a different lens
A letter written to an oft-commissioned artist who was happy to hear more about the backstory of the character she’d drawn so much.
So .. I’m trans; I kinda knew about it from an early age (like in the mid-1990s; I’m 30 now), but didn’t have the words or experience or knowledge to understand why I felt the way I did. It wasn’t really a thing you ever heard about, there was no media representation, the internet barely existed, etc. etc.
So I came to understand this “other” inside me as something, or someone, that I liked to channel; like I could find her inside me and bring her to life. I always had an affinity for rabbits, and this ‘girl’ form of me just naturally seemed to be rabbit-like. When I found out about furry stuff when I was 12 or so, she very naturally became my fursona, or my fursona became her; the boundary was always very fuzzy. At the time I gave her the name Asherah. ‘We’ started hanging around on furry MUCKs, she learned to express herself more and more, and we started to develop an idea of what she looked like. (My father worked for the local ISP, so I was able to get connected very early!)
Fast forward to 2012 — things like Twitter and Tumblr were gaining popularity, and I finally understood and accepted that I was trans and I needed to do something about it. I transitioned, and kinda fucked around for a few years trying to work out what I should do about my name — tried a few different ones and none felt right — and then one day it suddenly dawned on me (or on us) that Asherah was a name people had used for ‘us’ for ten years, and that it was the name we were actually comfortable with. So I changed my name to Asherah (usually called Ashe), and after a while we started calling her, my ’sona or alternate self, Rain. It felt like Rain was keeping my name for me until I was ready for it, y’know?
I’ve had pretty bad mental health issues stemming from different trauma. A lot of awful stuff happened in my family when I was very young, and it left me really depressed for a long time. I’ve mostly gotten on top of the depression, but the last decade has been kinda dominated by anxiety and panic instead. Abusive relationships and assault and that kind of thing. I’ve worked really hard to make progress and keep my head up, but still it can be so difficult. Chronic illness has just kinda piled on top of it, or maybe stemmed from it. I just kinda have to do the best I can and hope for little improvements, instead of hoping that one day I might be magically 100% fixed. Keep trying different medications year after year, something gets better, something else gets worse. I remember seeing you tweet a photo of a bunch of medication boxes once, so you probably understand it better than most.
Rain, then, is like.. my internal guiding light, or guardian, or spirit guide, or something. She helped me see my way to my true self, helped me find my name, and now, she’s kinda my loving ever-present companion, even if just in my own head.
She’s like this ideal self that I aspire to become more like; she holds my cheerfulness and joy and curiosity, and the more I can connect to her, the more I can radiate those qualities myself. Sometimes seeing her as a separate person with a separate identity to myself is helpful; we can talk over things and be a little bit wiser than if it was ‘just me’. Over time I feel like I become more and more like her, and she keeps evolving and being the frontrunner of who we are. (idk if this makes any sense.. /o\)
But, yeah. Basically, despite all the illness and trauma and things I’ve had to deal with, I actually hold up in real life really well, thanks to my connection with her! People who know me sometimes wonder how I manage to be so well-adjusted and ‘successful’ when they learn what I’ve had to deal with, how poor my family was when I was growing up, what happened when I transitioned, etc. etc., and it’s basically through nurturing this relationship with her. I usually don’t tell them that, though, because frankly it sounds kinda nuts.
whew. Okay, that was a lot. I hope it was at least a little interesting. For what it’s worth, I’m not particularly disconnected with reality; you can look at Rain through a plurality/multiplicity/disassociative identity lens, or through an Internal Family Systems therapy lens, or in a few different other ways depending on how you understand identity or the brain. In short, she’s the way that I practice having a good loving relationship with myself. It’s really nice!
So, seeing her in art is really powerful. You’ve done three pieces of her by now, and it always feels like seeing a part of myself (or of ourselves) for the first time. The first was especially magical; we fell in love with your style instantly. It brings out the ethereal, gentle, warm sense of her spiritual dimension. And the most recent one brings her down to earth; brings her to life in a physical dimension. Gah. It’s just so beautiful ;;
This YCH feels so appropriate for Rain — the character is just radiating warmth. The design for the book cover that I gave above is a sigil — kind of a magical mark that is charged with meaning and intention, designed to have a lingering subconscious effect on its designer/user (i.e. me!). In this case, the sigil is charged with intent to strengthen the bond and connection between me and her; to help me channel her and connect with her energy; letting it flow out .. it just fits together with the ych design perfectly. (And the clothing design is super cute!)