September 1, 2025: Subversive Selfie Project Post

It felt like I was doing so well for a part of August: eating better, walking more. But the last week has kicked the crap out of me, I’ve been so exhausted. My legs are sore, & I keep picking at them. I also whacked my left index finger, causing it to swell up & the fingernail looks like it could come off with one wrong move.

Regardless I’ve been slowly working through a COURSERA course by the University of Colorado called STORYING THE SELF, & I’ve spent a lot of time with one assigned reading by Beverly Daniel Tatum called “THE COMPLEXITY OF IDENTITY: WHO AM I?” I actually stopped reading it after marking up the first two pages with highlights, underlined phrases, & notes in the margins to tie to a book called SELF & IDENTITY: THE BASICS by Megan E Birney. Both texts have had me thinking of the complexity of my own self and the myriad of my own unique individual characteristics, traits, qualities, & attributes that define me as a person & make me distinct from others. To that end, the following is a brief inventory of the physical characteristics belonging to me, Steven Hanju Lee:

• Cheekbones: Flat

• Dimples: None

• Earlobe Attachment: Attached

• Ears Pierced: Yes

• Eye Angle: Downturned

• Eye Colour: Blue

• Eye Distance: Average

• Eye Shape: Almond

• Eye Size: Average

• Eyebrow Colour: Dirty Blonde

• Eyebrow Distance: Average

• Eyebrow Shape: Rounded

• Eyebrow Thinness: Normal

• Face Shape: Square

• Facial Hair: full, thick beard

• Facial Hair Colour: dirty blonde with streaks of brown, red and the odd grey hairs

• Freckles: None

• Hair Colour: Dirty Blonde

• Hair Texture: Fine / Straight

• Hairline: Straight

• Handedness: Right Handed (but born left handed)

• Height: 6 Feet (Tall)

• Lip Shape: Thin

• Nose Length: Short

• Nose Width: Broad

• Penis Length: Average (~5” Erect)

• Skin Colour / Tone: Caucasian / Fair Skinned / “White”

• Tattoos: 2 (“Bee” on back of lower left leg; & “Care Bear Heart” on upper right hand corner of right bum cheek)

• Weight: 180.6 Pounds (Average)

Breaking down one’s physical details this way feels scientific. It feels off, devoid of any emotional resonance. I found 2 websites that helped me to figure out the layout of my face & body, for cosmetic purposes but it did the trick.

(244/365).

August 18, 2025 Subversive Selfie Project Post

The grey, pink, & blue cotton candy coloured clouds cut & dotted the sky above me like ripples cut into the sand by the tide as I walked to Rona to pick up a few 40lb bags of wood pellets we use for cat litter. For years I’ve been purchasing it from @vanderveen.hay_pet.supply but being carless, that hasn’t been an option. I googled & found stores like @canadiantire & @ronaen carry it for a reasonable price, under $10 a bag, far less than the $25-30 or more price at pet stores for a 20lb bag.

But something else happened today that was positive overall but crippling at the same time. I don’t want to get into any kind of specifics about this but it is why I’ve spent time trying to cobble together what became a 38 page letter (2 pages are a works cited list) that details with supporting documentation my struggles with anxiety & major depression & how that has fed my binge eating junk for decades leading to severe physical health issues & a very unorganized home life. But one of the letter’s recipients was completely dismissive of it through their comments & questions in an important public forum. Their comments strongly suggested that I should not have even wasted time writing it. Ultimately I should take solace in the fact that the decision maker they were presenting to dismissed their comments & noted how it would have been difficult for me to deal effectively with things when I was being treated at the hospital daily for long chunks of last year - but what was said still stuck.

Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve had my persistent major depression dismissed by others, I’ve had former friends who have been dismissive of it as well as another individual in a position of authority who, as of last year, may have successfully blocked my ability to (how do I keep this vague?) get going with a career making art.

The rest of the day saw me slide into flight mode. @doordash_ca dropped off a dozen @timhortons donuts. I found a dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies & ate those. I had a few @briskcanada ice teas. By bedtime my fingers ached so badly, neuropathy dialled to 110%.

@bell_letstalk? Yea right. Terrence Real (@realterryreal), in his book I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, writes: “We tend not to recognize depression in men because the disorder itself is seen as unmanly. Depression carries, to many, a double stain—the stigma of mental illness and also the stigma of “feminine” emotionality… Depression in men—a condition experienced as both shame-filled and shameful—goes largely unacknowledged and unrecognized both by the men who suffer and by those who surround them. And yet, the impact of this hidden condition is enormous.”

(230/365).

