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11:17am July 26, 2013
It’s so strange. How much more comfortable I’ve gotten since I started dressing in brown and blue. Especially since I ordered that crapload of stuff from eBay. It was almost worth going broke for. It’s not just that my sensory issues handle the colors better. It’s not even just that I like the colors. It’s not just that other people respect me more when I wear these clothes. Part of it may be the effect I’ve read about so many times, with chronic illness, where you seriously feel better emotionally if you change your clothes every day. Or at least every couple days, in my case. Even if you get nothing else accomplished, there’s this weird emotional boost to it. I think maybe another part of it is that my like for these colors is not just sensory. When I sort of extend my senses past the room I’m in, most often the two colors I encounter the most are brown and blue. They have specific meanings to me that I’m not sure I could explain to anyone who hadn’t made those same connections. I used to think it was synesthesia. That’s how I explained it to people. But I have a friend who senses the same colors I do in the same contexts. Always. There’s no such thing as two people with identical synesthesia. So it must be some different perceptual process. All I know is when I wear these colors, I feel profoundly safe and at home.  And like they fit around me like a glove. It also helps that the clothing is safe, practical, and comfortable for my specific situation. But I also like looking at it. It’s been a long time since I wore things largely because I liked looking at them. I used to do that and it got me in all kinds of trouble, because I inadvertently choose styles other people had tons of subcultural and gender associations with. Or else looked so strange people would taunt me about wearing it for attention. I can’t seem to get away from any clothing I ever pick, no matter what, having some gender association of some kind that I don’t want. But at least I’m learning to compromise enough that I still like my clothes but people don’t point and laugh. At any rate, changing my clothes every few days, having colors that mostly don’t hurt my eyes, and colors with very specific associations for me that feel like home, and patterns I like…. somehow that whole combination of things is making me happier. I didn’t really realize clothes could make me happy in any significant way. In fact I’d just been wearing whatever anyone bought me, or whatever was cheapest, or any other consideration other than what I actually wanted, for years to the point I sort of prided myself on not thinking about clothes. Except for whatever psychological reason, they really do seem important and I feel much better wearing them. I don’t know why it is I can recognize my wheelchair is a part of me but didn’t see my clothes as part of me. Maybe because I had it drilled into my head that this meant something about the gender, and gender roles, I feel absolutely no attachment to? That if I paid attention to clothes, that’d mark me as both vain and feminine, ideas that tend to go together anyway? Not that I held anyone else to those standards. Anne likes her clothes and I never attributed that to gender. But there’s all sorts of weird internalized stuff. Plus I know how readily people have labeled me butch or femme according to criteria that made no sense to me, and always made me mad. And then accused me of changing identities every time I changed clothing or hair style. Hint: I didn’t. But for the first time in ages, I feel comfortable with my clothes. I like them. I like changing them every couple days. I like having enough assortment to choose from that I don’t get bored. And I like being able to sort of melt into the colors that have so much meaning to me. And if I can look respectable to others in the process, even better, I guess. I’ve just never felt this comfortable with clothes in a long time. You wouldn’t believe how self conscious people made me feel about my appearance though. “Why do you wear that? Why do you wear your hair like that? I don’t believe you. Here’s the real reasons you do it. You’re lying. I know the truth. I’m going to tell you my idea of the truth at every last opportunity.“ And that happened no matter what I wore. People seemed to have this weird desire to pick me apart for no other reason than that they could? Until I decided it wasn’t okay for me to make any aesthetic choices about clothing at all. IDK. I’m just glad I’m comfortable now, and that I don’t hang out around the kind of assholes who think it’s appropriate to micro-analyze every detail of someone’s clothing choice and use that to attack them. I don’t seem to attach the same meanings to such things as other people, and they don’t believe me, it’s weird.

It’s so strange.

How much more comfortable I’ve gotten since I started dressing in brown and blue. Especially since I ordered that crapload of stuff from eBay. It was almost worth going broke for.

It’s not just that my sensory issues handle the colors better. It’s not even just that I like the colors. It’s not just that other people respect me more when I wear these clothes.

Part of it may be the effect I’ve read about so many times, with chronic illness, where you seriously feel better emotionally if you change your clothes every day. Or at least every couple days, in my case. Even if you get nothing else accomplished, there’s this weird emotional boost to it.

I think maybe another part of it is that my like for these colors is not just sensory. When I sort of extend my senses past the room I’m in, most often the two colors I encounter the most are brown and blue. They have specific meanings to me that I’m not sure I could explain to anyone who hadn’t made those same connections.

I used to think it was synesthesia. That’s how I explained it to people. But I have a friend who senses the same colors I do in the same contexts. Always. There’s no such thing as two people with identical synesthesia. So it must be some different perceptual process.

All I know is when I wear these colors, I feel profoundly safe and at home.  And like they fit around me like a glove.

It also helps that the clothing is safe, practical, and comfortable for my specific situation.

But I also like looking at it. It’s been a long time since I wore things largely because I liked looking at them. I used to do that and it got me in all kinds of trouble, because I inadvertently choose styles other people had tons of subcultural and gender associations with. Or else looked so strange people would taunt me about wearing it for attention.

I can’t seem to get away from any clothing I ever pick, no matter what, having some gender association of some kind that I don’t want. But at least I’m learning to compromise enough that I still like my clothes but people don’t point and laugh.

At any rate, changing my clothes every few days, having colors that mostly don’t hurt my eyes, and colors with very specific associations for me that feel like home, and patterns I like…. somehow that whole combination of things is making me happier.

I didn’t really realize clothes could make me happy in any significant way. In fact I’d just been wearing whatever anyone bought me, or whatever was cheapest, or any other consideration other than what I actually wanted, for years to the point I sort of prided myself on not thinking about clothes.

Except for whatever psychological reason, they really do seem important and I feel much better wearing them. I don’t know why it is I can recognize my wheelchair is a part of me but didn’t see my clothes as part of me.

Maybe because I had it drilled into my head that this meant something about the gender, and gender roles, I feel absolutely no attachment to? That if I paid attention to clothes, that’d mark me as both vain and feminine, ideas that tend to go together anyway? Not that I held anyone else to those standards. Anne likes her clothes and I never attributed that to gender. But there’s all sorts of weird internalized stuff.

Plus I know how readily people have labeled me butch or femme according to criteria that made no sense to me, and always made me mad. And then accused me of changing identities every time I changed clothing or hair style. Hint: I didn’t.

But for the first time in ages, I feel comfortable with my clothes. I like them. I like changing them every couple days. I like having enough assortment to choose from that I don’t get bored. And I like being able to sort of melt into the colors that have so much meaning to me.

And if I can look respectable to others in the process, even better, I guess.

I’ve just never felt this comfortable with clothes in a long time.

You wouldn’t believe how self conscious people made me feel about my appearance though. “Why do you wear that? Why do you wear your hair like that? I don’t believe you. Here’s the real reasons you do it. You’re lying. I know the truth. I’m going to tell you my idea of the truth at every last opportunity.“

And that happened no matter what I wore. People seemed to have this weird desire to pick me apart for no other reason than that they could? Until I decided it wasn’t okay for me to make any aesthetic choices about clothing at all.

IDK. I’m just glad I’m comfortable now, and that I don’t hang out around the kind of assholes who think it’s appropriate to micro-analyze every detail of someone’s clothing choice and use that to attack them. I don’t seem to attach the same meanings to such things as other people, and they don’t believe me, it’s weird.

Notes:
  1. withasmoothroundstone posted this