Sam's origin story
May. 12th, 2015 22:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillSince most of my personal journey has been available only in friends-locked journal entries, I thought I would offer a little background on the origins of Sam.
Last fall, I was stressed and unhappy. I felt isolated; I was afraid to show people my real self because I was afraid they wouldn't like what they saw, and they would leave (which was worse than judging me). I was struggling with deep and consuming emotional pain, trying very hard to act normal despite the emotional animal that was biting and scratching to be let out. And I was afraid of that tumult. I didn't know what to do with it.
Akien offered me a safe place to be whoever I was, to let out the emotions so they weren't eating me alive, and to find out how to be genuinely me. He offered guidance when he could, and a shoulder, and enough love and affection to hold me together and reshape my world. I owe a lot to him.
I came to realize that a lot of the views I held were harmful to me, that I severely undervalued myself, and that I was carrying a lot of baggage from years of abuse. I mapped out my internal processes so that I could understand where they were coming from; more often than not I was able to puzzle out a way to change or subvert them. But there were so many knots, and they fed on each other, that I felt like it would take me years to get anywhere. So I took a shortcut.
I know what my life is like, intimately. I know the pressures and limits I have to deal with. So one day I decided to figure out what sort of person would be able to deal with my life easily. What sort of person could shrug off the difficulties, cope with consequences, and see the good parts without drowning in the bad. I've made characters for live-action role playing games before, so I dreamed up a character for the game that is real life. And I got Sam.
Some of you may have seen the changes in my physical presentation lately: I dyed part of my hair blue, I'm wearing contacts, and I'm dressing more formally. All of that was to keep me in character. Any LARPer understands the importance of key bits of costume when it comes to staying in character. I've kept the changes because that's what makes me, as Sam, comfortable.
Sam is a constructed personality. That isn't a bad thing; it just means that I built em from scratch. In a way, it's what Akien did years ago; I didn't set out to follow him, but he made me aware that such a thing was possible... to take an imaginary character and role-play it in real life situations you can't cope with yourself. And over the next couple of weeks, I found that playing Sam made life ten times easier. At first, just getting rid of the anxiety was enough -- even if I got criticized for something, or insulted, they were insulting a character I was playing, not me. Then I found that I had more confidence, and I didn't even think about what other people would say. Then I found that I was so much more satisfied with who I was, as Sam, that I couldn't imagine why I would get criticized in the first place.
It was an odd situation, in which adding a layer made me more transparent, more genuine. All characters I make are aspects of me in some way, and the facets of Sam reflect my true personality much more accurately. Sam is the me I would have been without the abuse, the psychological scars, and all the distortions I had to take on to cope with them. E hasn't gone through all that, and lacks the triggers and unpleasant associations. It was as Sam that I realized I didn't feel like a woman, though I didn't feel like a man either... and that was okay. Sam didn't care. Why should anyone else?
Last Friday, I was fighting some nasty stress on a few fronts, and decided that the only way to really address the sources of the stress (there were no fixes) was to change how I thought about them. The best way to do that was to become Sam. So, for the final time, I donned the character, and stayed there. I stepped out of Alison, folded her up, and put her on a shelf, with all her anxieties and brokenness. The name change was to reflect that shift, and to act as another, very solid reminder to myself of who I choose to be.
It sounds like a trick, like it couldn't possibly work. How could I just decide to be somebody else to sidestep my issues? All I can say is that it is a trick, but it's not easy. I think it takes getting to the point where you can not only understand the problems well enough to make a character suited to them, but where you aren't afraid of the consequences of treating real life like a game, like some improvisational skit. It feels like the world is going to blow up, you'll lose your job or your house or your friends if you don't take it seriously because this is REAL LIFE.
But I ask this of the LARPers in the audience: what would happen if you were to take the character you have who best blends in with society (and isn't likely to blow things up or abuse people), and simply be that character, all during an average day? You'd dress a bit differently, probably; you might have some different speech patterns. You might make different decisions, or interact with people differently. But would they do worse than you? If the character were specifically designed to excel at exactly the situations you deal with on a daily basis, might they be *better* than you are? And where would be the downside?
Real life has consequences.. but so does Game. Any good character will be able to anticipate and cope with those consequences. And that's what I designed Sam to do. It has worked so well that I decided to be Sam all the time. Because, in a real sense, Sam is who I've been all along, I was just too tangled up to be true to who I was.
I'm not saying it's been a smooth transition. I've been doing a lot of grieving, and I will continue to feel the loss for a while. Losing who you used to be is no easier than losing your childhood home, or losing a good friend. As hard as it was, that life was part of me, and no matter how happy I am now I still have to mourn it. But things are getting better, and I'm mostly at peace with myself, a sensation I hadn't expected to ever have. I'm not overwhelmed by my life anymore, even when there are no easy fixes. I'm not afraid to reach out and make new friends, which I hope to do more of soon. I've found my strength, and I've grasped it with both hands, even though it meant letting go of what I had before.