August 17, 2025 Subversive Selfie Project Post

From August 17, 2025: It’s definitely been awhile since I posted a #SubversiveSelfie to my @Instagram feed. I hate to feel #depressed still but these past several weeks have slipped by so quickly & so slowly too. It’s slow when my #insomnia kicks in & I just #BedRot, in a completely unhealthy manner, tossing & turning, trying to find #comfort, knowing that when the daylight comes again I’ll #passout simply being past the point of exhaustion. @JayVeraSummer, writing for @SleepIsTheFoundation earlier this year reminds us how: “Spending time in bed while awake could cause an association between wakefulness & being in bed, which could contribute to trouble sleeping.” Reading that makes me chuckle a little because when you are as #depressed as I have been, surrounded by the impacts of hoarding, the bed becomes one of the few areas of refuge remaining.

So I spent the afternoon finishing a letter for my bank, one that I started awhile back but never finished. It’s one I can also give to my doctor as well as the mental health unit in @cityofwhiterock who I thought was going to reach out after my #ERvisit last month but didn’t. I feel unseen & unheard by the psychiatrists there: the only thing they seem to do is tweak my medication & send me away. It sucks, as I’ve long felt it’s my #antidepressants that haven’t been helping me.

“Give it more time Steven, give it more time…” were the words parroted by him & my primary care physician at the time, when I first cautiously expressed in an unassured voice how I didn’t think they were working. But two years on, might have been enough time to draw a firmer conclusion, & reconsider what I’ve been taking.

It’s weird though cause I went to the ER last month concerned about how it felt like I’d had another stroke, but they pivoted to worrying about my mental health issues. They then wrapped up my feet to let me go back out into the world, but then failed to follow up on anything. It makes me feel overwhelmed, like all my maladies are nothing more than some imposter syndrome, my mind making up comorbidities as my body aches, & my legs continue to bleed.

I want to move past this. All of it.

I want to get better.

(229/365).

January 03, 2025 Subversive Selfie Project Post

Another day slipped away where I didn’t achieve much. I slept in, managing to take out the dogs around 10:30am. I then put the kettle on to boil to make tea followed by sitting on the sofa with Mom’s dog Tiffany in my arms, cradling her on her back like one would hold an infant. Her eyes were closed as I gently massaged her belly while @drewfromtv led contestants through various games on @therealpriceisright, a show I haven’t seen in years. My dog Kira lay curled up at my feet, content to let me spend time with Tiff.

Eventually I got dressed and headed to @choicesmarket to get some ground turkey and other ingredients with which to make a meatloaf. It was Sadie’s last day at the store I learned, as she bagged my groceries, her eyes bright with excitement peering out from behind her glasses, her smile stretching from ear to ear with a graceful ease. She starts at UBC next week and will be moving closer to the campus. I wished her well, and said I’d miss her chipper demeanour.

Before Choices though, I had a warm bowl of tortilla soup with three enchiladas, rice, and beans at @aychihuahuamexfood. The soup was soothing and helped calm the anxiety that lingers beneath my skin like a weak and jittery force field of energy. A thin coat of paint, a blanket of dust barely visible, but there nonetheless.

Later in the day I had wound care for my legs. They’re slowly getting better, and might improve quickly if I could stop picking at them. Even as I lay in bed tonight, I’ve peeled back a bandage to rip at the skin that’s trying to recover, a small trickle of blood running down over my ankle.

After having @fiveguysca for dinner, complete with a large @cocacola_ca, I did a load of clothes, including a few of my compression socks. I already have an idea of my Saturday schedule: in the morning I want to clean the cat’s room at Mom’s, and pack up some of the Christmas decorations I managed to put out.

I only hope I don’t sleep in.

03/365. This is my third post for 2025 in my ongoing subversive selfie project, where I try to capture an honest account of my life, both the good, the bad, and the ugly for preservation on social media.

January 01, 2025 Subversive Selfie Project Post

It’s been a new year for almost twenty-four hours now as I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, as my Dyson fan blows cool air across my upper body. I haven’t been posting much to social media in recent months, partly because the desire just hasn’t been there.

My legs are sore tonight, as is my right shoulder, arm, and back. The muscles are tense, as if they are encased in cement that sends lightning along the pain receptors as I make even the simplest of gestures. Basically, the areas that are sore are the same areas that were impacted by the stroke I had at the end of January 2023, almost two years ago. The hospital put me on a new oral antibiotic to supplement the IV was getting over the last few weeks. On Sunday, December 15, 2024 I made my way into the ER at Peace Arch Hospital as my right leg was swollen and sore around the large area I’d been picking at over the past few months. I feared a new infection. My left leg also had open sores from similar attacks by the nails on my fingers, only it wasn’t swollen. The doctor set me up for IV again, as well as oral medication: two different antibiotics. The doctors have seen me before, and I sense disappointment in them seeing me back so soon since my last round of treatment. They don’t seem to understand why I feel the desire to submit myself to this kind of persistent personal torture. But they’re glad I know that I am aware that it needs to stop… I’m on a wait list to see the psychiatrist again. But I’m not sure more medication is the answer.

I feel so stuck in life. I want things to change but I don’t know where to start or if it’s even worth trying anymore.

01/365: this is the first post in my subversive selfie project for 2025, a creative personal project where I try to reflect honestly about where I am in life.