You don’t know the smell of hand-me-down clothes, worn in and half a decade off-trend. They come in large plastic bags from older cousins, and we sit cross-legged sorting through them like it’s Christmas morning. Press them to your face, close your eyes, and you can tell which house they came from.

The harmonizing of five bodies breathing (or snoring) in the same room, some high, some deep, all rising and falling—their physical presence wraps around you like a blanket.

All the furniture in the house is painfully mismatched—some of it’s from the Salvos, or the side of the road, or a family friend. Combined with the clatter of differently sized knives, forks, plates, bowls and glasses, the house looks nothing like the ones in Better Homes and Gardens, but there’s something personal and loveable to be found in the mismatched details.  

As kids, we’d hang on the end of the shopping cart working numbers, running a mental total of today’s groceries, and another comparing which brand is better value per kilogram (it’s usually still the Homebrand, even if name brands are on special).

The driveway is dirt, or a cement slab, cracked with age and bulging under the pressure of thick tree roots. It’s adorned with chalk, or fingerpainted with water that evaporates in seconds under the summer heat.

You don’t know what it’s like to unwrap your food inside your backpack at recess, ashamed to show the Homebrand or Reject Shop packaging while your friends trade LCM bars and chocolate custard tubs (you’re starting to realize you’re different).

You don’t know what it’s like to crouch in front of the electric heater in the morning before school, pressed between your siblings (the house is always freezing in the morning). The way the linoleum peels at the edges of the room, the war against vermin, and the damp which creeps in.

The hoarding instinct. It’s woven deep into the tissues of your fingers, tying itself to junk you swear you might need one day. Mum calls it “The War Sickness,” inherited from our grandparents. It’s hard to out-grow.

You’ve never smiled and tried to swallow the jealousy at friends who show off their new Nintendo DS. (you didn’t ask Mum and Dad for one because you know the answer). Your friends sit in a circle playing for hours, and you pretend not to be watching over their shoulder.

You don’t know the fear of mufti days at school, when there isn’t anything nice to wear. Primary school children circle like sharks, “didn’t you wear that last time?”

You don’t know the indescribable delight of building toys out of rubbish and household items, and the way resourcefulness comes so easily to you.

You’ve never hand written your tech report, when everyone else’s is typed, or spent hours at the library computers next to the same greasy man (Murray) who’s always scrolling through soft porn.  

It’s a strange shift in awareness when you stop inviting friends over. You’re ashamed that your family is barely scraping by, and just starting to realize what poverty is. You have to choose between a birthday party or a present this year.

You’ve never been dragged along to a crisis organisation to get a box of food. You’ve never sat with your Mum as she cries because she could be homeless soon. Even though we don’t really understand, all of our foreheads wrinkle up and we cry too.

In many ways we were thrust into adulthood too young. Getting a job in fast food at the minimum legal age. The constant anxiety of our card declining at the checkout (even though we just checked the balance twice). The thousands of little class distinctions that we became acutely aware of.

You’ve never seen the pain in your parents’ eyes when they softly tell you “we can’t afford it,” or felt guilt in your own heart for asking. I didn’t realise until I became an adult myself. Of how little I actually felt the burden of poverty compared to them. In spite of how little money we had to spare, they gave us absolutely everything they could.

The post Things Rich People Don’t Understand appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

It seems the state of waking up at the same time each morning and getting the same number of hours each night is today considered something of a barometer for healthy sleep. Picture this smug model citizen – always refreshed at seven every morning, cheerfully sipping his mug of hot water with a lemon wedge. Does your mental image feature seven hits of the snooze button and bleary-eyed bargaining for a reason to call in sick, or eyes puffy from lying awake worrying for nearly three hours the night before? Not likely.

Few of us boast an exemplary sleeping pattern. But for those who suffer mental health issues, shaking the bed bugs that come pre-packaged as psychosomatic symptoms can seem utterly impossible. The result is a toxic relationship between you and your bed — and, potentially, between you and leaving the house.  

Take generalised anxiety, for instance. Now, it has its perks — when you’re always up at least half an hour before you ought to be, you’re always ready at least ten minutes before you actually need to leave the house. When you’re always ready at least ten minutes before you actually need to leave the house, you can use that extra time to indulge in some of life’s simple pleasures, like compulsively checking TripView and pacing in front of the door with your keys tightly in hand. Take a deep breath, and another one, and another one. Keep going until you need to do it into a paper bag. Then leave early even though the bus stop is barely sixteen paces from the door.

The anxious part of my brain is trying her best. Perhaps her methods are a little extreme — telling me I’ll fail my classes and alienate friends if I don’t do as I’m told – but in her defence, she gets me out of bed in the morning. Indeed, personifying her as a well-meaning voice in my ear rather than a debilitating illness helps no one.  But when you’ve also endured days on end without changing out of your pyjamas, alternating only between scrolling mindlessly through the newsfeed and staring at the ceiling above your bed, it’s hard not to be a little relieved to feel something other than fatigue – even if that something is apprehension. Better to fear things will get worse than to be adamant they’ll never get better.

