What Do I Know About Love, at 21.

What Do I Know About Love?

Good question. I would prefer to talk about it later, though. Ask me about the economy?

Take 2:

What do I know about love? I don’t know much at all.

I know I fear love because it threatens to destroy me—or at least the version of me I can tolerate. Yet, I crave it. Subconsciously, I long for it to flow endlessly, as if through an IV, woven into the fabric of my life and dreams.

I want love to be everything.

Still, I do not know what it is; I have not learned much yet.

Is love what they shared, those two in my elementary class? Holding hands in the hallway, their fleeting romance which introduced me to envy. “Why not me?” I wondered. “Why am I not loved?”

Yet a week later, they broke up, and we gossiped for months as though their love was a tragedy on the levels of Romeo and Juliet. “How dare he!” we all condemned as if, at 12, we were the authority on love proper. Always given an elevated chair, the lovers changed, and new soulmates trickled through friendships as I took a listening spot on the sidelines, trying to understand what I was missing. Were they full? I asked myself, fuller than I am now. Did they learn what love is—or did they, like me, only grasp at a dream?

Love and hate are not opposites; they are the same, the echo of passion through loss and longing. The worst is indifference.

Love burns into hate, where flowers grow over the ashes. You’ll forget their birthday and forget to miss them. If you’re lucky, you’ll listen to their favorite song in a few years and be struck with nostalgia. You will remember why you loved them. That is how you know you felt it.

Is love in the movies? In Harry Meeting Sally, —these immortal stories, untarnished by time. Unlike real love, they don’t erode under the weight of endless tomorrows. They profess, so sweetly, that passion outlasts change, that we can curate perfection, set it to music, and preserve it in a montage.

Looking back, love seems eternal. But looking forward, it feels far less romantic. They say love is immortal, but we are not. And yet, I want love to outshine mortality, to defy time.

As always, I consult the books. Kant saw love as an act of will—a deliberate commitment to care for another as an end in themselves, not as a means where we can fulfill our desires. Krishna speaks of unconditional love, a love that gives without asking, liberating us from the self-effacing pursuit of validation. I feel protected by these concepts, as though they offer a shield—to defend an acceptance that transcends reciprocity.

But I often hide behind this notion, pretending I am not quietly asking, hoping, for someone to love me the same.

How much can someone endure before they feel they’ve overstayed their welcome in another’s life, before they begin to see themselves as less, as a burden rather than adored?

We are greedy with love. We want more, always more—until it ceases to excite. If not more, then maybe just one, but they must fit our image: thrilling without frightening, expanding without altering. Love must follow our script, promising until death do us part.

But movies aren’t marriage. When the credits roll, the love story ends. Marriage isn’t that simple. Is it natural? Maybe. But never perfect. It is bound to falter, for even the most heartfelt vows are tested by the strain of living.

They say marriage is a cage—but for who? Him, tethered to fidelity? Or her, laboring to love enough for both of them? A life together inevitably brings moments of doubt. One day, you will lie awake, staring at the ceiling, and wonder: Is this all wrong? The body beside you will feel heavy, like it swallowed the life you weren’t done living yet.

She dreams of lovers who still bring her flowers. He starts hearing his mother in her voice. Settling down begins to feel like settling. The flames of love stop burning, and maybe we grow tired of the fire’s unpredictability, of asking for more.

Without the fire though, I’ve seen how love fades—not into hatred but indifference. My greatest fear is to be consumed by that indifference, to look into those eyes and see myself reflected.

I am afraid of love because I am afraid of this cage. Maybe I was raised in one—in the shadows of a love imperfectly crafted, and the resentment of a burdened commitment. I was taught how to love through the fear of loss.

The daughter learns to keep him from leaving by screaming at his car window. I’m still the daughter, crying in the garage, begging you to stay. Every morning after, I’ll feel the weight of my mistakes, afraid I asked for something but am not worth it. At the first glance of resentment, I will run. I will get behind the wheel and drive away before you can take too much of me. I will always go slowly, one ear listening to hear the sound of your footsteps running after me, proving I’m enough.

How I love is often a cage.

I say I love them, but do I? Or do I fall in love with the mirror I’ve made of them, the reflection of myself in a fleeting moment? Do I know how they grieve, and am I willing to love them even as I watch them go?

I fear love because I fear losing myself. I fear giving everything I have and finding it won’t be enough. I fear you staying only because I asked you to, your opinion swallowing me whole, and me letting it.

I am not a cynic; I am just young. I am a girl who has been told all her life what she is supposed to want—so much so that she isn’t sure if she wants it.

You cannot cage love; it is not a steady flow but bursts of colour in fleeting moments- framing seconds, leaving me in awe and endlessly failing to describe. Love is ragged, formless, and stupid. Beautiful yet fragile, it trickles through my palms no matter how tightly I grasp it.

As much as I run, I hate to let go. I know I can cling desperately, cutting off parts of myself to hold on. I paint a picture I think they want. I beg to be enough—for them, for myself.

I hurt myself more than anyone because my love can take the shape of the hatred I have for myself.

I don’t want to own or be owned, and I want to love freely. Love isn’t about knowing or demanding; it unravels when I beg for someone to save me. Love, I’ve learned, needs to see clearly—to exist without the cages we build.

I think love always forms in the delicate space between dreaming and surrendering. Detachment feels cold. I would not truly love you if I didn’t attach a dream to you. Love, by its nature, carries a tragic hope—a prayer that it might transcend us. Still, we must surrender to the unknown future, fall willingly, and lose all control. Love dreams of a tomorrow that may never come, but it will believe in it anyway.

I don’t know if I can love like that yet—at least not consistently. But I do know that I love, however imperfectly.

I find it in the small things: how they take their coffee, the sound of their laugh, the spring in their step, and their favorite song. It’s in fleeting moments, the trips we plan but never take, and the dreams I stubbornly refuse to let go of. It is every word I speak, in every dream I place in someone else’s hands. I fall in love with birds on the street, with winter snow in my boots and a face flushed from the sun. I fall for quirks and habits, for shared silences and everything.

