Pride is often considered unnecessary as it is believed that discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals is a figment of the past. But Pride is still an essential celebration because the systems that have harmed past generations of queer people continue to remain intact. To this day, many people cannot afford to feel safe within their identity. I feel my heart race whenever I walk past someone while wearing clothes that express who I am but could be judged as too “feminine.” Trans people are still denied the medical care they desire and require to feel at peace with themselves. Lesbian and bisexual women are still subjected to significantly higher rates of violence. Non-binary people are still invalidated and put in harm’s way for making the conscious choice of denying to subscribe to hegemonic gender values. 

The sole purpose of Pride is not about fighting inequality; we are not the victims that others have portrayed us as. The experience of being queer shouldn’t be reduced to the pain that we as a community have experienced. We are incredibly resilient and strong-willed. Queer joy, which is seldom represented in the media, is a symbol of resistance that Pride provides a space for. Being proud and unabashedly queer is a right that we deserve to cherish. 

It’s so easy to feel alone in a battle against the traditional perceptions of gender and sexual identity while forging an identity that feels true to ourselves. There is no other feeling that can amount to being surrounded by people who understand my struggle. Pride is important because it gives people, including me, a place to reflect, find comfort, and have fun without worrying about whether others will criticize their queerness. It gives me so much validation to see queer relationships thrive and younger people awestruck in a crowd of people they can look up to. Still, some will insist that Pride is an unnecessary show of hedonism that society needs to rid itself of. When a simple demonstration of unity allowing queer people to express themselves is considered an unwanted protest, that’s when you know pride parades are very much still necessary.

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“Why don’t you start by introducing yourself to me.”

“Ok! My name is David González, I am Colombian but I moved to Canada six years ago, and I am currently an illustrator and visual artist in Montreal.”

David studies at Concordia, completing a Fine Arts degree with a focus on studio arts. Though the bulk of their practice is based in illustrating for school throughout the year, they also make paper and durational pieces, and their most recent one is called First Love/Late Spring. The piece consists of them writing out the lyrics to Mitski’s song by the same name in black paint onto a giant piece of paper every day for 13 days, covering the sheet completely, and doing it all over again in white. A lot of their art revolves around the concept of queer visibility, in conversation with their conservative Colombian upbringing.

“Growing up in Colombia was really difficult, because it’s generally a really conservative, really religious country, so growing up being completely and utterly gay I couldn’t really find myself there. So when I got here I was like ‘Oh! I don’t have to worry about like literally anything else. I can just make art about being gay for the rest of my life if I want to!’ And that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Early on, David had been making self-portraits as a way to not only develop their art practice, but also as a means of expressing their own gender and sexuality, depicting themselves the way they wanted people to see them. As a result of this, their art has gained a cult following of predominantly queer people on Instagram, who reach out and commission David to draw them the way David draws themself.

“I think the reason I draw so much erotic gay art is because I was so repressed when I was growing up that I didn’t feel like I could, so now that I can, it’s like I’m not gonna do anything else”

– David González

“Being commissioned to draw specific people makes the people in the drawings kind of part of a family, and I get commissioned a lot to draw drag queens as well as trans and genderqueer people, I assume because they are able to see themselves in my art style. It’s really fun and I like to use thick lines, bold colours, and hard-to-miss bright white highlights.” The art David makes is all about being seen, being gay, and standing out. Each piece carries a lot of symbolism, like the constantly recurring symbol of the snake, which David traces back to their upbringing in Colombia.

“Growing up, my grandma always told me snakes are evil – of the devil. Later on I realized that they aren’t evil at all, just kind of misunderstood. The historical depictions of it as being a monster is what really attract me to it, so I started putting snakes everywhere because I felt like, ‘that’s me!’ […] The last piece that I worked on was a series of 13 illustrations based on a book called La vie et ses merveilles, and it’s all cutouts of the book that I redrew. It was all tiny little naked guys, but I made them just fully gay. Then I layered text on top of each piece that said: ‘commit a sin twice and it will not seem to you a sin.’ When I was growing up that was kind of a warning: don’t do this because, if you do, you’ll stop feeling bad about it and you should feel bad if you’re doing these things. But I just switched it to say ‘yeah it doesn’t feel like a sin because it’s not.’”

Using Instagram as a tool for sharing their art and growing their brand, they have been able to play with the concept of gaze and visibility through intertwining pictures of themself with drawings of their following, setting the spotlight on their shared queer experiences in the multitudes of forms they come in. It’s been a way for them to create a community to see and be seen, in a veritable garden of queer identity.

