My girlfriend and I watched The Assignment and The Skin I Live In this week. Both movies deal with gender and identity as psychological and body horror. The Assignment has middling action but the scenes involving the protagonist navigating what has been done to them and the way that others treat and perceive them ring true and are deeply uncomfortable to us. The Skin I Live In is an arthouse movie with Antonio Banderes and it's extremely not for the faint of heart, make sure to read up on the trigger warnings before watching. This movie dealt again with absolute loss of control over one's body and how one is perceived by the outside world. Skin is clearly the better movie and worth a watch but with it's graphic depictions and two hour length, won't be for everyone.
I'm a horror writer, so exploring gender dysphoria through that lense is natural. I've also been doing art therapy stuff about it. I've realized I've put up all these emotional walls to protect myself during my honestly shitty childhood (not my dad, he was awesome, but he had to be gone a lot) and now I'm so cut off from my own emotions I don't know what being emotionally vulnerable is. I've lost the ability to cry and I need to get it back and I'm not certain how. I have a constant anxiety driving me to be productive and excel and none of my achievements mean anything to me and it's all just like back then, constantly doing everything I could to win the approval of a mother who was never going to be proud of or love me. Therapy has got me messed up good. I'm somehow 3, 13, and 30 at the same time right now.
I feel like Nancy in Nightmare on Elm Street where she runs into the hall monitor and says "screw your hall pass" because work and school and finances just feel so much less important compared to this inner turmoil. I'm tryin to get a promotion at work but its coincided with being more feminine and changing my voice in public so that probably hurts my chances. I've also not started on my proposal for my thesis. My advisor is meeting me today so that's going to be fun. People have all of these expectations of me and honestly I just wanna get more Monster High dolls and watch Disney princess and barbie movies right now.