I love strangers on the street. Oh, our mortality! And our fragile, fleeting ability to share and dream past it.

When I do it all completely, openly feeling deeply, this is how I love. Love is stupid and, at the least, a ridiculous dream, but it is everything that makes the prospect of tomorrow beautiful for today.

So, I am learning to be patient and try my best, knowing I will fail and fall often. I can try, at least.

What do I know about love? Nothing. Ask me when I am dead.

I hope I will know more when I am 22.

I Don’t Know Who I am, Please Stop Asking Me

I am turning 21 in a month, In this anguish I write some reflections.

The empty stage is before me, and behind the curtain, I am shaking.  I know what they want, I need to make them love me.

I think, I must have been able to do this before, or why would they buy a ticket to my show? But I cannot recall who the version of myself most beloved was or what she did.  

When I step on stage, under the white lights- and the horrifying silence of being watched consumes me, I can only approach the mic and remind myself to appear confident.

Amidst the performance, I lose awareness- struggle, speak without thought- hit and miss- then look up to see what they thought.

Now that it is over, I realize nobody was in the crowd. 

Hello

My name is Carly. I am 5’7 and a half. While I used to hate my height, I have now grown fond of it.

I am first of my name, eldest daughter, anointed after a McDonald’s employee whose warm greeting to my father amid a morning coffee run confirmed to him that, hey, the name on her badge, “carly,” would be a nice name for the little girl, who his wife was carrying.

I don’t know what else people expect me to say, but I am constantly disappointing in the performances I dish out.

If I were a movie, letterboxed would proclaim: 

Carly Campbell, 2003          

The Directorial Debut of Harry and Nidia Campbell               

Comedy, Tragedy 

⭐⭐⭐ “cute coming of age”

⭐⭐⭐ “A little annoying but in the way all 20-year-olds are.”

 ⭐⭐ “A lot of passion- but with no direction in where to put it.” 

⭐⭐ “Forgettable”

Aside from the melodrama.

I am quite irritated that this “obsession-with-my-identity thing” has not faded after age 14 as they said it would. Confidence talks in the mirror can only prepare you in theory until the lights are on you and you grow anxious because you still want to be liked. Really, “being unapologetically myself” fails to amend my discomfort in front of others because, no matter how hard I try, I am not even sure who I am. 

Identity is such a weird thing. 
I have not recognized this girl in the mirror as me since I was a kid. So, now, finding myself at a loss for this “true self” I search for her through memories. I go backwards because the things she liked were just because and never because of something or someone else. 

I remember being headstrong and opinionated, my parent’s worst nightmare for her unrelenting desire to talk and ask “why,” repeating jokes twice and louder- even when no one laughed. I was not yet bullied so I asked kids at the park to “please play with me,” begging for someone to be my friend. 

While generally inconsistent, as any child is free to be, I gravitated towards specific interests I still love and cherish fondly. 

Reading.

Once my father began sitting beside me before bed with a book, I desired nothing else from life but to learn to read. I had already lived in the clouds, so the books directed my travels to these mystical, unknown places, which taught me how to feel. I was like a blank colouring sheet desperate to be painted so that every tale told was an explosion of saturation, a first touch with the magnificence of narrative creation. 
I still remember the storybooks that raised me, the ones I would beg my dad to please read again because, no, I know I heard it before, but this one is really good. 

Music.

I remember my first song, at least the one that woke up my memory to recall them.

walking on sunshine. I was like six.

My first birthday parties were a blur of me crouched near the speaker, trying to understand the lyrics. So then, maybe because it was the only time I was quiet, I would be invited to join my dad in the basement of our second home, where his magic CD player would roar to the height of its glory. CDs would whirl around with a click of a button before landing on a song. I remember amid the “teaching of classic rock”, how my father would tell me, “you have to move your head like this,” shaking his already dwindling hair or “headbanging”. I would mimic, earning an approving nod, “a future punk in the making.”   So when I learned to play the piano, it was only because I wanted to be a guitar player, like Jimmy Hendrix, but I had to “do it properly” and was told to learn piano first. 

I played pretend in my grandmother’s garden and travelled valiantly into the headquarters of the villains I would conquer.
This is all to say that I don’t know what I was exactly; I just know I miss her.

She was so passionate and never worried that what she did was wrong. The novelty of such memories imbue me with a devotion to the me now, in her honour. 

Identity is weird, though; yes, that was me- I can talk about her with a sense of detached pride, but I don’t know how or when she grew up.

It’s hard to retain innocence, but even harder to keep yourself. To just dream without knowing where to stop and plan the future without adhering to the regrets of the past is a privilege of youth. 

When I became an older sister, I changed. 

It is not a bad thing. The lonely dreamer was ecstatic to have a cute and tiny playmate, I couldn’t wait to write her a part in my Star Wars roleplay (as maybe a droid or something secondary). But the space between two people is a new realm of self you can’t control, and you must eventually consider how the other sees you. I wanted to be a good big sister, so I tried to be good, even when I had to play as a kitty, not a Jedi- because she did not like Star Wars. I had to let go of some self-importance. I learned to love for and change myself in that love. 

To grow is to become more selfless, but identifying with the “you” in the mirror becomes more challenging. Entering the great unknown of society, you start to think of yourself through how others treat you. No one wanted to play in my stories as the characters I wrote for them, and that was a difficult pill to swallow. 

I remember wanting friends so badly that I was willing to do anything to be liked.

Carly, the storyteller, was my next step in selfhood. I recall modifying the “play pretend” narratives, eventually looping the recess loners into my world. I would fill their ears with stories I built and wanted to share. When they listened, I was able to bring people into my dreamlands. But it was not easy to get people to stay. I wanted to become a good storyteller, a change from a state where I was satisfied to just be.

Then I recognized a second condition to my identity: I am a girl.   
Dating, attraction- all that jazz- I had a new consideration for my audience: one must be liked- and a girl wanted. 