In depression, sleep disturbance is almost universal. Excessive sleep, while less common than insomnia, is a coping mechanism to which many sufferers resort. It can manifest as an avoidance behaviour or simply as the product of perennially poor energy levels. On a bad day, a marathon sleep-in is my escape route of choice. I dip in and out of consciousness for hours with a sore neck and the covers pulled up over my eyes. Then, as if by magic, half of the day has already disappeared by the time I’m forced to yield to a full bladder and the nagging white daylight soaking the walls of my bedroom.

I’ve long been forced to plan my uni timetables accordingly — no tutorials before midday under any circumstances. I throw my head back and laugh at email bulletins sent out by subject coordinators insisting that all students attend the 9:00 am lectures. I was as surprised as anyone else that I managed to work a job in a bakery last year where I’d wake up at 5:45 am to make my morning shifts. Yet, my ability to jump so readily out of bed during this time wasn’t exactly a bright-eyed sign of recovery. My neuroses had simply left an imprint so deep in my brain that I’d wake up ten minutes before my alarm went off every Saturday without fail.

Maybe the smug model citizen rising early for his yoga routine needn’t be ushered out of bed by the nag of his anxieties, nor does he have to bribe himself up with the promise of a nice breakfast or the thought of catching up on his favourite podcast on the train ride in. But for those of us who suffer from multiple mental illnesses, navigating the disturbances in our sleep can be a particularly thorny operation. The good news? It’s been well-documented that when either the mental illness or the sleep disorder is treated, the other is likely to improve. Right now, you have every right to view every morning’s passage to the front door as a small victory.

The post How To Break Up With Your Bed appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

CW: suicide, homophobia, mental illness

Breaking up with God is a lot like breaking up with your significant other. Only it’s about a hundred times worse.

Much like a normal breakup, you lose contact with their friends, some of whom you liked, some of whom you definitely did not like. After spending time getting to know each other and learning the intimate and private details of one another’s lives, you transition into no longer talking or hanging out. After time passes, you might think of them every now and again, sometimes in spite, and sometimes fondly. Only instead of an ex-girlfriend, it’s an immortal, omnipotent God.

I went to church every Sunday until I was 19. Growing up, I was often there several times a week, attending youth group, bible study, and helping out at kid’s church. 12-year-old, legging under skirts wearing me, was adamant on becoming a pastor and going around the world on missionary trips. Sometimes, I imagine the look of horror she might have on her face if she discovered that 21-year-old me is a buzz-cut, potty-mouthed, super gay proponent of the separation of church and state. Not even her side-swept bangs would mask the revulsion.

Despite a dutiful upbringing coloured by communion, praise and worship, bible studies, and prayer, I found myself stuck in the plot holes of God’s overarching metanarrative. Like many, I wondered why a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing allow injustices such as poverty and war. My mother, a graduate in theology and avid Christian told me that this was a product of man’s selfishness. She told me that although God had the capacity to help people, he would not overstep their self-autonomy, and that any indecency and injustice that may exist is a manifestation of man’s sin, or the devil’s attempt to thwart our quest for holiness and purity.

This process of reflection and doubt intensified when I fell into a depressive episode at 16. The touch of a holy love, one which is all-encompassing, one which melts away all anxieties, was in complete and utter absence. After confessing this, I was told this was simply because I was not committed enough in my faith. In a strange, almost neoliberal sense, I was told that happiness, prosperity, and fulfillment would come only if I prayed hard enough and entrusted all my faith in God. And for some time, I tried this. I sought the help of church leaders, I read the bible more, I prayed before bed and when I woke in the morning.

It didn’t work.

Instead, in July of 2014, I found myself in a hospital bed, having just attempted suicide. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. I didn’t hear the still, small whisper of God’s confession of love when I overdosed. Just the sound of my thoughts, and a man throwing up in the bed across from mine in the emergency room.

A lot changed in the four years since. I started going to university. I came out. I started dating. I fell in love (with a woman, at that). And amongst this, I left the church and ended my relationship with God.

In this separation, I began to see how organised religion had the potential to morph into a toxic environment permeated by guilt and judgement, instead of understanding and empathy. Four years on, I still find myself feeling guilty for being queer, and feeling sinful for immersing myself in a queer community. In therapy, I talk about my ardent fear of death and more potently, the uncertainty of where I would end up in the afterlife.

But this gravity of guilt was also paired with a newfound desire to define myself outside of the parameters of religion. In place of the bible, I baptized myself in readings of feminist literature and social justice. I became more involved in the queer community and I started branching out and meeting new people. The bubble which I had grown up in, confided in, and taken comfort in, had finally burst.

Yet it is not without a sense of nostalgia and loss. The sense of community and care (in exclusion of its tendency for gossip and judgement) was an important foundation for my early adolescence. Despite my experience, I still understand and support the existence of religion in a democratic society. For many, and perhaps still for me, it is a manifestation of our desire for love and hope inside a seemingly indifferent cosmos.

