’s just kind of fascinating to me. Like, what leads a person to that level of hate? What makes one devolve into posting bullshit like this?

Ahh yes, the worst thing a woman can be, the mother to a biracial child.

It costs zero dollars to not suck. Imagine if people just minded their own business and didn’t brigade random people’s posts because they shared a picture of a queer person having fun? The other day, I had to put one of my own posts on private because it kept getting shared to hate groups. Like, why though? What are people getting out of this? I wasn’t even that mad — haters make me famous and all that — but the notifications were annoying as hell, and I was tired of seeing Greg’s thumb-looking ass popping up on my feed every few minutes.

I guess to me, it’s a reminder of what I fight for everyday. I use my platform on here to humanize the queer experience. I realize a lot of these folks have probably never met someone who isn’t exactly like them. I was similar when I first went off to university. I repeated the whole “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” BS because my high school friends would say it — God knows I’d never admit to being bisexual in front of them. But a funny thing happened when I moved to my college town. I met other queer folks and even came to terms with my own queerness, and I changed. But these people have never left their hometowns. They’re in a white, cishet circle-jerk forever, and it’s actually pretty sad. There’s a lot of beauty in human diversity and the way we connect with one another. We’re just people, and we want to live and love too.

Imagine seeing something this precious and being like “wow, I hope they all die.”

I should probably cut back on my “patrolling” these ugly spaces though. Even reporting doesn’t do any good — the comments never get taken down (thanks, Zucc!). Maybe I should look more toward the beautiful things in life and focus my energies there instead. Even the Bible says so:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

-Philippians 4:8

Hmm, maybe the Good Book is onto something.

The Healing Power of Girl Power

This past weekend, my beautiful partner and I attended a “sleepover” hosted by a South Bend-based company that puts on little dances and other fun events. No one actually slept over, but it was structured to give the feeling of a real teenage sleepover, only for adult women. The company rented out a huge fancy-ass Airbnb for the shindig, and we all piled into the enormous living room for typical slumber party activities. It was silly. It was fun. But most of all, it was strangely healing.

I didn’t grow up with a lot of friends. I had one friend, Shanna, who didn’t go to school with me. Otherwise, I was completely on my own. I remember watching the other girls do those handclap things that little girls do with each other on the bus and wishing I had someone to do them with. I’d replicate the motions with the seat back in front of me and pretend it was another girl. I never got to do the “steal mom’s makeup and do each other’s faces” thing. I remember eating lunch in the library because sitting next to ugly awkward Jessica Salisbury was a social death sentence (and also to avoid being pelted with ranch dressing packets). Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of female friends to live out youthful rites of passage with.

Things got a little better with my friend Chelsea in middle school, but even then, I was still largely the pariah. I didn’t get invited to things. I was last to be picked for, well, anything. In high school, I went to a few sleepovers, only to get my underwear frozen in a block of water. I was the butt monkey of my “friend” group, usually only brought around to make fun of. My friendships with other girls tended to be toxic and life-sucking.

So being surrounded by positive feminine energy at this silly little slumber party event was, somehow, a way for me to process my unresolved bitter feelings about girlhood. I wasn’t the only one — my partner, being trans, was socialized as a boy, so she never got to experience the magic of sleepovers with other girls either. Toward the end of the night, we held each other and cried happy tears, both having reconciled with parts of our childhoods and teenhoods we missed out on.

Including our friends doodling on our faces while we slept.

There’s something magical about coming together with a group of other like-minded girls and living your best lives together. We humans are meant to be in relationship with one another — no man (or woman) is an island. Connecting with each other is such a healing experience, especially after you’ve experienced the trauma that comes with bullying and ostracism. I wish I could tell little-me that she’d find her people eventually, and that the pain doesn’t last forever.