“My art is about my personal experiences and a piece starts as an autobiographical thing always… for example, I did a series where I inserted myself into a bunch of music videos in the places of the characters. I have a strong desire to see myself on paper.” David’s art tells a story of long-awaited openness towards one’s gender and sexuality in an eruption of genuine playfulness and eroticism.

“I think the reason I draw so much erotic gay art is because I was so repressed when I was growing up that I didn’t feel like I could, so now that I can, it’s like I’m not gonna do anything else!”

In the summer, David wakes up, goes for a hike, comes home to draw for three to four hours, then has a coffee and draws for another three to four hours, totaling about seven hours a day illustrating at their desk. “A lot of my art has been about obsession, about repeating the same thing over and over, and how that helps me heal from trauma. I’m not very good at talking about my feelings. I use art to communicate and to heal in the process, so all my art is meditative at the core.”

David goes by the name @hypermasc on all their social media, and we have compiled some of our favourite pieces by them
in the following pages.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post Hard to Miss appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I draw every day. That’s not to say that I draw good things every day. Slowly but surely, my notebooks have filled up with the little bodies, shapes, and lines that fill the drawings you see displayed here.

I like drawing in red, black, and blue, because these colours are strong and vivid. The lines that I make are definitive and smooth. I only draw in pen. I think it makes me a better and more honest artist. This way, when I make a mistake, and I often do, I need to work around the mistake. It forces me to confront the mistake, and be constructive in correcting it. If you look closely at the drawings here, I’m sure you’ll find many mistakes, or maybe you won’t see any at all. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way I want them to. That’s fine. My drawings are the way they are and look the way they do because at some point I messed up and had to alter course. My drawings reflect that process.

Drawing, for me, is unavoidable. It’s a habit more than anything else. I guess you could call it stream of consciousness. I’m self-aware enough to understand that these drawings are essentially layered doodles, but I don’t mind. I know I’m not an artist, I don’t have to be. These drawings represent me, at a point in time, feeling however I was feeling, and in this way, these drawings reflect something true to me.

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It’s late spring when a friend of mine informs me that my former clinician — let’s call him Doctor X — withheld a diagnosis from her when she was his patient. She learns this during a crisis appointment with a different psychiatrist, who flippantly mentions a note on her chart which simply states: “personality disorder, not otherwise specified.” A landmine documented in med school handwriting, still active even after two years of concealment. Unsurprisingly, she responds to this information with a panic attack. She is asked to leave the office, to “return when she has calmed down.”

She submits complaints against the clinicians in question. Despite this, they both remain employed and continue to treat students.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

McGill Psychiatric Services charges a dollar per page when photocopying a patient’s chart, with a maximum charge of $25. My request takes a week to be processed. I pick up the thick white envelope at the reception desk. Debit or credit, no cash.

One of the first documents in my chart is a client evaluation form completed on February 9, 2017. Second semester of my second year. I came in for a crisis appointment. It is stated that I have “recurring nightmares about sexual violence.” It is stated that “[they] think [they were] assaulted.” One header on his page of notes is titled “PTSD(?).” His handwriting is difficult to decipher.

My wait time for a follow-up appointment with a psychiatrist is four to six weeks. Five days later, I am hospitalized for self-mutilation. The notes from my medical consultations in the Psychiatric Emergencies Unit state first that I likely have an “unspecified personality disorder with borderline elements,” and then that “BPD is a probable diagnosis.” These notes are forwarded to Psychiatric Services, and then passed onto my soon-to-be-clinician, Doctor X, for follow-up. During a second crisis appointment on February 27, a psychiatric nurse underscores this, advising my future clinician to “rule out [whether I had] BPD or bipolar-II.”

Borderline personality disorder, or BPD, is estimated to impact 1% of the general population, and 10% of those diagnosed will complete suicide. It is characterized by unstable interpersonal relationships, emotional dysregulation, and a shaky sense of self. BPD has a high rate of heritability, and is prevalent amongst individuals with traumatic childhood experiences, such as neglect, abandonment, and abuse.

I meet with Doctor X the next day. He does not inform me of this diagnosis, though he makes a small, brief note at the bottom of the page following our initial meeting: “BPD.” Antithetically, he states that my primary diagnosis is for generalized anxiety disorder. I express a desire to focus on my PTSD, which he rejects – it is the anxiety, he claims, which is impacting me most significantly. He gives me a script for escitalopram, an antidepressant. He recommends me to a cognitive behavioural therapy specialist.