The post Breaking Up With God appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

CW: sexual harassment, physical assault

I’m at Coles in Wattle Grove with my aunt, picking up ice-cream when I run into him. It’s a Sunday afternoon in the middle of September. The forecast had sworn a max of 29°C, but I’m in shorts and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and they’re soaked in sweat.

It’s supposed to be a quick trip. In and out, ten minutes max, but my aunt tells me to buy some snacks, so I stick close to her as she peruses the junk aisle.

I hear him before I see him.

“Hey sweetheart!” His voice isn’t familiar, but I know it’s him. I’d know that leering tone anywhere. “You like your tattoos, huh?”

I pretend I don’t hear him, eyes focused on a bag of chips I have no interest in buying. He comes around in an orange collared shirt and khaki shorts, blocking me from moving further up the aisle.

“Yep,” I say, turning away, hoping that will end the conversation.

“I’ve got tattoos too,” he says, rolling up his sleeve. I didn’t ask him if he did, and even if I did, I wouldn’t ask to see them.

“Okay,” I reply, averting my eyes.

“Where did you get them done?” he asks.

“The UK,” I reply, looking to my aunt. She’s skinny and a lot shorter than me. It’s different, going out with her, than going out with my brother who’s a bodybuilder, or my father who’s two heads taller.

“Is that where you’re from?” he asks. “The UK?”

“Sure,” I say, taking two steps back.

“How long have you been in Australia for?” he says, taking two steps forward. “Do you live here now?”

I regret not putting on sweatpants before leaving the house. It’d be stiflingly hot, but it’d be worth it to spare myself this interaction.

“If it’s okay,” I say, glancing at the ice-cream in the basket. “I’m actually in a bit of a hurry.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he says, looking me up and down once more. His gaze lingers on my thighs. “No worries.”

I leave the aisle with my aunt, eager to get out of the supermarket as fast as possible. In Cantonese, she asks me if he’s a friend, if I know him from somewhere.

“No,” I reply. “I don’t.”

But I’ve met him before, and I’ll meet him again.

…

Sometimes I think of wearing a sign around my neck that says ‘closed’, so he knows I’m not open for conversation. There are stores online that sell shirts with ‘don’t talk to me’ printed across them in bold lettering; I could easily buy one, wear it everywhere I go.

But knowing him, he’d see it as a challenge.

So, I pull on my headphones before I leave the house, white and bulky, impossible to miss. I don’t play any music while I walk, because I want to hear him approach.

I still hear him, whistling and calling my name: sweetie, sweetheart, darling, baby, love. If I avert my eyes, I can pretend I don’t see him. I can pretend the headphones I wear drown out the sound.

…

One afternoon, I’m sitting with friends in the courtyard of World Square, trying to figure out where we want to eat before we head to the cinema. He sits on the bench, sidled up close to me, uninvited and unwelcome.

“I had to let you know, I really like your style,” he says. His hand comes up to my shoulder and I recoil immediately.

“Please don’t touch me,” I say, loud and firm. It draws the attention of other people nearby.

He’s more sensitive than usual. “I didn’t touch you!” he shouts, jumping up. His nostrils flare, eyes bulging from his face. “I was giving you a compliment. No need to be a nasty bitch about it.”

I watch him stomp down the steps, muttering to himself. It’s not until he’s out of sight that I realise I’ve been holding my breath.

“Sorry about that,” I say to my friends. “What were we talking about?”

…

When I’m frustrated and tired, I’ll complain to my friends about him. Most of them have met him too – know firsthand what he’s capable of.

But some of them don’t see him as a threat, or even a bother. Some people think he’s a charmer, a friendly Casanova who has taken it upon himself to brighten the world, one “hey, nice ass!” at a time.

I suppose maybe they have a point. Without him, how would we remember to smile? How would we know we’re beautiful, and sexy, and fuckable? Without him, how would I know I’ve got lickable thighs and cute little titties he’d love to cream on?

“It’s a compliment,” they tell me. “Just ignore him if you don’t like it. What’s the big deal?”

…

He hits me, once.

At the time, I’m living in southwest London, about a fifteen minute walk from East Croydon station. It’s late, gone midnight. I’d taken the last train back after a night out with friends.

I’d taken the same train before, walked this same route more times than I can count. He calls out to me, from across the road. My response is reflexive, drilled into me so many times it’s automatic. Just ignore him. Just ignore him. I speed up my pace, duck my head, avoid eye contact.

He thinks I don’t hear him, so he crosses the street.

“Hey, I have a present for you,” he says, digging around a cardboard gift bag.

“No thank you,” I reply, hoping he won’t follow me home.

He punches me, in the right side of my head. Out of nowhere. No preamble, no warning.

I stumble and fall, my palms hitting gravel. There’s no time to stop and wonder what I did to provoke him, of what I should do next. I’m off the ground and sprinting onto the middle of the road, trying to hail down a car to stop for me.

“You ungrateful fucking bitch!” he yells.

The cars horn and swerve around me. I can hear his footsteps, I can hear him shouting after me. Home isn’t far, so I run. I run until I see a stranger walking down the path, going the opposite way.

“Please help me,” I say. “That man punched me and he’s chasing me and I don’t know what to do.”