I was much slower than others in learning my place in line, learning how even to consider the qualifications of femininity. I was dorky and childish amongst quickly maturing friends and failing to follow the new rules- I found myself strangely always omitted from sleepover invites. One day, I realized I was being laughed at and not with, while the boys who used to be my friends never cared to speak to me anymore- and eventually, feeling rejected- I didn’t want to be.

Why oh why did my hair not dry straight as the other girls and curse these damn glasses!

It’s harder to like yourself when you live with others and they don’t. When it is a rejection so quickly received from appearance. I wanted to change this part so they would at least want to meet the “real me.” In the meantime, I would retreat from reality more often to inner daydreams like always, but it is never as fulfilling once you know others are around, or life can be a daydream- as unpredictable and fun as found in books.

I can fast forward through years of self-reflection turned hatred and attempts at self-love fueled by envy of others. Obsessive makeovers, forcing my mom to buy me leggings, and eventually, the insecurity of my voice finally got me to stop talking so much.

I lost myself somewhere along this attempt to be taken seriously. To be seen was overruled by a desire to be loved- and the sheer isolation of such complex desires created a division between the self I once loved and the one I should be. 

At some point, exhausted with it all, I stopped yearning, accepted grief- and began to prefer the freedom of being unseen. This was different, though, because left alone- I hated her, mimicking the judgement of others, to be alone was always worse. 

The coward hides in her room to recapture girlish daydreams where no one can hurt or hate her.

Then, the coward would prefer to cease existing. 

The audience…. yes…. this grand stage where I perform, it taunts me. 

I used to live in narratives, but I must now create myself as one. We are aware of the fourth wall, and I act. 

Who am I amongst conflicting definitions or the active desire to be liked?  I don’t know. I don’t know at all, and maybe no one does. Asking itself attempts to cage a transient existence into a consumable display. Carly! The 20-year-old model of this doll is .. insecure, witty, and sad, yet she still likes to read and is now weirdly obsessed with politics and philosophy. 

My identity is not hidden behind a locked door; underneath my skin, it is not something I may explain. My self is scattered across the people I live with, in pages of old notebooks and words I once said and remembered. My identity, I must acknowledge, belongs to others. My memories, love, and passions, though, belong to me.

While I have changed, I can open my diary to any old passage since 2017 and find the same unmistakable angst - this yearning- which, albeit insufferable- is somewhat lasting- amidst a language I’ve grown to adopt- slightly aware of itself as corny- and maybe I am in there somewhere.

I would kill to read the book I wrote about a tsunami when I was 10. 

In identity obsession, you forget that what made childhood so fun was the lack of concern for other’s opinions. Recently, I have discovered that “being yourself” does not involve treating everyone as obstructions to the real you but forgetting yourself and resolving to belong to the people you get a brief moment amongst. 

I was joyful in childhood for reading everything and finding joy in each journey, but I also re-read and tried to understand the pages I felt found in. People are similar. It’s weird how when you care about identity, obsession with self-worth constructs others as mere means to your end of self-acceptance- which negates their intrinsic quality- beauty and identity.  

I like to think of everyone as books or songs. I could never dream of creating myself- but before me- a chance to open my eyes through another- hear and see them. I love walking through library aisles and glimpsing the cries of humanity through each published piece. I pick a red book off the shelf and live in the world of another- take a bit of it with me. People are dying to be seen the same way you are, and you can gain more than validation from a conversation or a friend. Empathy is not pitying another but attempting to cross into their world, read their book and if not understand, enjoy the experience. 

We may walk around in something fashioned as an identity. We are all book covers and song titles on the streets- a summary, a glance. Yet we are filled with pages, and there is beauty in every genre, every unique language. I am sick of editing myself as if the critics want the same thing. I would instead prefer to read. 

The people I love are beautiful, wonderful people. Passion flows within everyone- and the ability to fall into other worlds is a connection in a way impossible from the confines of your headspace. I am a reader first, writer second; my pages are only inspired by the books I love the hardest. 

Love is our first state, not war or competition. My love created me, so I try to hang on to that directed feeling rather than claim control over the love I may attract. Whether or not people love me, I can love them; we can all be children trying to find something we care about. It is in accepting others we come to receive ourselves. 

Macho Machiavellianism

By Carly Campbell

Decoding the masculine cannon and the association between strength, power, and masculinity with violence and domination.

“It is better to be feared than it is to be loved” - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.

It is better to be feared than it is to be loved.

Even before having come within proximity to political readings, I was aware of this phrase.

Even before hearing the words so officially ordained, I was aware of this principle.

Aren't we all? Aren't we all made to feel this. Through our upbringing and in our subtle behavioural training- good behaviour begets rewards, bad behaviour must be beaten down. It's just how it works, right?

Parents take upon this cruel stance often, "I don't care if you hate me" - and they punish the unruly child. Hated teachers dominating a classroom turn into hated bosses, petitioning that we must obey the feared bottom line. We all operate in a world ordained through fear, the fear of consequences- the fear of someone's power over yourself.

I learned soon, subtly, that those you fear, are also those respected. I was afraid of my most ruthlessly angry teachers, they were respected in retrospect. When afraid of anger we train to never dissapoint. The unfortunate truth of our world is that the scariest people earn the most respect, the shy ones, the most rebuttal.

When did we start to live accordingly? Accepting this ideology necessarily means beleiving some of the worst truths about human nature. I imply here that "The state of nature is war”, but where did I get this from?

Im reminded of the dreaded political rationalists.

Thomas Hobbes, one of those ancient theorists who have earned the title of being “fundamental”- he wrote simply that humans can never be trusted. He said humans are naturally greedy, selfish, power hungry- beings. Left to our own devices, life is nasty, brutish and short- man versus man. As a result, he advocated political power- as in, political overpower-ing. Machiavelli takes it further. Writing The Prince as a how-to guide on rulership, he argues that "it is better to be feared than loved". Ruling with compassion, morality, or goodwill would never work. The prince, the ideal ruler, shall never break- he will never be conquered. Feared and he's powerful.

