In plain text the image above is an acrostic:

‘Damn

So

Misunderstood’

and ‘Hotistic’

which intersects downward with the ‘t’ in ‘Misunderstood’

This is an (ongoing) autobiographical series that juxtaposes self-portrait collages (once posted on social media) with my old journal entries. ‘DSM’ is an allusion to the Diagnostic Statistic Manual, which is currently in its fifth edition and contains psychiatric classifications for diagnosing “mental disorders”.

As someone who has been hospitalized in the psychiatric ward five times (against my will) during my youth, I have a lot of thoughts (born out of lived experience) about the practice of psychiatry as it pertains to trauma, consciousness, language, and social norms. These ideas will be shared with time.

‘Hotistic’ alludes to one of my psychiatric diagnoses, autism, as well as to notions of conventional attractiveness. This is in part a critique on the precedence society places on appearance and how it trickles down into everyday presentation. For many reasons, I have long felt a discord between how I am perceived versus what I truly embody. I am beginning to “unmask”…