He catches up, pulling at the stranger’s collar. With his attention momentarily on someone else, I sprint home. I lock the door, press my face against the glass, wait for him to come to the door, to demand I open up and let him in.

…

My cheek bleeds, piercing having been knocked out of place. My right cheekbone swells, sore to touch. At the police station, the officer tells me it’s battery and assault, due to the blood. When giving my statement, I’m asked what I was wearing.

“A beige knee-length dress, black stockings,” I explain. “A gold satin jacket on top.”

As the report’s being filled out, I wonder if men are asked the same question when they’re assaulted. Are victims of muggings and stabbings asked the same thing?

“It could’ve been worse,” my mum says to me over Skype. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. You shouldn’t be walking home that late at night.”

“I know,” I reply. “You’re right.”

I don’t tell her about how I don’t feel lucky. Being punched from behind while walking home doesn’t feel like good luck. It doesn’t feel like a blessing. It feels quite the opposite, really.

I feel cursed, like I’ve been born with a neon sign above my head, one only he can see. I feel like somebody’s sent him an invitation without my consent — an invitation to stare at me, to talk at me, to come into my space and intimidate, demean and harass, all under the guise of friendliness and flattery.

But she’s right. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.

A colleague offers to walk me home every night for a week. When my next paycheck comes, I use the money to pay for three self-defense classes, a can of protection spray, and a personal alarm. I have to live off pasta for a month but it’s worth it, not to be afraid.

Two months later I receive a letter in the mail. Due to the lack of CCTV, they’re unable to find any suspects. The investigation is closed.

…

I run into him again, not long after. This time, it’s barely evening and I’m not in a dress. It’s just gone six, and Victoria underground station is busy with other commuters, going home from work or going out for the night. I’m in black jeans and a sweatshirt, headphones pulled over my ears, pretending to be immersed in my phone.

I’m aware of him before he speaks, sticking close to the wall and hoping I’m not seen. He’s with friends this time, the lot of them jeering and shoving each other.

“I like your hair,” he yells, to be heard above his mates. “Is it blue anywhere else?”

I ignore him, only to have him grab the back of my ponytail. In a panic, I duck down low, tugging my hair out of his grip, then break into a sprint, running to the other side of the platform. I squat down, a tad too close to a woman I don’t know, trying to make myself as small as possible, heart thudding in my ears.

He doesn’t follow me down the platform, or onto the train, but I’m not naive enough to think I’ve escaped him for good.

…

He’s going to follow me wherever I go, for the rest of my life.

It’s something I learn to accept; I could move houses, move continents, change my name, my face, my hair, my clothes, and it wouldn’t matter.

He follows me to uni, to work, to parties and to holidays in foreign countries.

When I’m walking across campus, he approaches me with a clipboard, tells me he likes my hair, yells it louder when I pretend I can’t hear it. When I’m at work, he tells me he likes my piercings, asks me where else I have them. When I’m at parties, he asks me if I want to go somewhere quieter.

When I’m back-packing in Rome, he pulls out a camera and takes a photo of me. I ask him to delete it and he calls me a stuck-up bitch.

…

When I tell my brother about him, about how claustrophobic it is, to know there’s no escape, he doesn’t get it.

“I go up to people and talk to them all the time,” he says. “I’m just being friendly.”

“What if they don’t want you to talk to them?” I ask.

“They can just say so,” he shrugs. “None of them have ever told me to go away.”

Because saying no and please leave me alone can lead to being called a bitch, can lead to punches to the side of the head, can lead to police reports that don’t lead anywhere — and that’s if you’re one of the lucky ones.

You’re the same as him, I want to say.

My brother’s taller than me, body bulging with muscle. There are few men who would dare to pick a fight with him. If he weren’t my brother, I’d be petrified if he approached me on an empty street.

“I’ve had a girl come up to me once and ask me about my tattoos,” he says.

“That’s different,” I try to explain. “You’re not going to be afraid of her. It’s not the same the other way around.”

“That’s so sexist,” he replies. “Not all men are out to hurt you, you know.”

…

The post Invisible Neon Signs appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

CW: dissociation, depersonalisation

I pulled up out the front of his apartment block and I saw him pacing up and down the pathway. He hopped into my car, clearly flustered.

“Josh, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, I can’t really explain it… I can see better.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Everything makes so much more sense.”

“Are you on anything?”

“No. Fuck.”

After a couple of vague attempts to explain himself, he Googled his symptoms, which led him to an article about a disorder called ‘depersonalisation’.

When we arrived at my house, we continued his Google diagnosis by rummaging through medical documents and personal accounts of the disorder. We found a BBC News video that described the experience of seeing in 2D.

Josh nearly jumped out of his chair in agreement. He couldn’t stop rambling on about how everything looked different, from the bottle of Coke sitting on the table to my face. I sat there, listening and observing, realising that I had never seen him this enthusiastic about anything in my life.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes the experience of depersonalisation as having an altered perception of yourself; a feeling of detachment as if you are an outside observer of your own body or mind. Dr Elaine Hunter, the clinical lead of the Depersonalisation Disorder Service at Maudsley Hospital, has dedicated many years of research in the field. Upon my telling her of Josh’s experiences, she said that seeing in 2D was actually a common symptom of derealisation; a phenomenon explicitly linked to depersonalisation.