These ideas may be ancient, but that's what makes them so important. They nestled themselves into academia, read by those with influence and flicked the first domino on the chain of events that have created our modern world. They perscribed the iron-fisted approach and whispered that disastrous secret into some of the most brutal dictators- (cough cough- Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin). However, this is not all they did. These ideas did more than create the conditions for rulership, but the conditions of masculinity.

In a feminist course I took, the professor asked the class “what is masculinity”. Stereotypes- "blue" "sports" and "cars" all being the first thoughts on our minds. Yet behind these shallow comments, there was a variety of words indicating something more concrete, similies of “powerful," and "strong” forming the picture of masculinity.

which sounds an awful lot like what Machiavelli wanted the prince to be.

Immediately after this experiment, my professor asked for the same practice to be undertaken for the… other gender. Other than words like "pink," "gossip," and "shopping," femininity was declared as "sensitive," "emotional," and "weak".

The patriarchy is a social order that places man in charge, and so it seems to have been as long as I can remember. Machiavelli wrote to man, Hobbes wrote to man, man writes to man because they had the power to do so, and were the only ones who had the power to rule. These men had seemingly decided, based on a crude understanding of society itself- what power was, and we see through these texts that it was defined as an encapsulation of strength and force. Masculinity was solidified and has been eternally reproduced.

Today men still embody a depiction of the prince in their behaviour, and our world still tells them they should. How do we raise boys if not to cultivate strength? Put the young boy into sports and tell them to be strong, never cry. Never does the prince show weakness, and similarly, never does a man.

Where does that leave women? I can trace the creation of man through academia, politics, and history but it's harder for us to understand women because - well- they were excluded from these discussions entirely. But does this not say enough? Women were never rulers, never in charge, rather, they were property. They are the second tier in the patriarchal ranking. A product of Adam's rib. A wife, valued like livestock.

I don't have a dowry, but women have never entirely escaped this rank. "the male gaze" as it has been called, is the governing force I'm referring to and “male fantasies” are more harmful, less obvious than just perscribing certain traits to the genders.

Unfortunately, dear reader- we're going to have to untangle the patriarchy, make it clear why I argue against it.

In the beginning God created man, and from him- woman.

Well, let's put religion aside.

Biologically, men and women developed from the same organism. There is no female essence, no male essence either. That is a fact. The differences we see now have been implemented socially- but yes i’ll concede, we cannot discount the impact which socialization has had. External realities train our behaviour- they restructure our minds from the inside out.

Women at the outset had one difference: they were dealt the childbearing hand (goddamn it eve!). Males were, as many love to flaunt, ordained with a body more apt for physical strength. Hunter-gatherer societies reflected this dynamic. Think about it like organizing a team, of course each member would be sorted the task reflective of their skillset. So, a woman would do domestic tasks, men would hunt. The first mother, the first man.

Thus, we see the genders before the fall. Yet I pushback- as there is no reason I see here defending that “weakness” is something inherent to a woman's second x chromosome. What is weak about childbirth? What does being sensitive or emotional have to do with it?

The problem with these categories is not how they function, but as they began to order themselves on a heirarchy. When creating man and woman— it was not just that one did something different, one was made better.

Simone de Beauvoir, feminist scholar has said that women are the "other" of our world. What she means is that the patriarchy exists by understanding men as the “normal” and women lesser, merely because they are not men.

Otherness is a way of thought; it's a concept we use in understanding the things around us. We have used goodness, for example, to understand badness. Darkness to understand what lightness is. So, if a man wanted to see himself as powerful, if he was to be “better”, how could he prove that? a woman ! She must be the opposite.

“Male fantasies run our world” means that although gender is a fantasy, masculinity prevailed. It means femininity must be perpetually weak, regardless of what traits the female even holds.

The patriarchy imbues all things feminine through the eyes of the male beholder and poisons them as bad before even understanding why. The second half of the patriarchy is the picture of masculinity we created- the one tied to machiavelli which I began with.

I have said “this is a man’s world” previously without thought, but now I say it with meaning. Power is strength and fear because men decided that. Power is strength and fear because men were created off of the ability to dominate and conquer. “Nature is a state of war” we say, but this is not a fact- this is the patriarchy at work.

But the building is flawed! The patriarchy is wrong! I can see the flaws of it today, all around us. We have poisoned our lives by tying the human spirit to the ghost of some gendered understanding of ourselves when in reality, men have no real merit to claim this power as to be innate. Acting like a man brings a prescribed sense of power, which leads to an obsession with domination and strength. It stifles women, but men as well.

Let's take emotions for example. Despite what the patriarchy has made us believe, both genders do in fact feel emotions. We do, nonetheless, process emotions differently.

For women the most common response is to rely on something scientists call “cognitive rumination”. This is fancy speak for overthinking. Women have adapted this response simply because of their stature in the heirarchy. Aware of herself as an object, she is more inclined to think before speaking. Introspect. As a result, Women have been found to feel more shame, fear, sadness and guilt. Thus the sensitivity title emerges.

On the male side- they have been trained to cope differently. God forbid they feel an emotion- they take it out, punch drywall- whatever it is. This is because they lack the burden to engage in introspection.

But also- as masculinity has been convoluted with such an idealised vision of unconquerable strength, and propped up with a hatred of all things feminine, a man does not, he will not submit to any sort of weakness. This makes the male species more quick to anger than to shame. They do not think about how they have appeared, what they have done, plus- emotion bad. Thus emotion is thoughtlessly expressed, done away with, left unexamined but to return again, almost as quick as it went.

The patriarchy is a form of behavioural training. I read an article based on the phenomena of “throwing like a girl”. As a girl, who has always thrown like one- I felt interested to learn my deficit is somewhat a product of this training which I just mentioned. Iros Marion Young observed a study taken of 5 year olds, in this she found that "the girl of five does not use lateral space." but even at age 5, a boy "stretches his right arm windward and backward, twists, turns and bends- supporting his throwing almost with the full strength of his total moratorium."

