Identity Revisited

I wrote Identity almost 4 years ago. After 4 years much has changed. I discovered what my sexual identity truly was after over 30 years of struggles. I discovered I had severe depression and anxiety disorders. I have come up with a label to describe how I do not fit in with the traditional gender roles. I am not as involved with the geek/nerd culture as I thought I would be, and I am fine with that. I have created a wonderful circle of friends that have become a great support to me. That circle keeps expanding. I left a job, was unemployed for 2 and a half years, and I am now reemployed in a rewarding field I am rediscovering. I am working to move into a new place with a more positive atmosphere.

I am still an Uber-nerd/geek, but my attachment to superheroes in comic book form has lessened to a great degree. I still love them in merchandise, movies, TV and so on. I have worked hard to trim down my Television watching. I felt it got too out of hand. I thought I could plug myself into existing Portland Nerd/Geek community circles and no problem. It did not happen that way and I am glad. I have created a couple of circles of my own. Some are close and some are casual.

I have made lifelong friends in so many people. Even though, I have non-White and non-Christian heritages, and I have various disabilities, due to my Caucasian appearance I have had White privilege. That realization was hard to swallow with my experiences growing up in a Blue Collar family and living in a lower economic neighborhood. I have experienced sizeism, ableism, and classism. However, I can do things that my friends of color cannot. I do not have to worry about certain behaviors in public and how to conduct myself with the authorities. Is this right? No, it is not. It is however how things are. It is my duty as a human being to fight for equality and equal opportunity for all human beings.

I have come to embrace the rich multicultural, multiethnic, and multifaith upbringing I had. I come from a very diverse gene pool. The heritages I know I belong to are English, Ulster Scots (Scots Irish), German, French, Dutch, Swede, Norwegian, Italian, Dane, Middle Eastern Jew, European Jew. Plus through cousins, aunts, and uncles there is Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican, Welsh, North American Indigenous, and Puerto Rican. Knowing my family history there could be Irish, Scots, Spanish, Mexican, African-American, Welsh, Eastern European, and who knows what else. I also grew up near Mexican-American and Japanese-American communities in Southern California. I try to honor the cultures I do not come from, but not to misappropriate anything.

I learned I have severe depression and anxiety disorder. The depression has lessened to a great degree since I became employed again. The anxiety it seems stems from the various traumatic experiences I encountered as a child. Between the many surgeries for 0 to 16, the physical and sexual child abuse, and more recently the domestic abused I suffered, it is no surprise that my fight or flight responses are on the wonky side. I am seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist to get these issues under control