The first cylindrical plastic bottle of escitalopram costs me four dollars, thanks to my Studentcare coverage. The next two months are a dissociative blur. Despite my consistent complaints vis-à-vis the negative effects of the prescribed medication, Doctor X makes no note of my declining mental state. My dose is increased at whiplash-inducing rates. I am exhausted, paranoid, and emotionally labile. I am manic, irritable, impulsive. I have delusions about the supposed risk of leaving my apartment. I don’t eat, and I relish the feeling of my ribcage under shaky hands. There is less body left for me to drag around half-heartedly. I spend hours in bed, keeping track of the wall moulding’s intricacies. I buy potted plants and let them dry out on my bookshelf. Chipped mugs accumulate on my bedside table. Water glasses. Bobby pins. At any given time, my body feels as though it is five feet away, uninhabited and superfluous. I dream about being violently assaulted and wake up in a cold sweat. The idea of pain — feeling anything again, regardless of how traumatizing — seems marvellous.

Doctor X’s notes of our appointments rarely exceed five two-word-long lines, and tend towards illegibility. The tight, orderly structure of his writing is somewhat pleasing when it doesn’t sting. Briefly, he mentions the “question of bipolarity,” with no further details. He refers to me as “giggly.” He decreases my dose. On April 13, 2017, he quotes me as saying: “my brain is trying to kill me.” This is all that he writes. He increases my dose. Five days later, he reports that I am “fine now.”

I remember that appointment clearly. I don’t remember much of that year, but I remember that appointment, because I cried for ten minutes straight while telling Doctor X about how much I wanted to kill myself. He seemed at a loss, unmoving in the face of my sadness. Our appointments – booked for an hour-long time slot, as they always are at Psychiatric Services — never exceeded ten minutes. I would always cry. He would usher me out at the ten-minute mark. I was not fine.

Less than a week later, I am hospitalized for the second time.

One assessment documents the following: “patient sitting on bed. Appears well groomed, wearing appropriate clothing. Short hair, large glasses. Thin. Multiple fresh cuts on forearms (~30 on left, ~3 on right). Facing window. Increased level of psychomotor activity (running hands through hair, moving fingers). No eye contact. Cooperative but seemed frustrated at having to repeat [their] story… Anxious, labile… Depersonalization: ‘does not know how to make [their] body feel real.’ Good insight.”

And then another: “self-harm with strong BPD traits.” I am described as “help-rejecting,” likely for having stated that I am uncomfortable speaking to a male doctor. “Keep overnight for safety (voluntary).” Nobody offers to clean off my forearms.

The next morning, I wake up to flakes of dried blood on my standard issue sheets. “I believe the main diagnosis is BPD, along with PTSD. Affect is fully reactive. Smiles. Has sense of humour, engages well. Copy of chart to be faxed to McGill.” At this point, they inform me of my personality disorder diagnosis.

I eat breakfast with a plastic fork and knife. Too volatile for real cutlery. A slice of bacon stares at me, dripping grease onto Styrofoam. I don’t eat meat. A med student enters the room as I am changing out of my hospital robe, breasts exposed. “Did the seroquel help you sleep?” he asks.

Given my friend’s experience with Doctor X, I consider receiving my diagnosis during this sojourn at Montreal General to be a godsend. He withheld it from me for two months, but what if I hadn’t been hospitalized a second time? Would I have waited two years? Would I have never been informed of my diagnosis, never been referred to the life-saving practitioners that I’ve been lucky enough, insured enough, unthreatening enough to patronize? The reality of my situation is that suicide was a real possibility, as it is for countless individuals with BPD, especially in the absence of appropriate psychiatric treatment. How do you make sense of personhood after suicidality? I have never known how to picture myself in five years, but I know that I will carry that feeling of constant precarity forever. I was nineteen and I was ready to die. I could have been getting better. I should have been getting better. I repeatedly told Doctor X that his treatment plan was failing me, was hurting me. He didn’t listen. That a clinician could have denied me a chance at recovery should be seen as nothing less than a slap in the face to my autonomy and agency — as a patient, as a person.

I begin to see a new clinician at Psychiatric Services. I am weaned off escitalopram. The withdrawal period is like pulling teeth. I am tired. I am irritable. I look up dialectical behavioural therapy practitioners. I am referred to the Personality Disorders Program at the Allan Memorial Institute. A week and a half passes, and my body has adjusted to life without SSRIs. Doctor X avoids eye contact with me in the lobby of the Brown Building. Sometimes I pass by his office and feel a swelling tide of dread, a visceral urge to vomit.

