Workshop preparations; Abandonment fears realised again

Last year I participated in the NDCTechTown conference, which was held in Kongsberg, Norway. I gave a talk at that time, on why I thought that Ada is a pretty nifty programming language, which inspired many. I also had a good time there, which made me think that maybe giving talks at conferences might be a fun way to get both my professional side 'out there' a bit more, and to ease into socialising in a for me rather safe setting.

This year of course there was this pandemic thingy, so all conferences went online or were cancelled. The SuperCon that was to be held in Belgrade in July this year was cancelled. For NDCTechTown, I got asked whether I wanted to do a workshop, since that was supposedly going to work better with the online format. I was hesitant at first, but after repeated urging by one of the organisers, I figured I'd give it a try. I did find it somewhat odd how almost forceful the signing up process was, with me being put on the list and website even before I had agreed to do anything.

Regardless, I was going to do a workshop on Ada, specifically on Ada for embedded platforms, with the Cortex-M-based STM32 as a target. Whereas for a talk one would mostly need to have some spiffy looking slides, a smooth voice and perhaps a few practical examples or two, a workshop requires some materials for the students to use and work with in order to follow along. Thus I set out to put together a basic framework for STM32 development, for which I extended my Nodate project [1].
The idea was to first write a framework using which one could elegantly use the GPIO ports and interrupts using nothing but C++ code. That way I got the basics together in a language which I know the best. Then I would port the C++ code to Ada, as a way to get something still Ada-like, while hopefully saving some time in the process by doing the troubleshooting with the hardware on the C++ side.

In the end this strategy worked out okay. Between the beginning and end of August I had something together using which I could at least do the scheduled 3.5 hour workshop. The hours before my workshop started I would then spend putting the slides together, managing to get everything ready and set up just in time. That's when I fired up the Cisco WebEx instance, logged into the room, ran through the sound checks with the NDCTechTown staff and sat back to wait for my students to pop up into the virtual room.


An interesting point here is also that basically the sole reason why I was able to commit working to these workshop preparations pretty much full-time during the month of August was because there was a monetary compensation, with each student providing one with a set amount of money. I figured that even with a modest attendance, I would be able to consider this workshop as just another wonky freelance gig.

This just added to the shock when the starting time for the workshop came and went, and nobody had joined. When after ten minutes or so a staff member popped in, we decided to give it another twenty minutes, then cancel the workshop if nobody had joined by that time. After twenty minutes nobody had joined, so that concluded the workshop. I had been asked whether I wanted to give a talk instead the next day, however. It would not pay me a cent, but it'd at least give my work some exposure, I thought.


Yet, when giving it some more thought, I began to notice a few things. First of all there was the exhaustion from the grind of working day and night, including weekends on getting the workshop set up. This especially during the last two weeks as time became a bit tight. It had gotten so bad that I'd be dragging myself out of bed in the morning, start crunch time, then by midnight I'd pass out on my bed after I began to feel dizzy and sick from exhaustion.

Secondly, there was the initial way that I had been roped into the conference which hadn't felt right. Then the crushing sense of abandonment and shock when absolutely nobody showed up with the workshop. Even though there were some hints that people might show up for the talk, I felt so physically and emotionally destroyed the next morning that I just cancelled the talk.


So what next? This month there's the need to push myself to make up for the income not generated last month, of course. It may take a while to recover from that hit. While I do think that I did a good job with the STM32 framework, and learned a lot, it's not something which I'd want to use for commercial projects yet, if only because it's still so incomplete. Yet I did spend more time on it this month, and I feel that I got something out of it at least, if only for my own (hobby) projects and as a few points on my resume.

I also still want to do educational blog posts and videos in the (near) future, which could definitely include topics like Cortex-M development. It's hard to plot out a path there, though.

At any rate, I feel that I'm completely done with conferences for the foreseeable future. Maybe it could have worked out if it had remained by talks and in-person conferences, but with the way things went today, I think it'd make a lot more sense to put all that time and effort into building up something else, instead of propping up some conference by putting myself on some death march grind session.


I'm a lot more worth than that, after all.


Maya



[1] https://github.com/MayaPosch/Nodate

Violent truth; An intersexed freak; A hidden self

Sometimes one gets hit with a sudden moment of clarity when one least expects it. Usually this is probably because there's no real way to predict that would trigger those moments. I have been aware of me regaining a lot of old memories (good and bad) and going through flashbacks the past weeks. More eroding of mental barriers that kept traumas and other assorted bad stuff at bay, basically.

In hindsight it probably was only a matter of time before a big 'reveal' event would happen like the one which I had earlier, and which is the reason why I'm typing this just after midnight instead of being sound asleep after going through all the trouble of preparing for bed earlier.