Women are not biologically inept at playing catch, women are trained to be. She is an object- she must perform, and therefore- she is constrained under a gaze which sees herself as an intruder and she operates self consciously. This is not just in throwing, but in everything. Women walk in a certain way, talk in a certain way- restrain, restrain, restrain. If a woman has become this embodiment of weakness, it's only because she was told to be, told to be for so long we don’t even realize that this external limitation is only a product of the female condition. The weak traits which form femininity, the deep deep feelings, the self consciousness and meekness- it all comes from this training.

As a woman, I suppose I have always perceived my femininity as a flaw. I somehow could not see the cycle and of course, blamed myself. I used to read the prince and think he articulated the truth, using it as a “how to” for my own path of improvent. If this is a man's world, I thought, If power is created by fear, I could get ahead by getting rid of my weakness and in short- become a man.

Yet- I must say, I do not think becoming a man is in any way better. I also deny that the masculine form of power has any value.

I have talked about what the patriarchy does to women, but I must think of what the man's world does to men itself. Boys don't cry has been weaponized as frequently as "you throw like a girl". That is because masculinity is unforgiving.

Let me ask one question: why is it that men got the power over women so long ago? The answer is unfortunate, but it is related back to that biological difference I equipped the first man with. Physical strength. What did a man do to oppress the other gender, what made him win the war of the sexes? Ding ding, it was violence. The underlying threat of violence is what really founded male power, helped to create their ensuing definition of it.

Violence is the subtle dynamic which facilitates oppression. “The prince must use violence when necessary to remind his subjects he has the power”. I mean, hey, it really is unquestionable, if someone beat me to a pulp, I would be afraid to retaliate. Power is a result of violent domination, masculinity is the embodiment of this brutish understanding of life. But again I am not talking about the past, I am merely understanding it.

And how do we see this now? How does this form our relationships?

"It's because he's a man",

my roomate had told me after a failed romantic endeavour, something which is unfortunately quite common for a woman in her early 20's. He is just a man—and therefore, of course, he could not understand me in the same way a woman does; of course, he could not degrade himself from the position of power to the level of weakness that permits vulnerability. Also- of course I should take masculinity as a rational defence, after all, boys will be boys. It is natural?

My inclination in failure was again to act like a man, to show no emotion- to be strong. Take back the power, show him who is boss! If nature is a state of war, I could win.

These are the games of the man's world, and in retrospection, they show me why our ideas of power are so innately harmful.

This disposition I had, I must acknowledge, is cowardly. Forgive me for saying it, but it is weak. Being a man is weak in all the ways we are told it’s strong. The idea that vulnerability is weak is only a consequence of patriarchal logic but it gets us nowhere, except, alone. Win what? I ask, what are we gaining from competing?

A man's world. This sounds reductive, and to the male readers out there, I don't mean to repeat this mantra offensively. Man and Women are not just words, they're categories, trained roles. If I criticise anything, it's that. The masculine canon tells women they're weak- but also forces a man to repress his "womanish" feelings. It embraces violence and domination. It tells us all that to succeed is to conquer - alone. It draws a line in the sand saying “you go here” and “you do this” - telling us that we shall never cross. Under this principle, we are all restricted and created to be the brutes which are only greedy for power, the type of human which Machiavelli warned against.

I offer a different way, one taken from the “others”, from the woman.

I know I am trapped under that glass ceiling, but what I have learned under here is not all bad. I have found some of my most fulfilling relationships amongst women and this is connected to the womanly, the “weak” disposition. Self-awareness makes women more self conscious, but also more empathetic, more cultivated in considering others, more knowledgable about emotion and willing to share themselves without worrying about conquering. I have been able to break down crying to friends and find acceptance in them, in what the world calls weakness, I gain compassion and understanding. Female friendships (when not corrupted by competition) see an acceptance of others for themselves, a companionship of equals. This connection however, it is only plausible once the idea that we must dominate is relinquished. When our identities are no longer constrained towards winning, but embrace- weakness.

I see now that oppression is the true evil behind the patriarchy. Not just the oppression of women- but this strange idea that oppression is innate to human nature, and that the one who oppresses is the strongest. I think now, Machiavelli is wrong. It’s better to be loved than feared, and human nature is not so fixed as to desire this power as he would have you believing.

We have created the conditions of isolation in creating the patriarchy. We have oppressed our own compassion and praised domination. Machiavellianism, masculinity- it is nothing but a narrative, one maybe befit for 18th century war- but which pollutes our brains and bonds today.

"Hey, Why Do You Take Antidepressants Anyways?'

 The discourse and dilemma of prescribed narcotics 

The 6:00 am sun breaks through my window, followed by my alarm's routine cry. "Wake up! join the world!"

Another day, and my body jerks up before my mind has a chance to recapture its consciousness. Habitually, I start my morning routine by brushing my teeth, taking the effort in scrubbing my tongue till I gag. Contacts in each eye, now I can see the streaks on my mirror, and I make a mental note: pick up more Windex on my way home. Coffee, my daily dosage of Prozac, and i’m off.

It was an average day, Monday or Tuesday- Who's to tell? Later, I was joined by my friends- stupid jokes and burning daylight. Looking at their smiles, I felt alright for the first time in a while.

"You're funny today," one of them casually remarked. I smiled because she was right. I was, as they say, "on a roll" and that familiar - almost forgotten- warmness of friendly admiration took hold of my body. Just a few months ago, I was suffering from what people with depression may call a "bad spell." Mornings, my consciousness suffocated me and I would wake up already at rock bottom. I would cancel plans, afraid to see my friends, afraid of mere daylight. Don't disappoint them, I would rationalise; they can't see you like this… no one can see you like this.

But then here I was, funny again.

The good feeling from her complement was short-lived. In its tendency to find a cloud on the sunniest day, my mind wandered itself upon an unfortunate thought, and dread immediately replaced my comfort.