Josh and his non-identical twin brother were born in Indiana, United States. They first moved to Australia when they were five years old. After their parents divorced they moved back to the States with their father and lived with him until he tragically passed away in a car accident. At fourteen, they returned to live with their mother in Australia and have been living in Sydney since.

I remember the first time I heard them talk about their father. On one hand, Josh was able to speak so openly about him. On the other hand, Jake would become silent, and you could almost feel his pain whenever their father was mentioned.

Dr Hunter said that divorce was quite a common trigger, and that Josh’s moving back and forth probably contributed to his susceptibility to the disorder. An article in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment states that a frequent theme of depersonalisation is a reduction or loss of emotional responses.

“I had a blanket when I was a kid that I always slept with, ‘cause you know, kids have that shit. And I lost it on an airplane. I think it was the same time my parents were fighting a lot. After that, I slept with a blanket over my head, then my parents got divorced, and there were two weeks where I didn’t see my dad, and that was hard. And after that, nothing ever bothered me.”

At the computer, Josh pointed at the space between his eyebrows; at what Hindu traditions would refer to as ‘the third eye chakra’. In recent years, his mother, brother, and I have often tried different things to get him out of the dark hole he fell into. We never really got too far, which is why it comes as a shock to hear him say that he meditated his way out of his disorder.

“I got high, and then I knew I had to meditate, which is stupid because it reminds me of that fucking ayahuasca. Have you ever heard of ayahuasca? People ask those people how they figured out to combine two random plants in a rainforest and make that tea and they’re like, the plants told us. It’s kind of stupid like that but weed has always kind of guided me in a weird way. I never listened to it.”

Despite this, Josh said smoking weed would often trigger anxiety and intensify the depersonalisation. “I used to get high and have panic attacks all the fucking time.” Dr Hunter also stated that cannabis does not help with depersonalisation disorders.

The complexities of depersonalisation disorders are still not entirely understood. While the results from studies of treatments have varied, Dr Hunter recently ran an eight-week mindfulness course that produced good results amongst those experiencing depersonalisation.

Josh still has moments when he feels like the disorder resurfaces and the anxiety kicks back in. He still gets stuck in his own head sometimes, but it’s getting easier for him to pull himself out of it.

“I’m more positive, I trust myself more. I can speak better. I can read faster. I can do things better, physically. My reflexes are better. People make more sense. Emotions make way more sense. I’m feeling emotions properly for the first time and it’s freaking me out.”

The post Seeing in 2D appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Content warning: racism, mental illness

Callout culture is a way of dismantling kyriarchal oppression in its linguistic or behavioural forms. It is publicly criticising someone and holding them accountable for their shitty actions. It also means providing emotional labour, which can be taxing and apprehensive. This method isn’t easy, especially when that someone is a close friend, a relative or a colleague. How do you call out a senior colleague when they say “Asians all look the same,” or when they casually throw around the n-word? Or that time your close white friend tells you, “he said this really racist thing about Asians to me, but I don’t care because I’m not Asian”. Navigating that question of, “should I or should I not confront them?” is a test of courage, one which I feel I’ve failed on multiple occasions. But as a person of colour who lives with anxiety, I’ve learnt that race, mental illness, and privilege are complexly intertwined.

Admittedly, I’ve had shortcomings; moments where I didn’t confront my colleagues or friends out of convenience. I was in a position to educate them knowing that it wouldn’t fully drain my mental energy, but I opted out purely because I could. However, there have been instances where my anxiety, paired with my identity as a person of colour, has hindered any possibility of a confrontation. What if I have a panic attack? What if I’m the one in the wrong, and I have no place to tell them what to do? What if they publicly drag me and I lose all my friends? All these “what if?” scenarios will run through my mind, but it is always this last question that I come back to: what if I actually did take the time and energy to educate them, and they completely refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing or display a willingness to empathise?

It’s this question that I’m sure many people of colour, irrespective of mental illness, can resonate with. My white friend doesn’t have to be Asian to be affected by her dickhead friend’s comments. She should care because it’s basic human decency to be affected by mean comments even if they weren’t directed at her. If she can’t even feel this simple level of empathy, then she could never understand what it might feel like to sit down on a train and be scared that the white woman eyeing you suspiciously might start racially abusing you too.

As an Australian-born Chinese, it’s far too easy to see where I lack privilege, but it’s much harder to confront my privilege. I have been socialised by Western, upper-middle class ideals of etiquette and language. This became very obvious when I started working at a luxury skincare counter, where our clientele was comprised mainly of Chinese on-sellers and tourists. These were people who stared at me strangely, or just didn’t acknowledge me at all. People who spoke too loudly or demanded my attention by shoving my shoulder. I started to resent them while also questioning why I didn’t like them. These were people who looked like me, but weren’t me (and definitely didn’t treat me as their equal).