Last fall, I was stressed and unhappy. I felt isolated; I was afraid to show people my real self because I was afraid they wouldn't like what they saw, and they would leave (which was worse than judging me). I was struggling with deep and consuming emotional pain, trying very hard to act normal despite the emotional animal that was biting and scratching to be let out. And I was afraid of that tumult. I didn't know what to do with it.
Akien offered me a safe place to be whoever I was, to let out the emotions so they weren't eating me alive, and to find out how to be genuinely me. He offered guidance when he could, and a shoulder, and enough love and affection to hold me together and reshape my world. I owe a lot to him.
I came to realize that a lot of the views I held were harmful to me, that I severely undervalued myself, and that I was carrying a lot of baggage from years of abuse. I mapped out my internal processes so that I could understand where they were coming from; more often than not I was able to puzzle out a way to change or subvert them. But there were so many knots, and they fed on each other, that I felt like it would take me years to get anywhere. So I took a shortcut.
I know what my life is like, intimately. I know the pressures and limits I have to deal with. So one day I decided to figure out what sort of person would be able to deal with my life easily. What sort of person could shrug off the difficulties, cope with consequences, and see the good parts without drowning in the bad. I've made characters for live-action role playing games before, so I dreamed up a character for the game that is real life. And I got Sam.
Some of you may have seen the changes in my physical presentation lately: I dyed part of my hair blue, I'm wearing contacts, and I'm dressing more formally. All of that was to keep me in character. Any LARPer understands the importance of key bits of costume when it comes to staying in character. I've kept the changes because that's what makes me, as Sam, comfortable.
Sam is a constructed personality. That isn't a bad thing; it just means that I built em from scratch. In a way, it's what Akien did years ago; I didn't set out to follow him, but he made me aware that such a thing was possible... to take an imaginary character and role-play it in real life situations you can't cope with yourself. And over the next couple of weeks, I found that playing Sam made life ten times easier. At first, just getting rid of the anxiety was enough -- even if I got criticized for something, or insulted, they were insulting a character I was playing, not me. Then I found that I had more confidence, and I didn't even think about what other people would say. Then I found that I was so much more satisfied with who I was, as Sam, that I couldn't imagine why I would get criticized in the first place.
It was an odd situation, in which adding a layer made me more transparent, more genuine. All characters I make are aspects of me in some way, and the facets of Sam reflect my true personality much more accurately. Sam is the me I would have been without the abuse, the psychological scars, and all the distortions I had to take on to cope with them. E hasn't gone through all that, and lacks the triggers and unpleasant associations. It was as Sam that I realized I didn't feel like a woman, though I didn't feel like a man either... and that was okay. Sam didn't care. Why should anyone else?
Last Friday, I was fighting some nasty stress on a few fronts, and decided that the only way to really address the sources of the stress (there were no fixes) was to change how I thought about them. The best way to do that was to become Sam. So, for the final time, I donned the character, and stayed there. I stepped out of Alison, folded her up, and put her on a shelf, with all her anxieties and brokenness. The name change was to reflect that shift, and to act as another, very solid reminder to myself of who I choose to be.
It sounds like a trick, like it couldn't possibly work. How could I just decide to be somebody else to sidestep my issues? All I can say is that it is a trick, but it's not easy. I think it takes getting to the point where you can not only understand the problems well enough to make a character suited to them, but where you aren't afraid of the consequences of treating real life like a game, like some improvisational skit. It feels like the world is going to blow up, you'll lose your job or your house or your friends if you don't take it seriously because this is REAL LIFE.
But I ask this of the LARPers in the audience: what would happen if you were to take the character you have who best blends in with society (and isn't likely to blow things up or abuse people), and simply be that character, all during an average day? You'd dress a bit differently, probably; you might have some different speech patterns. You might make different decisions, or interact with people differently. But would they do worse than you? If the character were specifically designed to excel at exactly the situations you deal with on a daily basis, might they be *better* than you are? And where would be the downside?
Real life has consequences.. but so does Game. Any good character will be able to anticipate and cope with those consequences. And that's what I designed Sam to do. It has worked so well that I decided to be Sam all the time. Because, in a real sense, Sam is who I've been all along, I was just too tangled up to be true to who I was.
I'm not saying it's been a smooth transition. I've been doing a lot of grieving, and I will continue to feel the loss for a while. Losing who you used to be is no easier than losing your childhood home, or losing a good friend. As hard as it was, that life was part of me, and no matter how happy I am now I still have to mourn it. But things are getting better, and I'm mostly at peace with myself, a sensation I hadn't expected to ever have. I'm not overwhelmed by my life anymore, even when there are no easy fixes. I'm not afraid to reach out and make new friends, which I hope to do more of soon. I've found my strength, and I've grasped it with both hands, even though it meant letting go of what I had before.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-14 05:38 (UTC)