With May came a part of my anxiety disorder I never knew existed. Before now, I hadn’t been able to imagine the ways my mind and body could turn against each other. How neither would refuse to work with the other, chasing their gratifications in vastly divergent ways, demanding unhealthy attention, and stretching out the core of my being so that all I would be capable of would be to bend to their will as best, and as quickly as I could.
At first, it was my mind blowing minute instances out of proportion, regarding a situation and seeing something way more detrimental than the situation truly possessed, and because it was getting hard to make my head realize exactly what it was doing and how harmful it was becoming to my body, – through restlessness, insomnia, fatigue and the other symptoms that come with a mind unsettled, I began to crave gratification, mostly through bodies. I was always parched of quick respites, and rushed joys that brought temporary calm until the next exaggerated thought would arrive and disrupt my hard-won mental peace.
I needed bodies, perhaps because this episode began with and because of a person, which is baffling as he was a one night stand who, while it was great, I’d only met and had a thing with once. I couldn’t understand how I could be affected by someone I’d only been with for a couple of hours, but I was. And even though it didn’t seem fair, and there was very little I could do about it, it was right there; I couldn’t curtail my body’s demands.
It is common knowledge that to need something too much is to automatically give it power, which in most cases it shouldn’t have, as it hasn’t earned it, or because of what we might allow it do to us without even knowing. Sometimes I told the men whose bodies I needed to fill the heavy emptiness in my head, whose affirmation through sex I needed to remind myself that I still could be seen, as against the invisibility my mind was forcing me to imbibe, just what I hoped would come off getting down with them in the hopes that in naming these corrosions, I might find maybe healing, maybe longer lasting gratification.
But it never really came until after therapy, when my mind was becoming fine with peace and my body was starting to need fewer bodies and the transient attention that often comes with them. Pose also was and still remains a key player in my coming back to a fuller sense of self by seeing the good and richness that comes with owning and existing first for myself, before anyone else. If Pose has taught me anything, it is the fact that nobody can come through for me the way I might be able to, if I am truly dedicated to doing that. I’d always known that. I never quite thought it necessary to live by it.
For those who don’t know (which is a travesty if you seriously don’t), Pose is a TV series on FX networks about Ball culture in the New York of 1988, and the unique and intertwined lives that people this ball, starring amazing Trans and gay actors like M.J Rodriguez, Billy Porter, Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson, Angelica Ross, etc.
I started watching Pose months after, everyone in my small world had already watched. The buzz, mostly on Twitter, had not only quieted but had been replaced by some other interesting thing to see, read, and hear as most works of entertainment do, no matter how iconic ( a description Pose fits without trying ) they are in a world bursting with newer, more exciting options popping up by the minute. I watched Pose when I did because l find it exhausting to follow TV shows and cinematic whatnot when I could just read a book and listen to my favourite songs on a loop. But after a friend convinced me, pushing me past the wariness that comes when I have to engage with a new on-screen kind of entertainment, I couldn’t stop thinking and talking about it after I saw the entire season in a night.
There is something so true to life, so core hitting and so relatable about Pose that no other Western queer media I’ve engaged with has been able to capture. What excites me about Pose is really how it depicts queer existences in the full range of our humanities. The way it rings that regardless of the injustice we go through every day, there is also a joy to be found in not only living our truth but also in guarding it.
Pose has reaffirmed that as a queer person, regardless of how unfair and unloving my immediate society is, my voice, defiance, and input to the world matters, not just for me, but for every other queer person around me. Pose has also highlighted to me, the necessity of community, the importance of reaching out and the bond that is further strengthened when we come through for our chosen brothers and sisters. But most of all, and with the release of the first few episodes of this new season, Pose is helping me question my self-worth, how much regard I have for my health, and how much love I thought I had for myself.
These are questions I have found hard to face and deal with because with so much going on, the last thing a queer person like me, with limited access to spaces that are safe, sober and healthy, would want to do is censor where and how I find companionship and pleasure. At least that was what I believed. But it isn’t completely true.
While we live in a vastly imbalanced society (which is sadly existent everywhere) where some people can exercise and explore their sexuality as far as their money and privilege can take them, and the other vast majority are basically trying to get by half the time, Pose has taught me to not only find my tribe, but to work towards a community built on love, support and care.
It was hard existing in a body I just wanted to get out of, it was even harder seeing myself put my body through risks I wouldn’t get close to on a good day and not being able to do anything about it. Pose, in one of the dinner scenes in this new season where Blanca talks about her past, reminds me that it is possible to pick up where my body might have failed me, or me, it, and to not just look towards being conscious about loving, cherishing and willfully taking care of myself, but enacting this in every way I might need it.
I am worthwhile, and apart from the colours, the dance, the acting, and the shade, this I am sure is what Pose wants me and my other Trans, Lesbian, Gay, Intersex, Nonbinary, Queer+ brethren to know. That we are worthwhile, first to ourselves, before anyone else.