I would bitch about them to my colleagues and friends who also worked in retail. You’re meant to say, “good, thanks,” when retail staff greet you. You’re meant to say please and thank you. A smile is universal, isn’t it? But I knew deep down, my resentment didn’t seem right or valid and the fact that I often ranted to white people made it all the more problematic. This was confirmed when I was called out by my friend, who is also an Australian-born Chinese. I argued with them. I was hesitant to accept that I was wrong. My reluctance to hold myself accountable stemmed from the realisation that I had to start questioning how deeply I perpetuated white culture in my actions and patterns of thought. Things like people’s behaviour in front of strangers seems menial, but it signifies how conditioned we are by our circumstances and the people around us. I had failed to consider that social protocols don’t transcend culture. A smile is not fucking universal. No one is obligated to greet you or thank you just because you—born and raised in a Western country—expect them to.

For me, callout culture doesn’t just encompass confrontation or awkward moments or ruined friendships. It is about rising above what inconveniences you. It is being brave enough to challenge damaging actions and language simply because it is the right thing to do, all while acknowledging that your mental health comes first. But it is also about recognising the nuances of your own privilege and the fragility of your own entrenched beliefs. It is unlearning the racist and classist mentality you clung onto so dearly in your teenage years, and knowing this process doesn’t take a day.

The post A Smile is Not Fucking Universal appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

It’s eleven-thirty at night and I’m on a train speeding away from Circular Quay, sobbing quietly and pathetically into a packet of chocolates. I’ve just come to the realisation that, despite many years of immersion in progressive culture, queer literature, and six seasons of ‘The L Word’, my inner self-critic is a raging homophobe. This realisation arrived sometime in the middle of watching Hannah Gadsby’s show, Nanette at the Opera House. Now, if you’ve had the chance to experience the pure brilliance of this show, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it left me feeling a little like I’d been hit by a freight train. It’s a powerful demonstration of emotional truth wrapped in the guise of a comedy show. Hannah Gadsby speaks, among other things, of her experience with homophobia and shame.

Now, mid train meltdown, I’m finding it hard to tell whether I am crying from the always-emotional experience of watching another queer woman step into her power, or because my own tangled web of internalised homophobia has just bluntly announced itself to me. In any case, I didn’t see this coming. Unlike Hannah, I did not grow up in rural Tasmania. I also did not grow up in the 80s, but about two decades later, when overt homophobia was not quite the fashion. In so many ways, our experiences are wildly different. Yet as she spoke about the feeling of growing up in a state of shame, I recognised myself. I knew that experience.

I came out as gay to my friends and family at the age of sixteen. I had spent about two years secretly immersed in a world of queer advice blogs, and it seemed like the next logical step. My coming out went well. My parents said that they loved me no matter what, and for years we hardly spoke another word about it. My friends, too, were loving and unbothered. Seeing as there was no one to date in my Sutherland Shire high school, it was almost a non-issue. Years went by. I continued to immerse myself in queer and feminist media. I studied some queer theory. I had relationships. My friend groups remained largely cis and straight, but these were just the people I knew, the spaces I had always existed in.

Now, in light of my newly-discovered, long-denied homophobia, I am beginning to rethink my own experience. At the age of 16 when I announced my queerness, I also rapidly engaged in the process of not appearing ‘too gay’. I would be the gay good girl. The gay who you forget is gay. The gay who doesn’t make you feel bad about your own unacknowledged prejudice. This took a lot of energy. It felt like walking a very fine line. Maybe one day I would slip and accidentally turn straight. I pointedly avoided sexuality-related conversation topics, and dressed in overtly feminine clothing. As a child, I had collated the concepts of gender identity and sexuality, believing for years that a lesbian was really someone who wanted to be a man, seeing as every relationship needed, in some way, to contain a man and a woman. At the realisation of my own queerness, I embarked on something of a crusade to prove myself wrong on that point. I might be gay, but look how feminine I can be! Just you wait and see how many floral prints I can wear at once!

The social researcher Brené Brown describes shame as the belief “that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”. I was lucky enough not to grow up surrounded by explicit homophobia. But neither was I surrounded by explicit acceptance or celebration of queer folk. In the absence of any real message on this point, I soaked in the subliminal messages of society. These were not affirming. Everyone I knew was straight.  Everyone on TV was straight. The first queer people I knew were my primary school best friend’s mothers, who (understandably) hid their relationship from our conservative community for fear that their kids would be bullied at school. Queerness was something to be hidden. At best, the consensus was that we accepted queer people because they couldn’t help it. So, when I heard that I was loved “no matter what”, I took this to mean that I was loved in spite of this one, glaring character flaw. I sculpted my existence as an apology for my own queerness. Subconsciously, I began engaging in trade-offs. If I was going to be gay, I’d better not put another toe out of line. I would be the perfect daughter. The perfect student. The perfect woman: likeable and nice to a fault. I’d go to any lengths to secure my right to love and belonging.

