Highlights from Iris’ Conversation

Tell me about your youth. Where did you grow up, and what lessons do you remember being taught that influenced your life?

I was actually born in Bloomington and we moved up to Indianapolis when I was almost two.  I was a very happy kid, but I also didn't ever really feel like a boy. And it would, you know, it made me start to hate myself and I couldn't vocalize it because there was no language available to me to figure out what was going on.

I didn't find out about this until years later either, but I have ADHD and I'm autistic, and that informed a lot of the ways that I saw people and interacted with people and how I felt about myself. The acting out and the breaking things and damaging stuff and hurting myself, it was just a compensatory mechanism for the completely overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety that was wrecking my nervous system.

The first time that I thought about killing myself was right before I turned 11, and I, you know, it was, uh, it was kind of relieving, honestly. Not having to feel like that, not having to deal with all of the people constantly treating me like I was some kind of monster.

And then in ninth grade, I started having issues with debilitating chronic pain, and they couldn't figure out what it was initially, so I had just horrible burning pain running down the back of my leg, which is, you know, obviously sciatic nerve stuff, but apparently in 14 year olds, they never go that way because what 14 year old has degenerative disc issues in their back? But, so it took them two years to figure that out, and in those two years, they just gave me a whole bunch of opiates. So I was taking pain pills like candy, and naturally I got addicted to them

What practices have you done in your past and what practices are you doing now that have helped you to become more aware of the expectations and should that exist for you?

Being grateful for everything in life, even the hard stuff, even the things that people tell me I shouldn't be grateful for. When people that I know and love overdose and die, I'm not grateful that they died, but I'm grateful that they existed. I'm grateful for the things that they did, I'm grateful for the people that they loved and the people that they impacted and supported.

If you imagine a life where you were living with complete support, not just for who you are but for the exploration of who you are and who you are becoming, what does that look like and what does that feel like?

That is a difficult thing to imagine, honestly. Living under the society that we live right now, with the way our political system has been targeting especially trans people, you know, it's difficult to see.

A free place where we can just exist as ourselves, be liberated from all of the bigotry and the hatred and the mistrust - it looks a lot like anarchy to me.Genuinely having everyone care for and support and stand with other people and their different lived experiences is what I hope for, for everyone. And that is the basis of anarchist societies is, you know, mutual respect and solidarity.

Getting to a point where we can all feel that way about one another, that we just want to do the best we can to care for ourselves and for everyone else out of a place of love, you know, it is a grand hope and a grand idea that I embrace.

Artists can make art and share that with everyone and fill their hearts and their spirits as they need to. You know, people that are gifted with mathematics can work in sciences and give that to people. People that are gifted with working with their hands can do whatever that is and give that to people. You know, we can come from a place of love and care for each other and just be there and not feel like they owe us something or that we're obligated to do any of this. You know, the sense of obligation feels oppressive to me. That feels like some society is telling me that I should want to do these things for someone else. And, you know, that comes from a place of fear. It does. Having an obligation to another being is a fear response. And, wanting to do something for another person, loving them, wanting to support them and care for them and be present for them is a different thing than feeling obligated to do it. 

Is there anything else that you want to impart from your life wisdom to those struggling with the weight of shoulds and attempts to be freely and authentically themselves?

It's really fucking hard. …It takes a lot of therapy. It takes a lot of reading and self reflection and it takes a willingness to sit in pain, a lot of pain for a long time. It's why so many of us aren't here anymore. Because that pain can be too much sometimes. And we're taught not to share that pain with other people. We're taught to hold it, that it's ours. And that is not true. It's just not, you know, the pain that we feel by being put into these boxes by people that makes us feel like we're less worthy to exist. That pain we need to share with other people.

We can share that pain with other people. We can see that other people have moved through it, have felt it, that people have suffered the same way that we feel that we have suffered and grown and blossomed and turned into beautiful beings of light and of love and that it is possible to do that. We can share the load, we can share the pain, we can be there for one another and you know, care and love and support. And you know, our experiences are not all the same. They're not, but we can love and learn from each other and grow and be present and loving.

It's so beautiful to share pain with other people. It's so beautiful. I love it when people open up and tell me about all of the things that they're struggling with because I, you know, I can't fix them. I can't take it away, but I can hold onto some of that for them. I can carry just a small piece of it, just a little piece for someone else, so maybe they don't have to carry so much. We don't all have to carry it all ourselves. We don't. Knowing that we're not alone. Oh God. I love being alive now. It's so great. Honestly, even with all the hardship, it's so amazing. To be able to share space with other people. It's so wonderful.

Bonus Questions

What song or songs do you listen to that make you feel powerful and free?

The Cure. The lyrics, especially from Moms Like Disintegration, I really resonate with. I love Depeche Mode. A lot of songs by Paramore that will continually make me cry….Future is one of them.