In September of 2017, I meet with the coordinator of the Personality Disorders Program, let’s call him Doctor Y.

He asks me about my eating habits, and I describe a consistent pattern of restricting my caloric intake. “I am unsure,” I say, “whether this actually counts as anorexia.”

He writes: “never had full anorexia, but keeps [them]self very slim.” My ribcage braces itself against taut skin, jutting through my T-shirt. His office is too cold.

He does not document my disclosures of sexual violence.

He writes: “considers [them]self a Muslim, and carries a bag with a statement against Islamophobia.” He writes: “mental status: tattoos, rings on the nose,” as though these could be meaningful markers of traumatic life experiences or neuroses.

I do not discuss my sex life at length. I mention my bisexuality. I mention being in an open relationship. I mention my minor in gender studies, of all things.

He writes: “very intellectual, justifying problems on ideological basis (e.g. [their] promiscuity, which is somewhat impulsive and desperate, is framed as polyamory).”

I meet seven out of nine criteria for BPD. He tells me that my values and intellect will be the primary barrier to effective treatment. I wonder if he has ever said this to a man.

Borderline personality disorder is stringently gendered. This is, in part, because of differential rates of accessing care — men, on average, seek psychiatric help more infrequently.

However, there are other factors at play. Due to misogynistic perceptions of women’s symptomology, they are three times more likely than men to receive borderline diagnoses. Similarly, many psychiatrists have assumed the existence of a link between gender dysphoria and BPD. Additionally, childhood sexual abuse and violence — both of which are disproportionately experienced by girls and young queer and trans youth — are considered to be potential causal elements in the development of BPD.

Misogyny is the thread which ties together this labyrinthine mess of psychiatric malpractice. I think of Doctor X suggesting that we focus on my anxiety, rather than my PTSD. Did he justify this, perhaps, with the assumption that my rape was neither traumatizing nor serious? I think of every note from a consultation or appointment where my survivorhood is not mentioned. What does it mean that Doctor Y saw a facial piercing, or the shape of my body, or a patch on my backpack as more noteworthy than rape? In “Cartographies of Silence,” the feminist poet Adrienne Rich writes:

[Silence] is a presence

it has a history a form

do not confuse it

with any kind of absence.

Omission is telling. It may let us understand what an author has taken for granted in their creation of a source. Why do we allow practitioners to dismiss rape as a reality in their patient’s lives? Where does that leave survivors?

I ask my new therapist about the rationale behind withholding a BPD diagnosis.

“The only real reason would be the risk of further destabilizing a patient who was already volatile.”Bee Khaleeli

I was asking for help, wasn’t I? I was asking in all of the ways that I could. I wanted medication that worked. I wanted therapy that worked. I wanted a psychiatrist to see my hurt, to say “you have been hurt,” and to act accordingly. In what world could that be read as volatility? I was asking as clearly and loudly as possible, but I was received by clinicians as a dumb, petulant little girl. A hysteric.

“For what it’s worth,” he assures me, “that coordinator at the Allan has terrible reviews on RateMDs.”

This is comforting for a split second, before I remember that McGill is probably still paying Doctor Y six figures a year.

My therapist thinks that writing this article will be a good outlet. We switch topics.

It is late summer now. I refill my prescriptions for sertraline and clonazepam at Jean Coutu. Little yellow capsules, flat white tablets. The pharmacist asks if I am pregnant or breastfeeding. “God, I hope not!” A joke.

Affect is fully reactive. Smiles. Has sense of humour.

My new psychiatrist says that I no longer meet enough diagnostic criteria to qualify for a BPD diagnosis — just “traits.” She weighed me at our first appointment, and immediately referred me to a dietitian for follow-up. I had a BMI of 16.2.

Keeps [them]self very slim.

My psychiatrist assigns me readings. I complete them without fail.

Help-rejecting

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Months later, in the lobby of Psychiatric Services, I ask Doctor X why he withheld my BPD diagnosis.
“I don’t recall doing that.”
I tell him that I saw my chart.
“I don’t recall you ever asking if you had this diagnosis.”

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Adobe Photoshop
Visual based on images from McGill University for the Advancement of Learning Volume II by Stanley Price, Memories and profiles of McGill University by MacKay L. Smith and the McGill Archives.

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