About Me — Sieran Lane
A whirlwind of dramatic life changes
Hey, y’all! I’m a gay, trans, nonbinary, autistic person who is also on the aromantic and asexual spectra. But just six years ago, I believed that I was a cisgender, neurotypical straight girl. Isn’t that funny? If there’s a prize for lacking self-awareness, I guess I’ve already won that. (Kudos if you got the Hercules reference!)
One reason why I was so oblivious about myself, was because I was too fixated on my academics and didn’t care about much else. So I got great grades and went to top universities in Canada (McGill and the University of Toronto). I was a psychology and English lit double major and got a master’s in counseling and psychotherapy.
Yet, I wonder whether I should have lived my life differently. Despite the surface glamor of the competitive universities, master’s degree, and high GPAs, I feel like a failure in most other aspects of my life.
For one, I felt like I was socially delayed, and have been working hard to catch up on my social skills over the past ten years. (I’m 31, even if I still look like a teenager…)
In addition, I’ve never been in a relationship before, which makes me feel like a baby when people talk about their partners and exes. Seriously, I feel like I know nothing about life.
What’s even worse, is that I’ve never worked a paid job before. I’ve had volunteer work and practicums that were basically unpaid internships, but that’s it. Yes, I wanted to find a job as a therapist after graduating — ahem-–3 years ago. But a load of hurdles sprung up for me, and I’m still trying to overcome most of them:
I had two major gender-affirming surgeries
Honestly, I didn’t know how to tell prospective employers that I’d have to take several weeks off for surgery recovery, shortly after beginning the job. It was energy-consuming to adjust to my new body and changed my self-perceptions too, even though they were good changes.
I developed severe eyestrain
I can’t deal with video chats. Can’t watch TV or movies, either. Well, it’s not totally impossible for me to watch them, but I’d have to deal with a lot of pain to do so. Plus, I felt very ashamed of my acquired disability, especially as video chat is the norm in psychotherapy since the pandemic.
Heck, one reason why I chose therapy as a career rather than writing, was because I wanted more rest for my eyes. Yes, technically I can just do telephone therapy, but my sense of shame was too intense. I won’t go into details, but my first practicum supervisor was a part of this.
She was supportive of me on the surface, but she kept doing things that made me feel discriminated against. She made me feel horrible about myself in general, and I suspect that she’s secretly a sociopath. I’m sure no one would believe me, though, since she is so charming and convincing.
I’ve gotten better at speaking up and advocating for my eye strain. But I still feel shame and embarrassment creep up from time to time. Especially when people around me watch TV and movies, do video chats, and spend hours on the bright phone, computer, and tablet screens with no worries.
For me, I have to rely on either my Kobo or Kindle e-reader to read most articles nowadays, as these e-ink devices have no backlight, and I’m too impatient to listen to audio. If I surf the web without relying on my e-readers, then I can only last about an hour before I feel wiped out for the day. Yeah, it’s that bad.
When I type things, I also use a plastic sheet to cover my laptop screen, or my tablet case to cover my tablet screen. Occasionally, I lift the cover to check that my cursor is still typing. All of this may seem silly, but I really need to protect my eyes.
The Pandemic
While I don’t believe I ever got COVID, the lockdown was stressful enough. I’m an extrovert who gets most of my energy from socializing and going to the gym. And I had to say goodbye to both for some time.
It’s better now that Toronto is opening back up, but the Monkeypox and the Roe vs Wade fiasco are wearing me down. No, I’m not saying I should give up. But it’s important to have more empathy and understanding for yourself. There is a world of difference between having self-compassion and having self-pity. I feel so strongly about this point that I’ve even written an article on this topic.
Anxiety and phobias for anything related to finding a Job
Imagine if you had to face your greatest fear every day. That’s how it feels when I try to apply for jobs-–the sheer amount of panic, nausea, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, and nonstop thoughts that I’m a loser and a good-for-nothing, is overwhelming. Anxiety and phobia really suck. Exposure therapy can help but it’s quite exhausting and depressing.
