My Masculinities.

Just because a cat has kittens in an oven doesn’t make them biscuits.

-Mainer phrase

I am a biscuit.  Both of my parents are folks from away, but I was born here in Maine, at Pen Bay hospital.  I am now 30 years old, and there are many different factors that have contributed to my identity and masculinity.  It’s worth taking a hard look at myself and asking - why am I the person that I am today?  Taking the feminist lens, I look at my life.

I was born in 1984, and watched a lot of a TV show called Saved by the Bell in the nineties.  The main character was Zack, a handsome, socially adept leading character.  He was always together with his girlfriend Kelly for the most part - the prettiest girl in school.  As a kid I was very positive and optimistic about finding love and having a good experience as I grew older.  I guess, that was at an age when I was without pain and fear.

However, as middle school progressed, things were worse and worse for me.  My illusions about being a teenager were shattered because I was bullied a lot.  Not physically, but emotionally.  I had terrible acne, wore a lot of clothes from goodwill,I was known as the smart kid, and I was the tallest kid in the grade.  Of course, like Zack, I picked the prettiest girl in the school and had a crush on her.  At that age it wasn’t about sex, it was just strong feelings of attraction, the desire for closeness.

Sometimes she was friendly, but the other jocks told her “Russ likes you” and framed it negatively, because, I was obviously less than a man, I was ugly, and socially awkward.  One day I was trying to flirt with her and she was rude to me.  I asked her, “how come you’re mean to me?” and she said, “because they said you like me,” and I said to her, “that doesn’t mean you have to be mean to me.”

In a society where sexual prowess and wit and social finesse are the measures of a man, I didn’t measure up, and I knew it.  It hurt, and the kids at school made sure I knew what I was.  At home I was contending with some far worse stereotyping (see article: A Thief in Maine).  I was miserable at home, miserable at school.  About that time I was 16 years old I tried to kill myself and my parents divorced.  It was a dark time.  But life got better.  I dropped out of school.

That’s not a great thing to promote.  It was important for me to get out of school but not for the reason you think.  I could deal with all the ridicule and anxiety.  I hated school for another reason.  It was just so boring, I grew up in a house full of scientific books and quarterly science journals, and school was no challenge.  Simultaneously I had ADHD, although I have only at age 28 been diagnosed.  Suffice to say, I suffered from severe boredom and inability to learn or concentrate when I was stuck in a chair at a tiny desk. It was torture.  And in all actuality it was the thought of having another eight years of school that drove me to try suicide at age 16.

In today’s society we doubt that ADD and ADHD are actual diseases.  For those of us that suffer one or the other, we know they are real.  Unfortunately there are many people who live with diseases and suffering that are just not acknowledged in society.  I saw a post on Facebook lately that equated ADD with merely daydreaming, and bipolar with merely being emotional.  I have bipolar and ADHD, and I will tell you, each is it’s own special kind of suffering.  I take medication for each condition, but the same things always come up when I mention to people that I have ADHD.  They usually don’t believe it’s an actual disease!

Growing up, through high school, my problems were compounded by the masculinity of the nerd.  I saw myself as a nerd, it gave my identity and anchor that I could find nowhere else.  Acne, smarts, and awkwardness. That was me.  I took pride in my identity, even though I knew it was a subordinate masculinity, although I didn’t have the language back then to express it like I do now.  When I dropped out of school my anchor as a nerd faded away because there was no one to remind me who/what (what part) I was supposed to be playing in the social fabric.  Outside of school, on my own, I was no longer the omega wolf and did not see myself as such.

I had always told myself that I wouldn’t do drugs.  I had participated in DARE, I had seen the anti-drug commercials, “this is your brain on drugs.”  Three months after my suicide attempt I started smoking marijuana and have never stopped.  As a member of the ‘drug users’ group, my own family second guesses me and gives me no credit.  So often, people see you for what stereotype you fit, not who you are (see article: Drug Dealing, Use, and Abuse in Maine (under posts)).

Drug users, as conservative society sees us, are half people.  Many of us as users are imprisoned for a victim-less crime.  Any killings or crime that does result through organized crime exists only because of the war on drugs.  If trading in illegal drugs was no longer profitable because they were legalized, there would be less of a market for those involved in organized crime.  Drug use is largely a social issue, but it’s treated like a criminal one.