Describe an outfit that would make you feel all the ways you want to feel

My mood dictates what I wear a lot and the things that I wear, I want to feel embodied and empowered and visible. And you know, if I mute or wear something that I think other people will like, that makes me feel less than myself. I wear the things that I want to wear at that moment. And if somebody doesn't like it, then that's their stuff. That's none of my business. Their thoughts about me, their expectations of me are not my business. That's their thoughts. That's their own prejudices.

(If you have one) What is a favorite quote of yours?

Frank Herbert is one of my favorite authors and, and probably the Bene Gesserit quote from Dune. The fear is the mind killer quote, which I can never appropriately remember, but it is something like, uh, I will allow the fear to pass through me and it, and, and only I will remain.

Random Notable Quotes

• Things that people just told me I should be and I should do and I should live like and I should look these ways and I should behave in certain ways because of certain physical attributes of my body. And I'm grateful now to realize that I don't have to listen to any of that.
  

• We exist to be around one another, to build each other up, to support and care for and love one another. Initially it was basic needs. We built shelter, we cared for one another when we were sick, we got food, we hunted, and protected each other. But now you need to do all those things, but you have to be emotionally aware. You have to create, you have to love in ways that are different, 

  
  

• The need for us to connect and to share, and to be there for one another is fundamental to our experience as humans and to beings on this planet, because without that we can't grow, we can't advance. We can't be in any shape or form mature, living, and creative beings without other people. I mean, we would cease to be.

  
  

• If we cut ourselves off from sharing pain with other beings and internalize all of that, we put all of that stress and all of that pressure and all of that hatred and anger on ourselves. That crushes our spirits, and it minimizes anything related to another person's existence that may have been a blessing, a boon, a benefit to others. Sharing all of those things with others builds us all up, and it lessens our own pain to get that shit out sometimes.

  
  

• Everybody said that I should feel these things, I should be this way, and so I just listened to them, I listened to society, I listened to my family, I listened to my peers, and put on these masks and pretended and behaved in the ways that I should by their standards.

  
  

• Because of the narrative that I spun around my existence and who I was, I was lying to myself and to everyone all the time about who I was, about what I was doing. Because I was locked in drug addiction all the time, so I was lying about where I was, but I was spending money on everything, and all of these webs just kept getting twisted in my mind to the point where I felt completely insane. I didn't even know who I was a lot of the time, I didn't know when I was lying. I couldn't even tell what an honest thought was for a long time, and that kind of delusion is a difficult place to escape from.

  
  

• I think that being thoroughly honest with other people about our feelings and motivations, and thoroughly honest with ourselves about who we are and what our feelings are leading us to is the beginning of self-actualization.

  
  

• If I couldn't just exist and be honest with my feelings, and live an authentic and real life, and a meaningful life, then I would have to dissociate from all that, and the only way I knew how at the time, still really the only way I know how is to just numb myself with drugs.

  
  

• I see this even now in people when they start living as themselves and whatever that may be, liberating themselves from any number of the weights of our society saying that you should be a homemaker or you should do these things because you're a man. Men live under this same pressure and this same stigma of having to be perceived a certain way by our societal standards and it's all bullshit. Liberation from all of this is a long process but it also requires that we see in other people things that they may not see in themselves, especially early on. And I look at people trying to find their path and see the light start to come back into their eyes and see the glow in their spirit and their body and the change in their being as they're liberated from the thoughts that have kept them trapped for so long.

  
  

• You have to follow these rules or you'll die. You have to follow the narrative that you have to be a dutiful employee, you have to be a dutiful spouse, a partner and do these very particular things or else you are less valuable or less valid as a human and that's soul crushing and it destroys a lot of people and they turn into shadows of themselves a lot of times and it does not have to be that way. And I'm grateful that I can be there for people and be a source of love for them even when they may not feel that for themselves.

  
  

• It adds so much beauty to my life to see and know so many people that have experienced so many different things and to learn about them and to love them and to see them and to be present and to share my shit with them too. Because, you know, the more that we can share with one another, the more we can understand and love one another and realize that we've all done things that we've felt wrong about.

  
  

• I want to share the fact that I love their being. I love their pain and their history and their stories and their experience and the things that they've done that they feel fucked up about, that they feel less than because of. …Filling that with love helps people to process it. You don't need to forget it. You don't need to remove it. It is there. It is part of you. But that can lead you to be present for someone that's gone through the same thing, to share experience, to share the love and the hope that comes from moving through those things.

  
  

• We should be willing to support those people that need it, instead of pushing the money up to the people that don't need it. Push the money down to all the people that do. You know, care for our marginalized communities, our BIPOC communities, our indigenous communities, and our unhoused communities, and our queer and trans communities. And everyone that feels minimized by our current state of affairs in this capitalist nightmare that we live in. Because it's the vast majority of people.

• All I can do is be myself. All I can do is be there and be present and love people and do what I can for everyone else. And, again, everybody's capacity for this is different. Some of us can be there for one person, maybe our kids or our partner or ourselves. And some of us can be there for many. Some of us have the resources and the privilege, and we need to recognize that, of being visible and being there for other people.