Going to bed is one those things which are both pleasant and unpleasant to me. Resting is good, because being sleep-deprived is a terrible thing. Yet it also means the confrontation with my body in the dressing mirror. How will I feel about my body today? Will I be able to trick myself into thinking that I look okay and that I can happily go to bed? Or will it be another trigger in the cascade where as I lie in bed the thoughts begin to churn and churn until I'm all tensed up again and can no longer fall asleep?

Perhaps ironically, tonight was one of those times when things seemed to go well in that respect. Feeling a bit restless, maybe, due to all the work that still needs doing the next day. But generally feeling okay and ready to rest. Having a lot of big thoughts on this new anime series from 2014 which I started watching called Sword Art Online and some scenes from it which left major impressions.

Another thing that can happen while in bed with the lights off and feeling comfortable is that of fantasising about things of a sensual nature. While for most people this is probably a fairly straight-forward process, I'm still learning to deprogram the preconceptions I have of what my body looks like, what it's supposed to do and how it should respond. The trick then is to try and abandon those preconceptions and just listen to what one's body tells one. Everything should happen naturally from there onwards.


Of course, along with the preconceptions, more mental barriers must have crumbled and after having satisfied the flesh, I was flooded with the most unhappy and upset feelings and sensations. I could feel and see just how I had shielded myself from this truth that my body so readily told me. What my body truly is like, and with it how this duality of my body is something unforgivable.

Feeling how my body responds when left to its own sensual devices, and how natural it all feels to have what others would perceive as a hybrid body of sorts. Yet there is the top part that is all female, but there's something that doesn't belong there. Freak. Unforgivable. A violent dismissal.

Then the other thing that would match the upper part of the body in a binary world. I can feel it's there, inside of me. Responding. Existing. Yet it's covered with skin on the outside so it might as well not be there. Freak. Failure. Unforgivable.


When the heights of euphoria are followed by intense regrets, pain, agony and thoughts, feelings and memories which I wish didn't exist. Just like my body, in that case. The horrific realisation that my body is unforgivable. That I shall never receive the blessing. That I have still cordoned off this part of my mind where my body truly is mine and normal in my own eyes. Something which seems so obvious, yet which isn't.

To experience my body in such a normal fashion, and then remember how my body got dismissed by everyone including medical professionals. To feel the shame and humiliation of having my body dismissed. To feel the never-healing wounds inside my mind. To realise how I have tried to ignore my own body just so that I could 'move on' with my life.


Only you cannot 'move on' and past your own body. It'll be there until the day you leave this mortal coil. You either confront and accept it, or you can live in outright refusal of the truth. For me accepting the truth means dropping those preconceptions about my body, and accept the agony and humiliation of society's refusal to accept my body and me along with it.

I can only be myself. That's all who and what I'll ever be. No matter what society thinks, demands, threatens or begs from me. I'm all that is on offer.

That's why I had to refuse offers from medical professionals to mutilate my body into something which it is not through genital mutilation. That's why I will still have to keep hoping that perhaps one day I can get the reconstructive surgery for the perineum. Because doing so means accepting my body.

Because it is the right thing to do.


Maya

Pained despair, forced smiles, bleak happiness

Happiness is merely a state of mind. This becomes especially and painfully obvious when one deals with the effects of a traumatic disorder like PTSD. When people talk about 'depression', they often refer to feeling a tad down. Not the crushing sensation generated by some part of your brain that makes you feel like everything around you is muted. From colours to sounds, to your own feelings, dreams and desires.

The expectation is that you interact... normally with others. You don't burden others with the things which you hear whispered from the depths of this dark Abyss that fractures your mind. This is okay. Everything is normal. Just smile, nod, share pleasantries and the moment you're alone again curl up and surrender to the pain and bleakness.


In some ways it's an attractive kind of bleakness. A happy kind of bleakness. For it tells you that it's okay to not care, to not worry. To just accept all the horrors in this world and to lose everything over and over while suffering punishment after punishment. Because that's just what this world is like. And that is okay. Everything is fine.

Once you have found happiness in this bleakness, you can stop caring. About dreams, about a future, about friends, about family, about anything. Because inside the bleak happiness, nothing matters. Nothing can matter. There is just this disgusting, decaying universe and the inevitable end of the universe and everything inside it. Caring is a waste of time and effort.

None of that is true, of course. And you know. At least during the moments that the bleakness doesn't pull you back under into the mists. Every day you fight to stay ahead of the bleakness, to appreciate the simple beauty in life, like the brightness of a beautiful Summer's day, or the flying insects buzzing about in the garden, doing their happy little things with happy little flowers.


But everyone carries their own darkness with them. And you cannot help but notice it. See how it corrupts everything that is good in this universe. Watch how it destroys lives and forces darkness into innocent souls, until they too have this seed of darkness growing inside their minds, where it can grow and blossom like a sickening flower.

That is possibly the most horrible thing about suffering from PTSD. One doesn't just deal with the horrors inside one's own mind, but also has become sensitised to seeing it everywhere else. To believe in the innate goodness of people. To trust that things will work out. To have faith in justice and fairness. None of that is possible any more. Because one has definitively crossed over that line.