Intellectually, I am so far away from this thinking. Nothing fills my soul as much as witnessing the beauty and strength of queer folk. Still, I am unable to have this conversation with most of my extended family. Still, I perpetually find myself ‘too busy’ to make it down to the UTS queer space. I regularly wish I were more connected to the queer community. I believe some secretly self-aware part of myself has been worried about carrying my own shame into those spaces. I am scared of inadvertently projecting that shame onto other people. Yet I do believe that community is the key. Perhaps, in this society, we are all host to our own inner homophobe, transphobe, queerphobe. Perhaps we need each other to move out of our separate states of shame. To remind each other, over the voices of the normative culture, that there is so much beauty in being queer.

The post Turns Out The L Word Didn’t Cure Me of My Internalised Homophobia appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Content warning: sexual assault

On January 13th, Katie Way published a piece on Babe.net about a woman whom we know only as Grace. Last year, Grace met comedian Aziz Ansari, went on a date with him, and then engaged in a sexual encounter with him that left her profoundly uncomfortable – uncomfortable enough for her to later describe the experience to Way as “the worst night of her life”. Of all the stories of sexual misconduct that have been brought to light in the past few months with the momentum of the #MeToo movement, perhaps none have kindled as much controversy as Ansari’s, and perhaps none have seen the accused so fiercely defended in the media for actions deemed “innocuous” by men and women alike. Indeed, when compared with the odious crimes of Harvey Weinstein, Ansari’s conduct might appear exceptionally ordinary – but that is exactly what makes it so significant.

To a sizeable proportion of women who sleep with men, what happened on the worst night of Grace’s life is a tale all too familiar. The non-verbal cues gone unnoticed and the verbal cues ignored for the politeness with which they’re uttered. Visible discomfort interpreted as coyness, indecision interpreted as playing hard to get. I don’t have to imagine it because I can remember it. Grace coming forward has made me profoundly uncomfortable ­­­— not because I don’t believe her, and not because I think she was wrong to label the incident as a violation — but because she’s forced me to re-examine my own history, the history I watered down and censored in order to move forward. The framing of my comparable experiences simply as Bad Sex is now no longer possible.

Of course, sexual misconduct is not a monolith. Ansari is not a Weinstein. But a perpetrator needn’t be a monster for his actions to be reprehensible. A woman needn’t be held at knifepoint to be coerced. Sexual misconduct is too often seen as a strictly legal question in lieu of any real concern with improving the overall culture surrounding sex and consent. Even if we had the language to describe the misconduct that exists within this so-called “grey area”, the legal system would still be set up to fail victims. The concept of “utmost resistance” here comes to mind — an idea we still see reproduced in rape trials over and over — that unless the complainant resisted to her utmost ability, she must have consented. And the bar of utmost resistance is moving ever upwards. Why didn’t you say no? Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you scream?

Perhaps we should be encouraging men to use their words, rather than the women being subjected to their unthinking bullishness. Words like “Are you feeling good about this?” “Do you want to keep going?” “Is this okay?”

If grown men can’t read verbal and non-verbal cues from their uncomfortable partners, then they should be actively seeking consent to ensure they’re on the same page — and they should not be allowed to shrug off culpability until they do so. Making sure your company is enjoying themselves is not an optional part of sex. These things should be a given, yet they remain overshadowed by the conception that sex is something that a woman withholds from a man. Something that a man must procure from her. Even nice, progressive men are not immune to such socialisation.­

Rather than being the calculated predation of a monster like Weinstein, Ansari’s antics evoke a distressing situation into which women are placed by ordinary men – nice, progressive men — men who “wouldn’t hurt a fly”. Ansari built much his comedic brand upon an image of niceness, of likeable awkwardness — the polar opposite of the virile bro-types he would decry in his stand-up. He has eagerly and repeatedly aligned himself with the feminist cause in the press. Progressive, “feminist” men failing to understand the nuances of consent is the most marked sign to date that our culture at large desperately requires an overhaul in what it deems normal sex.

The post What Means No appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Content Warning: homophobia, violence, and police brutality.

In a stride of colour and glitter, a parade of floats and dancers will make their way up Oxford Street in celebration of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This year will mark the parade’s 40th anniversary, and the first year in which LGBTQIAP+ Australians can celebrate the legislation of same sex marriage.

Forty years ago, in 1978, Mardi Gras began as a direct resistance to a heteropatriarchy responsible for the violent discrimination and marginalisation of the queer community. The first parade, an act of solidarity with the victims of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, saw a group of 500 organisers gather on Oxford Street for a street festival. As the festival proceeded, police began to intimidate and harass the revellers. The night met its climax when a risen count of 2000 people were met with police violence at Kings Cross. 53 people were arrested, many of whom were brutalised, and their identities publicised in The Sydney Morning Herald. As a result, many queer people were outed without consent, and consequently fired from their workplaces. 

In the forty years since, Mardi Gras has evolved from a grassroots movement protesting for the decriminalisation of homosexuality to a festival of extravagance; complete with dancers, performers and drag queens. Since the 1990s, companies have joined in on the festivities with corporate sponsorships, partnerships, and funding. In stark contrast to the first parade in 1978, the two kilometre stretch up Oxford Street becomes endowed with corporate logos and promotional hashtags, each more colourful and rainbow-shaped than the next. 