Was I only being funny because I was on antidepressants?

I had been on my highest dosage of Prozac for about 3 weeks, roughly the time my doctor told me it takes to get accustomed to a new dosage. While I had thought I felt the "same," I knew I was incapable of humour a few months ago. I had changed, sure, but was this change brought about by the medication?

If so, I thought, uh-oh.

If I had to take these- needed them, I was now forced into questioning the validity of a life lived on drugs.

You may ask why, how could I concern myself with something a doctor prescribed. Nevertheless, they are a drug. Drugs change people.

As someone who has struggled with depression, let's say I have had difficulty in my life with substances. I fear drug consumption, but I must. It's my defence mechanism to prevent addiction, and it has saved me from my closest encounters with that third kind. I give my rational mind the wheel to steer clear of the upcoming danger. The high- oh god- drugs fly me away from the hardships of complete consciousness- and I always want to keep going- float along just a little longer. I know though that at the end of that road is a dead end and in taking that path, it would kill me.

When we talk of people with an addiction, they're described as "different people," changed people. Inside us all, I imagine there is an innocent self, the inner child, and it is them who is slowly murdered by drugs. The morning after becomes your always, the highs mingled with the lows. Where did your inner child go? Are they watching from the sidelines as you stumble further from the person they dreamed you would become? I wondered about Antidepressants, what made them different.

But what about medicine? Drugs, in an uncorrupted sense, mean medicine.

Antidepressants are prescribed. I would never question a doctor's note for antibiotics when coming down with bronchitis. Medicine fixes things, bad things. Dayquil, Tylenol, these drugs change- but it’s temporary bodily ailments. And hey, you're better after.

But Antidepressants target something- a bit more personal. My stuffy nose has nothing to do with my personality, only covering my bedside table in snot-filled tissues. Depression is more than a bodily ailment where my temperature going down signifies I have beat it.

"Why do you take antidepressants anyway?" A question I've frequently been asked but never have been capable of fully answering.

To cure my brain? To cure me? I guess I took them because my doctor prescribed them, and I could not find the motivation to get through the day.

Let's deconstruct antidepressants because until recently, I did not exactly know what they did.

Antidepressants target neurotransmitters. For those of us laymen lacking in cognitive knowledge, neurotransmitters are the chemicals in your brain that act as the middleman between neuron communication. Stubbing your toe, the neurotransmitters carry the message that it's painful up to your brain. Your eyes see the sun, and the neurotransmitters tell your brain it's time to feel happy.

Well- that's what they're supposed to do, at least.

People with depression have wonky transmitters. The message carriers are cynics who throw away the good feelings, scribbling over the message a bitter new one. That's the medical essence of it. I have employed notoriously poor employees in my brain.

Serotonin, which controls mood, he's all over the place. He mixes up my happy emotions with fear- anger and disgust, how disorganised! Norepinephrine, who's supposed to tell you to feel aroused, to pay attention- he gets lost along the way and great, now I can't focus. Dopamine, the most important of my carriers, is charged with the paramount task of giving me feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. Well, he's a no-show most days, and when he shows up, he's slow- and it's as if half the messages are missing.

Ever since I was 12, I have suffered from this unwanted ailment, acting like an evil villain, corrupting my employees and making time slow, life-bad. I was diagnosed with major depression a few years ago. After the initial sort of relief sunk in that I could finally name this thing, that my feelings had a scientific basis-I was left to cope with the fact that something was intrinsically wrong with me. Depression is a lifelong illness- "Bad spells" are a constant concern lurking around every corner- they go away, lessen at times- but I know, always, they have that cunning tendency to get me when I least expect it- throwing my life into ruin.

Eventually, after years of back and forth fluctuations, I had to seek help. I was prompted towards my doctor, who recommends antidepressants if you exhibit symptoms such as sadness, despair, hopelessness or -gasp- suicidal thoughts for over 2 weeks.

Check.

So there we go- I got a prescription for Prozac.

Antidepressants act as a new manager cleaning up the sorry state of affairs your illness leaves behind, employing the most astute carriers to deliver messages. They are efficient, for sure, but what next? They are a drug, they too, change you. And hey- what happened to my carriers? I grew up with them- working for this company for 20 years, how can I be sure I’m the one at the head of these changes.

Antidepressants themselves are not all sunshine and rainbows. Believe me.

I am embarrassed to be on antidepressants for starters. It's an uncomfortable discussion with the enforced declaration that I have depression. Depression- scary. mentally ill? - broken.

Also, who’s to say they really - work. I know what my dad thinks- what half the population does, they’re a government taxpayer-sucking placebo and I am a sheep. “why not go for a walk?” groan.

But for me, I struggle with the "emotional blunting" aspect. The idea of antidepressants is simple, that they moderate your mood, fix your machine. However, in doing so, they turn down the volume on all your emotions. I get the messages, but they're in black and white- a printed fact rather than a colourful response. "Oh, okay, feel happy, okay," and I guess I do. But you become numb- somewhat okay with whatever. I can appreciate the sun but don't feel moved to write a poem about it. I don't cry from things which have no trace of sadness in them- but also don't cry when my sister is in the hospital. Moderated - changed- reduced. What's the fix when you tell your doctor this? A higher dosage.

With the doctor as my enabler, have I ignored that it is potentially an addiction? As I increase my strength- am I still the same person as before? Sure, this new manager has my best interest at heart, but he's still messing around my mind. I am not a mere machine, i’m a girl.

What if I just went off them? I have also considered it. Ah- but most would not recommend that. Abrupt cessation of antidepressant use leads to adverse side effects. More than headaches and nausea, genuine withdrawals. Low moods return but worse, worse than ever. Back in bed- sweating- confronted with my repressed emotions I scream- “I need my fix! Where’s the prozac!”.

So, I have learned that dramatically flushing them down the toilet or whatever is not the best solution.

So why do I take them?

Why do people always ask that?