What part of reality is truly what we think it is? How does one begin to live in a society which is confused about everything even more than oneself? Is the disorder part of PTSD solely in the mind of the person affected, or is it shared by the rest of society?


I want to feel happy. I want to feel carefree. Because the alternative is to hurt and feel pain. But I want it to be genuine. I want to feel happy and carefree because I have real reasons to feel that way. Not through lies, deception and/or brain state altering chemicals. Yet it feels like something which society has to allow for, too.

Where does PTSD stop and the healthy tissue of society begin?


Maya

Vlog: The puberty that wasn't supposed to exist

A few months ago I got asked by the friendly folks over at Monstrous Regiment (the publisher) whether I would be interested in writing an essay that would be part of a whole book of essays titled 'So Hormonal' [1]. It's a book about hormones, puberty, and everything normal and unusual that happens around it. My essay covers my experiences growing up and going through puberty as an intersex person.

Because words are just that, and sometimes having them in spoken form adds a lot of meaning that is otherwise hard to perceive, I decided to read the essay on video.

[1] https://www.monstrous-regiment.com/shop/so-hormonal-essays-about-our-hormones


Maya

The effects of growing up in the wrong body

It's often said that it's not your body that matters, but your mind. That it is your mind which is all that is 'you'. However, I would argue that your body and especially one's body image can have a massive impact on one's overall mental development and health.

For me it's something that is very apparent and confronting every time that I have to undress myself, such as when taking a shower or preparing for bed. Removing the layers of clothing to reveal the body underneath which has coloured so much of my past experiences. Which still determines a lot of how I experience the world today.


The problematic part for me was having been assigned a male gender at birth. This led to a whole range of behavioural expectations and assumptions. It also led to me seeing my body as being 'male'. When during puberty this all turned out to be incorrect when my body's chimeric intersex nature asserted itself, an identity crisis ensued.

For years I literally couldn't see myself in a mirror. Seemingly the ability of the mind to project a body image is so strong that it makes any kind of objective assessment of what one sees in a reflection of one's body impossible. This got rather uncomfortable when my environment had determined that I looked like an attractive woman, while my concept of a body image would have made Picasso proud. What did I even look like? The childhood impression of me being 'male' had distorted everything.


Over the years, this distortion has lessened. There are days when I can see myself in a reflection. I think. I can see that my body is absolutely that of a woman, with just the oddity of my unusual genital configuration. Of course it was easy to perceive my body as 'male', because if you first look at the visible genitals, then the rest of the body simply has to match those. Male genitals with a male body. Female genitals with a female body.

And sometimes you get male and female genitals with a female body. It's just how biology works. Society's insistence on me being 'male' probably did a lot of harm there, creating the distorted self-image and then doubling down on its claims with false medical claims and incorrect 'test results'. I still don't know exactly how my body works, and why my puberty took so long to complete.

What I have learned from all of this is how important it is to learn to see your real body. Not whatever body image your mind is projecting over it, but the body that your eyes perceive when you stand in front of a mirror. It is essential that you accept this as your body image, to erase any distortions and misconceptions.


Of course, all of that doesn't take away the fact that society still hasn't changed from when it forced me look at my body as simply male. Instead of an apology, all I got was the degradation from personhood to a 'disorder' (DSD) or 'rare disease', on account of my intersex condition. They weren't wrong, the problem is with me, apparently.

The most horrible thing was probably the repeated offering of 'fixing' my body by intersex genital mutilation (IGM), which is the 'correcting' of genitals that do not follow a strict binary pattern (male/female). This along with the erasing of my body's identity and features to make it appear purely female. I'm still figuring out all the reasons why this is such a horrid procedure.


The 'wrong body' that I grew up in was this identity that I had been assigned, and which got forced on me over and over. Through official documents and communications. By doctors and psychologists. And as I learned earlier this year during a few doctor's visits, my body is simply more 'wrong' now that I have rejected society's views on what my body should be like.

It's really hard not to feel bitter about this. But I think it is important to realise that in the end, my body is not wrong. My body is simply what it is, and it has kept me alive and healthy for all these years. It's a reliable tool that I feel I owe it to keep taking care of it. It has no will or mind of its own, but is subject to the whims of the brain inside it, as well as what its environment inflicts upon it.

I think this is a good body. I'd like to keep it. Yet the same cannot be said of its environment, and society in particular. A society which is so hostile to and intolerant of anything that does not fit into its narrow-minded view of what is 'acceptable'. A society that abhors diversity and prefers ideology over biology.

It's likely that the only way that I could have stayed a part of society would have been by embracing the pseudo-scientific system of binarism and trans-binarism. Accept the surgeries to 'correct' my genitals. Forget that I was ever more than 'just a woman'. Forget about this 'intersex' thing.

Full erasure.

Welcome to the Binary.


Maya