As these displays of corporate solidarity continue to grow in prominence with each year, there lie more insidious consequences, ones that we often blind ourselves to. Though Mardi Gras continues to be a politically significant event in the Australian queer community, its shift from a once radical and highly politicised event towards a celebratory parade and social occasion sheds light on what it means to be queer in a 21st century, neoliberal era.

Our identity as queer bodies are now a marketing scheme – one that is readily, and often clumsily dissected to be prepared and consumed by a cisgender and heterosexual audience. As companies appropriate queerness for capitalist gain, there evolves a false equivalence in which visibility in the marketplace erroneously assumes social visibility. It is ultimately a hollow reflection that offers the temptation of representation and a seat at the table, but does little to honour queer voices beyond the parameters of our economic potential. Here, we see LGBTQIAP+ visibility depend upon market trends and profitability. And frustratingly, breaking out from the dynamics of capitalism and striking out on our own has its own set of challenges.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras did not intend for the event to grow and become inundated with marketing jargon and corporate logos – it simply happened because much like the pride events in London and New York discovered, corporate partnerships and funding make the show go on. But commercialisation comes at a cost. As we allow companies to co-opt our identities, queer communities increasingly become a target market to tap into and a subculture to profit from. Companies encroach into a space which historically, has been an important meeting ground for activism and social change. 

So, if you are attending the 40th anniversary of Mardi Gras this year, remember that as you stand on Oxford Street, illuminated by a dazzling spectacle of neon lights and rainbow glitter, you are standing on what used to be a battleground – and there is still a fight ahead. 

Art by Nicole Ho 

The post Mardi Gras Is More Than This appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Food nourishes us — this is a fairly universal sentiment. We are blessed to have extremely easy access to a great range of foods from many different cultures. Food is also an Instagram star now, and every second person is posting photos of their anniversaries at Quay; more than ever, ethnic food is getting trendy. Broadsheet lists ‘ramen’, ‘Korean’, and ‘Malaysian’ as recommended searches now. There are Asian-fusion themed bars like Sugarcane Coogee, which is owned by someone who seems… really white.

All of this has led some to call out instances of cultural appropriation and gentrification in the food space. There is also a common rebuttal that cultural foods have always been influenced by foreign factors, and we’re only witnessing that today. It might seem to be a positive that ‘ethnic’ food is more mainstream now, indicating some greater acceptance of the racial diversity of our communities.

But it’s about context.

Most of us don’t want to feel like they’re in the wrong for their Sushi Hub habit, and for the most part, a lot of daily cultural food consumption might not be problematic — for example, a lot of us buy and consume dumplings and bao from establishments run by actual Chinese people in Chinatown. I’d also like to believe that most people don’t say or do racist things while participating in this consumption.

Cultural appropriation of food is deeply connected to who is in a position of privilege in a given society. Those privileged enough to pick and choose what foods traditionally belonging to a minority racial group are now to be celebrated in the food scene often make no effort to engage with the history of the food, let alone with the people who have grown, cooked, and eaten that food for decades prior. For example, Indigenous communities don’t typically benefit from the culinary acclaim that many Australian chefs garner from using native Australian ingredients in their food. And recent poké establishments fail to make a meaningful connection to the traditional Hawaiian dish, and tend to be exotic salad bowls rather than actual poké, which celebrates high quality, fresh fish with much fewer toppings.

Food gentrification seems to be a persistent problem now too — kale and quinoa were some of the first trendy foods a few years back, now coconut water is everywhere, and avocado is almost unavoidable in Sydney cafes. The consequences of these food trends are far-reaching. In the case of quinoa, the Peruvian and Bolivian communities that have traditionally grown and eaten quinoa suffered on two levels. Not only did an initial rise in prices of quinoa due to increased demand mean locals could no longer afford a staple food, when supply caught up with demand and prices leveled off, local producers couldn’t compete with larger agribusinesses now supplying quinoa. A single food trend can cause long-lasting harm to the communities that have traditionally depended on them.

It’s not that white people shouldn’t be allowed to eat or cook foods from other cultures — it’s just that they’re more likely to profit from those foods than the people of colour who have always cooked and eaten those foods. There are plenty of white chefs who claim to have done their duty and travelled and learnt the craft from local chefs that have allowed them to set up successful establishments. Often those people who have a long history with the foods being appropriated — the locals they learn from — do not even benefit economically, going without any compensation for sharing their cultural knowledge.

The truth is, we all love food. We need it to nourish and sustain us. We also use food as a vehicle for celebration, to express love, to share with one another. These are inherently good things. We just don’t need food to be another way through which minority groups in our societies are exploited and oppressed. If you’re fortunate enough to have a multitude of cultural food options open to you and you’re making a choice about where to put your money, think about who you’re paying, not just what you’re paying for. Think about who is working behind the counter, who has farmed or harvested the ingredients, and whose recipe it really is.

The post Culinary Appropriation appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.