If it wasn’t clear- I have depression. It's an uphill battle, and this tough climb requires new strategies. Medical professionals have not figured it out yet, either. Women used to get lobotomies, shock treatment, and the "rest cure," where men locked their depressed wives away for maybe years until they could be happy again, or atleast fake it better.

Depression hurts myself - but others too. Untreated I avoid friends and unintentionally yell at family. Unmedicated, the inner child in me still must watch sadly as I abuse the person they wanted me to be.

The truth is- I don't know how to deal with depression. I know therapy is expensive and that looking on the bright side or going for a walk won't go all the way. I know when depression gets its dirty hands on me, other drugs, those bad ones, begin to sing their appealing song a little louder.

I think back to being funny that day.

I hate my mental illness because it prevents me from being funny, from being normal. From waking up and feeling like life is worth living.

Our world seems to love mischaracterizing mental illness as if it is a fun fact and not a sickness with fatal consequences.

Listen, I don't want to be taking prescription mood stabilisers my whole life. I want to be in control of my mind and come back in with a megaphone screaming I'm back as manager, but things have to be different around here. I also know that I needed to take them when I did because I could not go on living as I was. At the end of it all, narcotics are scary. I mean, you put the word drug on something- forgive me for feeling like I have become an addict.

We need to restructure how we talk about mental illness, though. How we critique the strategies intended to make a lifelong struggle less harrowing. "Why are you on antidepressants?" Why does it always come with an arrogant sense of judgement? Well, I don't know, Jessica, why are you with your toxic boyfriend? Why do you exercise in the morning, or better yet, why do you drink vodka crans till sunrise on weekends with your friends? We are all just doing the best we can with our situation.

We also need to make therapy more accessible. We have gone past the days of shock therapy, but why is the first response to a depressed patient a prescription putting money in the pockets of big pharma? We need to normalise conversations about mental illness among friends- men, I'm looking at you, educate parents and take it to the big guys- I mean government offices. If we want to lower the curve of the spike in depressed youth, in suicides, we need to modify the entire system in place so that pills are not the only option. They clearly are not the perfect solution.

Am I addicted? Maybe. Do antidepressants dull my emotions? Maybe. But am I losing some core version of myself? I hope that's not who I am. In any case- I'll take my drugs so long as they work, so long as I need them- because I value my inner child. I took them because today I woke up, and because I could be funny.

i'm sorry, mom.

an exploration of my relationship with my mother

Published on UC’s The Gargoyle

Carly Campbell

As a child, the branches of my family enveloped me, and I couldn’t tell if it was a loving embrace or suffocation. 

Now, I am living with a roommate, working on my own passion projects, and building a life of my own. Whenever I recall memories of my childhood, it comes from me looking back at my roots, not from being consumed by their hold on me.

A quote by Bonnie Burstow in Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence changed my perspective completely on the idea of a family, and exposed the cold, harsh truth of my relationship with each of my parents:

"Often father and daughter look down on the mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are and cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate."

This challenged me to investigate my role as a daughter. Have I looked down on my own mother? Have I been treating her the same way my father always had?

Often, father and daughter look down on mother together.

My father, with his two daughters, had always wanted a son. I grew up as “daddy’s little girl,” proudly carrying this title and wearing it as a badge of honour. Every action I made would scream “Papa, look at me!”, as I moulded myself into the son he always wanted. He used to proudly proclaim that I was nothing like my mother.

They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point.

My father called my mother stupid. Not fun. He invited me to laugh at, and never with, the buzzkill. I soaked his words in like the sponge that I was. Mother would always nag. Scolding my father to stop drinking, or picking a fight with him which would drive him to anger. She was crazy for being frightened of the world, which was seemingly the sole reason she forbade me to hang out with my friends at the park or ride my bike after dark. Mother became the enemy.

They agree that she is not as bright as they are and cannot reason as they do.

I developed resentment for my mother from a young age. I partially blame my fathers words for that, but it was also as a form of self-defence. I remember feeling the weight of her eyes watching me, as she honed in on my flaws. Small critiques within small talks turned into sharp jabs. My hair was too messy, my dresses too wrinkled, and my speaking voice too loud. The message was clear; I wasn't feminine enough. I wasn’t enough at all. She would compare my appearance to the appearances of other women in my family like my cousins, or my sister. I was frustrated that she cared about my appearance more than my opinions, upset that she never seemed to feel proud of who I was, and constantly felt pressure from her to be better.

Mother would never love me for who I was.

Why did she fail to see me?

As I shrunk away from her, I inched closer to my father. The resentment I had for my mother turned into resentment for femininity as a whole. I ate the words of the patriarchal doctrine for breakfast.

I learned to hate women before even realising that I was one.

The black hole of my resentment had grown insatiable, my kind eyes turned cruel as I looked down at my mother and proclaimed, proudly: “I am nothing like you.” I would be embarrassed to be anything like you.

I had finally become my father’s son.

But the arrogant view I held of my mother, the one I used to belittle and demean her — it was only a matter of time before it would be pointed towards me. No matter how “masculine” I tried to be, I would always be seen as a woman first, a person second.

There was an inherent illness I have only now noticed in my relationship with my mother. It was not that she and I were so different, it's that we did not see each other. How could I love my mother when I only saw her through the eyes of others?

My mother is a woman, but she was once a girl. Growing up in a Christian, Hispanic household taught her that marriage was the only way to leave the home, and that being a mother was her one purpose. She had a role to fulfil and she grew fond of her sole option. How could I have failed to realise she had hopes and dreams?

In amending the skewed perception of my mother, I had to take a step back from looking at her through the tarnished lens of my relationship with her. Then her actions were illuminated not entirely as her own, but as actions crafted in the environment in which she was raised. She only attempted to raise me how she had been taught to raise a daughter. Her goal was to develop her daughter into a wife, the same way her mother had done to her.

I love my father, but he's changed as I age. As a woman, I can't help but notice the inadequate way he loves my mother, in the way he fails to see her outside of this typology of wife and condemns her love as if it is a barrier to his freedom.

