what the fuck is this blog for anyway?
on being ugly and being seen.
My skin is on fire. I scratch in my sleep, I scratch til I bleed. My fingernails are clipped short to mitigate the damage; it helps but not much. Red splotches cover my arms, paint my neck like a Pollock. Pus oozes out the backs of my fingers, it dries and forms a scaly crust. My lips are swollen, my eyelids are swollen, I am ugly once again and cannot be seen. But I must be seen.
A couple weeks ago, at the substack party, I met a professional dominatrix. I asked her why she liked it and she said it’s the only job that’s ever accommodated her bipolar nature. She told me she keeps a journal of all the crazy shit she’s witnessed, that if she posted it online, it would do numbers. But she has no desire to share (even anonymously). It’s for her and her alone.
I could not relate in the slightest. I’m perpetually concerned with how my writing is perceived, desperate to share with anyone, everyone, my deepest shame and darkest desires. I overshare — you guys know this. It’s likely due to some combination of deep insecurity and the misguided belief that publicly exposing these parts of myself somehow validates them, makes them okay. I only exist when I am seen.
But for the past week, I’ve been bedridden, and I have not written a word. I cannot stop scratching. I cannot stop bleeding. I look like hell and I feel even worse.
What the fuck is the point of this blog, anyway?
A series of journal entries to keep track of my life, perhaps. But then why the compulsion to share? Why not just… keep it to myself?
An effort to organize my mind, in theory.1 A singer trains her voice by targeting vocal breaks — the gaps between vocal registers; likewise, the writer prods at gaps in his thinking, chases cognitive dissonance, and so strengthens his mind.
A hobby, a passion, artistic expression, a need to be seen, seen a certain way: look at me! I’m broken! Look at me! I’m ugly! I share the ugliest parts of me because, like a teenager who deliberately fails his classes, it takes effort to be liked, effort to be beautiful, and it’s easier, more comfortable, more habitual, to just give up and remain ugly.
But I must be seen.
I am on my way to the dermatologists. Same place I’ve been going for years. Same place I found before I even moved to the city; moved here knowing it would be my clinic, found it on google maps and thought, thank god it’s close by.
My condition is chronic, but treatable. I am to receive an injection into the flesh of my leg, an antibody targeting IL-23, the signaling protein responsible for my specific path of inflammation. I will receive this injection bimonthly, for the rest of my life — a small price to pay.
I’m blessed, actually, to exist in the modern age — in the 18th century, I would have been (mis)diagnosed a leper and excommunicated. The Ancient Greeks would have applied to my skin a healing salve of goose fat and human semen. Medieval medics would have opted, instead, for a topical blend of goat blood, vinegar, and wolf feces.
Yeah, no thank you, doctor. I think I’d rather suffer.
Didion: “to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”