This is why I tell people that you could have stellar grades, go to high-ranking universities, and get a postgraduate degree, but still have nothing to show for it, career-wise. I’m lucky my parents are still willing to support me, but I feel terrible about this.
In fact, the more guilt and shame I feel, the more paralyzed I get when it comes to the job search. It’s easy to feel worthless and useless when almost everyone around you has had both jobs and relationships, and you’ve never had anything except for some school success.
That’s why I scoff when I hear people worship “academic smarts,” because I think that grades and school are overrated. Look at what a mess I’ve become despite my “academic achievements.”
Imposter syndrome doesn’t help, either. I feel like I don’t “count” even though I’m technically a licensed practitioner. My name is on the public register of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, and I’ve passed the exam. Yet, I still feel like I’m behind everybody else, left out, just like I always am.
A ray of sunshine amidst all of this doom and gloom
Despite everything I said above, my life is not a complete hellhole of never-ending darkness (though it can seem that way sometimes).
One thing I am very proud of is that I’ve finished all of my gender transitions. Got all the surgeries and hormones that I wanted, and even changed my legal name and gender markers on all the IDs I could.
I know I’m privileged, as my parents were able to support me through the years, so I could focus on myself. Plus, I live in a province where our health insurance fully covers trans surgeries and doctor’s appointments. It’s also fairly easy to change our name and gender markers in Canada, compared to most other countries in the world.
Nevertheless, my gender transitioning is one of the few areas in my life where I feel accomplished and not behind everyone else. Yes, I had tons of privilege and resources to help me, but I still had to put in a massive amount of time, effort, and patience to get this all done.
Even with Canada’s generous policies, and my great fortune in having doctors who are trans themselves, there was still so much waiting, paperwork, stress and fear, and other obstacles. My surgery recoveries went well, and I could take care of myself at home, but it still wasn’t easy per se. So I feel proud of myself for successfully pushing through all of that!
About pushing and perseverance, though, I’ve found a way out of my job search phobia. I figured that instead of applying to jobs and dealing with constant rejection, terror, and panic, I could start my own business as a private practitioner!
This isn’t even such a big venture, considering that private practitioners are super common in our field, and the setup costs are low. I’m taking a long time to get through the endless admin and red tape, though. And I’m dragging my feet due to my ongoing anxiety, imposter syndrome, and the sheer tedium of all this paperwork. But I will get there one day!
As much as I hate the process of getting a job or setting up a practice, I do feel passionate about the work itself. I have many insecurities, but I ironically feel like I’m well equipped for this career, as I think my personality, drive, and knowledge would make me a good therapist. Being queer, trans, and Asian would help me connect with LGBTQ+ and POC clients as well.
Yes, psychotherapy is one of the few fields where having multiple minority identities will actually help you. Not that discrimination doesn’t happen at all, but there’s a lot of respect for diversity in this field. Even secretly bigoted folks have to accept us.
How About Writing?
Ha! I wrote so much about my life and psyche, yet I haven’t said a word about my writing journey.
Well, I was passionate about writing since I was six years old or so. Drawing was my number one interest at first, but writing gradually overshadowed it. Yet, I was still writing at a relaxed pace until I got into Nanowrimo, an online event where we challenge ourselves to write 50 K words of a novel in a month.
From 2012 to 2018 inclusive, I “won” Nanowrimo every year, which was a huge confidence boost. There was a time when I expected myself to write at least 2,000 words a day throughout the year, but thankfully that craze has since died down.
If you know me already on Medium, you’ll know that I tend to be a perfectionist and value quality over quantity. But what you didn’t know, is that during those Nanowrimo years, I cared more about quantity — though I was too afraid to show anyone my messy drafts. On the bright side, I did do a lot of writing overall:
- I finished writing 22 books, where each book was around 300-400 pages, and each page had 300-400 words.
- I finished a mega series that was 11 books long, and written in my second language, Chinese! Technically, Chinese is the first language I ever learned. But my English is a lot better than my Chinese.
- Last I counted, I have written over 3 million words in total of fiction.