I am more feminine now, and I care less about impressing him. I don’t hold back from critiquing his behaviour. “You're just like your mother,” he had told me now, more than once. I'm no longer daddy’s little girl. It's obvious I am one of them: a Woman. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate.

My mother is beautiful. My mother is kind, dorky, and awkward. My mother never throws out birthday cards. My mother loves snoopy and shitty rom-coms and me, if I let her.

I couldn't love her because I couldn't see her. I fell victim to the environment which would only paint me in the same way. In my subtle hatred, I perpetuated a patriarchal valuation of women as lesser. I'm sorry, Mom. You loved me in the best way that you could.

Politics of Female Depravity: anorexia and asceticism

A woman's quest for control through her body

Carly Campbell

Published on UC’s The gargoyle

At age 16, trapped in my room with nothing better to do than look into the mirror and overthink every curve of my adolescent body, I developed the beginnings of a restrictive habit that would spiral into anorexia

At age 18 I was forced to get an MRI to make sure that my bad habit had not had any adverse effects on my brain development.

I remember feeling embarrassed in the body which barely was there as I undressed to get into my hospital gown. The doctors all knew what put me there, I was no longer an intelligent girl, to them, another idiot teen with an eating disorder.

MRI’S are horrifying. I was told to not move, to stare at the dot and to pay no mind to the drilling noises that would surround me for the ten minutes while the machine scanned my brain.

How did I get here?

No one with an eating disorder pictures that it will get to the level it does. No one believes they have a problem until they are crying when forced to eat in front of others

It starts “healthy”. You begin calorie counting, hoping to drop a few pounds. Abs. Tone. Summer body. Women are no strangers to these words, this goal which hangs above our heads once we become conscious of our bodys as an object of observation.

Dieting is addictive.

Attention, Praise, “What's your secret?”

stepping on the scale and the number keeps getting smaller and smaller,

you feel good.

No one talks about how hunger itself becomes a comfort. No one tells you that your image in the mirror will always feel too big. You're smaller than what people would call appealing. It's not enough.

It isn't about them anymore.

Life is hard and it gets harder. Everyone goes away to university, loneliness. Grades are harder to achieve and your parents' marriage is falling apart. When the world is just too confusing and nothing makes sense anymore.

You can always make yourself smaller.

The next thing you know, the thing you controlled for so long controls you.

You can’t even stand without getting lightheaded, it's been a year since your last period and your doctor is telling you you may never be able to have kids.

But women have always done this.

Deprivation is beautiful, or so I had been taught in my catholic upbringing. Just look at the saints.

“Holy anorexia”: virtuous self abnegation and restriction to the point where women died in an effort to prove their devotion to Jesus christ. Amen.

I did a project in my first year on the beguine movement of the middle ages. The beguines were women who mimicked Jesus, the parts of his life which included poverty, care for the less fortunate- oh and extreme fasting. Reading the stories of them, I found a skewed image of the torture I was inflicting on myself.

The worst account was of Mary d’Oignes, a beguine who was in a constant fast. Mary’s only meals consisted of breadcrumbs and vegetables, a caution she took to prevent herself from enjoying food. Her stomach was described to have shrunk so immensely she could not handle most foods. I read how she once opted for bread so harsh it made her mouth bleed. I read how she once accidentally tasted wine and meat, and in the horror of enjoying it, Mary inflicted self harm upon herself until she could feel that her mistake was atoned for.

This was glorified in the text. Mary was strong. Mary was a handmaiden of christ.

Mary was respected.

St. Catherine of Siena was another like Mary. Born during the plague, at 16 she was told to marry her sister's widower. Her sister had died so she would serve as the replacement, she had no choice.

To avoid the marriage, she cut her hair to make herself unappealing in his eyes. She starved herself to rid her body of womanly appeal. She succeeded. Like the other women, her marriage was to Christ, of course she could not marry. She died at age 33 after weakening her body so much she could no longer use her legs. “a full belly does not make for a chaste spirit,” she said. She has a feast day now, how ironic.

But she took control of her life. She had a role in politics, established a monastery for women, and influenced Italian literature.

These texts create the impression that food was nothing more than a worldly desire, not a bodily requirement. Fasting was how these women rejected desire, worldly temptations, the sins of hunger, of sex.

I saw something else though, I saw women in a world with no autonomy finding a way to control something. I saw women looking for a way out.

I saw myself.

Asceticism and anorexia are one in the same coin. They come from a desire for autonomy, for control and from a want to transcend beyond our stifled roles as women. In my quest to be smaller I was moulding myself into some self constructed image of perfection, it was a journey of discipline. I was in control, Me.

In the lowest state I wanted to become nonexistent. I didn't want to appease anyone’s image anymore, fill out shirts, be the sex object men wanted to see my body as. I took my body away because I couldn't deal with the reality of being. I dont think it's beautiful, I think it's sick. I read these stories of saints now and I'm disgusted at the way women have continuously hurt themselves.

But I understand it.

Suicide is a sin but these women found a loophole. These women died smiling, they could not wait to go to heaven.

They could not wait to die.

Can we say they gave up? I don’t think that's fair. What was the life they had otherwise, marrying at 14 to whoever their parents picked, to childbirth and caretaking. To live their short life would be in service to others. Hope in these women's lives was nothing short of hoping that heaven would be better than the living hell they found themselves in. Eve ate the apple, women would forever have to atone.

We all feel that way sometimes. The world that we live in sucks, is waking up even worth it?

I think that they were strong for fasting. I think women are strong for choosing. We all seek to find control in whatever way we can manage.

But am I in control if I die?

Women bear a cross, our role, our expectations. You're born unaware and the comedown is hard. Life is hard and you grow to find that as a woman it's harder.

In the depth of my disorder I thought I was in control but I was wrong.

It's an unfair game but who was I helping by failing to play?

Starving is just starving. It's a slow way to die.

And I have never been more in control then when I chose recovery.