As all of this is happening in my life I found another anchor for my identity quite accidentally.  Growing up I had read a lot of Norse and Greek myths, and was fascinated by religion and spirituality.  I picked up a book off my mother’s shelf when I was twelve years old.  The title was “The Magus of Strovolos” by professor Dr. Kyriacos C. Markides of the Anthropology department of the University of Maine.  It was about a mystic called Daskalos who dispensed a lot of wisdom and to my amazement, and I dare say to Kyriacos amazement, Daskalos healed physical ailments.  Daskalos was a christian and up until that point I had had very little respect for Christianity.  And so after studying Daskalos’ teachings and works (he is now deceased, see www.daskalos.org) I became two things.  A mystic, and a christian.

As a mystic I live and see and breathe in a world that is invisible to those around me.  Having divergent experiences that are unexplainable or prophetic only marks me as strange by those that I tell.  I navigate the spiritual world largely on my own.  I remember when I was seventeen, my mother and I were talking on a long road trip.  We talked about a lot of spiritual things, we talked about Daskalos, and she told me how she’d been introduced to it. It was interesting, but it was only a phase for her and she didn’t continue her studies into his material.  She said, “Russ, my one greatest hope is that you find a purpose in life and love it.  What’s your purpose?” and I told her, I said, “Mom, I love spirituality, I love meditating and knowing deep things.” and she responded, “Well, I do hope you find something that you love.  Don’t stop looking.” and it was then that I knew I had taken a lonely path, a path that is not acknowledged by society because it produces nothing visible, it in itself is invisible and intangible.

As a christian, there was a paradox for me.  I didn’t like modern Christianity, in it’s many forms, none of it rang true.  At the same time I saw myself as a Christian, just, a very different Christian than I had ever encountered.  In fact, I told people as a teenager that I was a Buddhist.  It wasn’t because I knew a lot about Buddhism, I knew just enough about Zen Buddhism to approach Christianity from a reasonable and philosophical perspective.  In fact I’m really not into religion.  It’s another paradox.  I’m a christian, mysticism is my true love in life, I am a mystic.. But I don’t like religion.

Modern religion in today’s society is all about excluding the possibilities of the realities of other people’s religions.  Spirituality is less about religion to me and more about human ideals, expression, self awareness, and what is universal for thinking, feeling humans.  Religion can take a walk - spirituality is about the universal truth, not the relative truth.

To be a mystic or a shaman in this society is to belong to a subordinate masculinity.  When such a thing is claimed, there is an immediate doubting of the person’s credibility.  Mysticism: it’s unknown, it’s sort of rejected by science.  I have prophetic experiences, I have talks with the rain and wind - am I crazy?  I know how to commune with nature. No, I know what insanity is.  

I’ve been to the psych ward about ten times now, probably for a total of about 9 months of my life I have been hospitalized.  Being a mystic is not the same as being crazy.  I have bipolar, it’s a condition precipitated by stress, and can cause breaks from reality and disorientation.  I know what crazy is.  I’ve been there, done that.  I’ve been down the rabbit hole and I know what’s down there.

As a mentally ill person I belong  to a subordinate masculinity.  A person having an attack of mental illness or insanity can lose their rights while they’re “crazy” (they can lock you up as long as they want, inject you with whatever drugs the hospital wants to and they will document that it was ‘medically necessary.’).  It’s like being an inmate without a sentence.  You don’t know how long they’re going to keep you.  At a time in your life when you’re the most stressed, you are locked in a unit (which to me is an extremely claustrophobic experience.)

Society looks down on the mentally ill.  When I had my first attack of bipolar at age 19, I was looking up at the stars one evening.  Then the stars said, “you are special and on a special mission,”.  It was an indescribable sensation.  But after hospitalization, diagnoses, and a new regimen of prescription drugs, my self esteem was in tatters.

