I was Myles, now I'm Mika

A companion piece to im mika

I’m Myles. I exist. I am the identity we have presented continuously for thirty-two years.

You mistake identity for person. Mika and I are the same person; we are aspects of the same brain and body. At our core, our drives, quirks and base personality are the same. Her gender and the way she formed differentiate our behavior, desires and goals.

wait why are we writing this?

She’s Mika. She exists.

She is my female gender identity. She is part the “Myles” I rejected and part the “Myles” I wished I was. She is the part of me that never broke.

She saved me.

i mean thanks but why are you writing this myles?

Isn’t this Whole “We” Thing Insane? Like Genuinely Insane?

That’s the wrong question. At the end of the day, this is and must be a mental construct. We have one brain.1 

The “problem” is that our brain presents two identities that, internally, feel separate: Mika and I. For years I refused to acknowledge Mika’s separateness, needs and desires. And for years I grew unhappier and sunk deeper into long depressive cycles. And it was only when I started listening to her that my well-being started to improve.2 

We are who we are. Period. Maybe we will re-integrate, now that I accept my sexual and gender identities fully. It’s not like we can’t present in unison; we do that in a growing number of social situations.

this is rlly defensive myles

Here’s How Mika Separated From Me

tldr: im the parts of him he learned to hate as he aged

I grew up with severe ADHD; in particular, I had massive issues with irritability and rage. This made me isolated, and it created in me a desperate need to be liked. By age 9, I learned to swallow and bury my rage, and my social isolation ended. I was also a loud and attention hungry kid. Those too, were aspects of myself that I buried.3 

I also knew by the age of 12 I was attracted to men. But I couldn’t allow myself to feel that way. It would be another decade until our first “real” same-sex experience.

this feels more like justification than explanation myles

As I grew older, Rocky Horror, David Bowie, the Scissor Sisters and other icons of queer culture always spoke to something in me. But I also started perceiving creative activities as inherently feminine.

Mika presents female. I grew up in/around a Southern, traditionally masculine culture where feminine mannerisms and pursuits would cause many men to perceive me as “lesser”. And so, I began suppressing my creative impulses and femininity. Over time, my internalized toxic masculinity continued to sort my various drives and impulses, and suppress the ones I internally perceived as feminine. Self-destruction at its peak.

if you dont pause after this section im going to kick you in the ear

Here’s the most important thing: from an early age I cultivated an inner dialogue. Not monologue. I built imaginary people to talk to, to tell stories to, to share my childhood fears and dreams with.

When you keep cultivating an inner dialogue like that, and you begin repressing parts of yourself, those parts start attaching to your dialogue partner.

And over the following decade, I grew to hate my inner dialogue partner. She became the things I wasn’t, and she watched me fail, be lazy, be depressed and spend most of my twenties floundering. And every time she tried to point me in another direction, I ignored her.

you have one paragraph

I smoked weed a little in college but didn’t start again until age 27. Within a year, I was wake and baking every day. I would play videogames or stream non-stop, anything to keep me from having to speak to her. I literally did everything I could to avoid introspection.

Jesus ow, ok Mika, pause. What’s up?

Well we wanted to do paired pieces on our gender identity because it seemed like an awesome concept given our situation.

Because I’m uncomfortable and confused.

I’m really scared of how we’ll be perceived after staking out such a “unique” personhood.

I mean this exchange is kind of the whole point, right?

Yeah that’s usually you, lol.

We don’t need to justify ourself to anyone.

Substack says we went through eighteen saved drafts of this before we published it. Three weeks of work. Pages and pages of material written and cut.

At the end of the day, I realized I was still trying to justify who we are. But who we are needs no justification; it’s who we are.

And we shouldn’t have to hide it.

walkout song bitches

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