Agency Through Sour Candy

Working towards publishing a long overdue post on the events post-Vibecamp, but I’ve felt like I need to uncork some writing muscles before it can be finished.

Agency is a word that is overused by the Twitter intelligentsia, but it’s still useful. A few years ago, someone told me that I was unusually agentic. I think that’s true for the same reasons someone once described me as Courtney Love-esque.

Originally coming out in 2020 was an act of agency, and since then I’ve generally tried to just go for things. One of my mentors did have to cyberbully me into going to Hereticon in 2022, but other than that I’ve always been willing to hop a plane to California on a Wednesday for an event happening on a Friday.

Symptoms of PTSD from being sexually assaulted at Vibecamp in 2022 didn’t manifest until very recently, and it’s really changed my outlook on agency.

The resurgent biohacking movement is all about achieving agency over aging. HRT for transgender people is all about agency over gender. Transhumanism in general can be viewed as developing agency beyond what’s considered ‘normal’.

I was really lucky to find a great therapist on my first try, and she told me about a trick to regulate a nervous symptom when PTSD strike: Sour candy.

I still get a bit of social anxiety sometimes, but it’s mostly just an annoyance. Some friends always have headphones with them to deal with theirs, I have my own ways of dipping out to recharge somewhere at a party. It’s like some low level of electrical interference that’s somewhat easily dealt with, and far from agency-stealing.

I don’t remember which event PTSD first hit at, but it was scary. I can only really describe it as that feeling when you’re scared by something or someone unexpected, but prolonged and constant.

My usual tricks didn’t work that first time, and I never would have thought sour candy would be the sacrament that would stop agency thieving.

I had my supply of Estrogen interrupted once, the feeling of testosterone once again flooding my body was chilling. I forgot to bring sour candy to a party on Saturday, and was really given a reminder of how much control we don’t have over things vis a vis some felony agency stealing.

I had prepared for the party for months, and mainly forgot to bring it because I’m probably still in a little bit of denial over being a SA survivor as part of my story now. It’s taken a few experiences of having my typical excess of personality and desire for social interaction short-circuited to remind me in a powerful enough way.

Very recently I’ve come to think of agency as control over telling our own stories. It’s difficult, being on the spectrum, to thread the needle between cool-weird and weird-weird. It’s somewhat of a performance as well.

I’ve used the phrase social casino once or twice lately, but I think that’s maybe a bit fatalistic. Theatre is a better frame. Perform well, and you’re bestowed the honoured title of quirky. Don’t, and you run the risk of getting a gosh, she’s weird review.

I have a separate post to write on ethereal women: I think I would have been one, had I been born a biological woman. They’re whom I both admire deeply and am intensely intimidated by. Grown up theatre-kids, they’re the S-tier of quirky.

Our identities are as much a product of how we are perceived as who we are, and I am really determined to wield as much agency as I can get my hands on to dig that inner ethereal woman out. I’m excited to see what she’ll eventually be like, other than an addict to sour candy.