I’m bipolar. There’s something wrong with my brain.  I’m not allowed to be a member of society unless I am medicated.  For a person like myself who had always seen myself as intelligent, this new experience of mania and then hospitalization was devastating to my self esteem.  For several years I had anxiety, and struggled emotionally with the hand I had been dealt.  To be even more second guessed, like, if you’re angry at your parents they can just write you off to bipolar.

It took many years of therapy for me to come to terms with my emotions.  For a long time I would write up my own thoughts, feelings, and anxieties to being sick.  Pretty soon I felt out of control, and had constant anxiety.  But as the years went by I turned my bipolar into a strength.  I tell myself, maybe it’s my kundalini (spiritual energy at the base of the spine unfurling).  I decided, I am not mentally ill.  I am gifted.  And I get to choose each thought-experience.

Around age 19 i met my girlfriend and moved in with her, and she is now my wife.  Over the years her daughter gave me a hell of an emotional beating.  She would just constantly find mean things to say.  I don’t think any single person in my life, outside of my immediate family, has hurt me as much as she has.  Now, we love each other, we are family, we are allies, but those first few years were hard.

I had no idea how to be a father.  It’s hard to even claim to be a father to a step daughter six years younger than myself.  But I was the male of the family - the patriarch de facto.  And again, I had become the Omega wolf. I took a lot of emotional abuse pretty silently.  Sometimes I would speak up and she would get upset and cry.  It was a really strange situation.  She did everything she could to put down my masculinity, calling me things like “Mr. useless,”.  It was a painful time.  I had built up large muscles from working the farm and cutting trees, but I would sit and play videogames for hours also.  Recently a friend of mine told me she hated videogames.  I said, “oh, that’s ok, I don’t judge you for it.”

I moved into my own place, my wife moved in, and my step daughter had her own place, things got a lot better.  We all love each other a lot now.  We’re all adults.  A part of me still fears her, but, that’s a long time ago now.  I sit by myself quietly now, thinking of all I’m writing, all the stuff I’ve been through.  This quiet moment looking out the window at the pond, writing this.  It’s the greatest gift of all.  I’m isolated, but that’s the way I like it.  In my own quietude, I can find peace.  Sometimes that’s hard to find socially, with so many expectations and stereotypes at work.

When I was nineteen I felt very masculine, I was physically strong, I was smart, I was handsome (so I thought), and confident, and socially adept.  And I wanted to get a big tattoo on my chest.  So I got the needlework done for about 450$ - a big red flower right in the middle of my chest, surrounded by chipped vines.

When i showed my mother, she said, “what are you hiding?” of course, I’m hiding something, or it’s pathological, thanks mom.  It was a tattoo, I’m from the tattoo generation.  The older generations don’t understand, or think we’re irresponsible.  We’re the children of the information age and a tattoo is about information on your body.  With a big flower, I was saying, I’m confident in my masculinity enough to wear this big flower on my chest permanently.  However, many people who see me shirtless in passing must think I am gay.

A lot of guys get skulls, snakes, sharp looking tribal tattoos, dragons.  I got a flower on my chest.  I’m not homophobic.  I like homosexual people as much as I like other people.  I’m not gay - I’ve only ever been heterosexual.  I think at age 19, I didn’t know what feminism was, but, I had declared myself an ally to feminism with the act of getting the tattoo.  Here I am: not afraid to be judged, not afraid that I’m not masculine enough.  It’s beautiful, it’s an expression of my truest feelings.

Long before I got the tattoo I had grown my hair long from ages 16-18.  It was funny, but as soon as my hair was long people started telling me I was a rebel, and my family second guessed me and routed me even more.  It was when I really realized that stereotypes are at work in society, because, in yet another way I had been stereotyped.  Having long hair makes you a drug experimenter and rebel in our society.

It’s interesting to think back and see all the social forces at work in my identity.  The more of these standpoint articles I write, the more stereotypes I see at work in my life.  I’m in so many boxes it drives me crazy sometimes..But they’re not my boxes. They’re other people’s boxes, and I haven’t needed them for many years.  These days, I love myself and have great self esteem, but it’s taken years of meditation and therapy to finally have free air to breathe when it comes to self perception.  What stereotypes played a role in your life?  Looking forward to hearing from you web surfers.  Over and out.

-Russ