So that’s why I’m not impressed when I hear the advice: “You need to write a million words before you become a great writer.” Ha! I’ve already crossed that finish line three times, yet I still wouldn’t call myself a “great writer,” whatever that means.
Plus, my writing experience is why I personally don’t believe in worshipping quantity over quality, which some people (but not all) seem to do. Yes, we need more practice to hone our skills. But we also need to thoughtfully edit and polish our work, which I didn’t do that much of.
I guess not many people have had the extreme experience of writing tons of books, yet have no work that is fully edited.
Nevertheless, the editing I did wasn’t literally zero. Writing 3 million words and finishing 22 book drafts isn’t nothing, either. At the very least, I can say that I’m not a rookie when it comes to fiction writing.
I have self-published one science-fiction novel. Most readers loved it, but I wasn’t too happy with it myself. Since I published it as a print book rather than an e-book, Amazon mandates that I keep the webpage up forever, so that vendors can sell their second-hand copies.
I told them that it has my dead name on it and I’m transgender. But they wouldn’t budge. The best I could do was to republish the same book under my current name. Lane isn’t my real last name, but Sieran has become my legal first name.
How About Nonfiction?
So far, I’ve given you the impression that I’m a hardcore fiction buff. I am devoted to fiction, yes, but believe it or not, I love nonfiction just as much, as both a writer and a reader. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I enjoy writing in almost any format or genre, fiction or nonfiction. I’m just in love with the written word!
Back in university, I felt encouraged when professors told me that my papers were easy to read and understand. My teaching assistants (TAs) and classmates gave me similar feedback.
Not everyone was so complimentary, though. In my earlier undergrad years, my Poetics TA told me that if I wanted to continue as an English major, I had better go to the writing center with an essay every week. I didn’t do that and proceeded to get an A in my next English course. (It was a straight A semester. McGill had no A+s.)
It’s also funny that my parents believed that Asians can’t get As in university-level English courses. But I proved them wrong by getting As and A-s in most of my English lit courses.
There’s no need to see negative feedback in a fatalistic way, either. That Poetics TA gave me C grades for my poetry analysis papers. But on Medium, readers have given me very positive feedback for my poetry. In fact, my one and the only semi-viral piece on Medium so far was a poem I wrote about my crush:
It doesn’t mean I’m “amazing” and have nothing left to learn. Of course not! Nobody is too good to improve, and I have plenty of writing issues I still need to work on. Nevertheless, writing is another one of those few things in life that I feel confident in.
For my analytical essays, people often tell me that I’m balanced, persuasive, and a deep thinker. While I enjoy writing these articles, I’ve gotten more into creative nonfiction (CNF) lately, which includes memoirs and personal essays. On the surface, it looks like fiction, but in reality, creative nonfiction has its unique challenges.
In fact, I’d say that fiction is easier for me because I don’t need to talk directly about myself and risk getting judged for my experiences. Nor do I need to fear people getting mad at me for not portraying them in a positive light. Plus, I’m a lot more experienced with the ropes and the ins and outs of fiction writing. CNF is a new interest that is still blooming.
Resting from Fiction and Then Getting Back Into the Groove
Believe it or not, I had gotten burned out from fiction for a while and wrote only nonfiction and poetry for a year. (Unless you count my Pokemon detective fanfiction!)
But happily, I have gotten back into fiction. First, I got into writing Choose Your Own Adventure Stories with other authors. Later, I started an LGBTQ+ fantasy fiction series, Anastasia the Nonbinary Dragon, which I’m publishing in Prism & Pen.
It felt so nostalgic when I got back into fiction writing like I was reconnecting with an old friend. And honestly, though readers have been kind in praising my nonfiction, I can sense that overall, their praise is even more enthusiastic for my fiction work!
There is so much more I could say about myself. But this essay is already too long, so I’ll let my articles on Medium tell you more of my story. Here are my lists of works, organized by genres and themes:
Choose Your Own Adventure Stories
Psychology, Personal Development, and Relationships
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