Be True To Yourself

This is something I feel like writing up for the young ones, those in their teens who feel like they don't have a space in the world because they're too different. I'm going to share my experiences growing up, and I hope that I can provide some consolation those who are going through something similar. 

Even though society has progressed quite a bit in many places since I grew up in the late '80s, '90s and early '00s, there's still a level of expected conformity ("be yourself, but not like that"). I have resisted this since my mid-to-late teens after all my trying to fit in failed rather catastrophically - all my attempts to imitate my cool peers and act like the others, to seem like just an ordinary member of whatever demographic my current school had, always resulted in my being exposed as a poseur, and me constantly double-thinking myself. I ended up literally driving myself mad with worry, spiralling into deep anxiety about being found out and exposed as the fraud I was, and deeply miserable because I felt there was no place in the world for the real me underneath the disguise. 

I became deeply, deeply unhappy, self-destructive and quite mentally ill. I descended into my own personal hell, one fuelled also by the abusive and traumatic experiences I had survived, as well as this sense of alienation and the unhappiness I felt in my fake existence. I don't want to recall the exact specifics of how bad it got, but it really was the most awful head-space I have ever been. 

One of the things about me, which I have alluded to on this blog before, but which I haven't spelled out exactly, is that I am neurodivergent. I have Asperger's, which I had suspected for a long time, but it was only about 3 years ago I went to a specialist centre  and was officially diagnosed. It is suspected that I have quite severe dyspraxia, too, and possibly ADHD, but the symptomatic overlap with Asperger's makes it difficult to diagnose, plus there is no NHS service in my region for adults to seek official diagnosis or treatment for either ADHD or dyspraxia. This means there are many ways in which I fundamentally can't be normal, however hard I try to be. 

[I didn't want to admit it, because I am worried that in doing so, people will just see me as someone with Asperger's, and this will be used to overshadow and 'explain' me away, as if all people with Asperger's are the same, and as if Asperger's is all there is to me]

When I was a teen, I didn't know why I was so different, struggled so hard socially, why I everyone seemed so alien and confusing to me, why it seemed like my senses were so much keener than others, why crowds seemed so awful and chaotic to me, why I couldn't see the logic in other humans, why everyone seemed to think, in some fundamental way, differently from me. I sought out explanations, some quite fanciful, I will admit, but they were all lacking. I tried my best to blend in, to capitulate to the rather socially conservative expectations being put on me , to be what others wanted, but eventually I realised that this was impossible. Some of it is my inherent nature - Asperger's, bisexuality, my being essentially agender, these are inherent traits - some of it is something between personality and choice, where my underlying nature probably contributes significantly, but ultimately it is my choice; I'm Neo-Pagan, I'm Goth, I'm a Romantic, I'm a little bit "hippie", passionately green, and have a lot of 'eccentric' tastes and interests, some of it was just my background; there are people who don't have much care for immigrants and their children, or for those who are poor, or come from unconventional families. 

Even if I made all the "normal" choices, I would still be innately different - I still was, when I tried to - and I was miserable because I was suppressing all the things that made me happy. If you cut yourself off from the things you enjoy to fit in better, all you'll do is limit your own happiness, and probably still not fit in any better, or at least, that's what happened to me. Eventually, at about 14 or 15, I gave up pretending and ran headlong into being different. Sometimes I was awkward, obsessive and a bit cringe-worthy growing up (I'd get a bit obsessive about fandoms, and was also a bit of a 'weeaboo' for a while), sometimes I did things out of petty defiance, and sometimes I took 'flying my freak-flag high' a bit too far, sometimes I experimented with different identities trying to find my own, but eventually I levelled out and found myself. I do think there's a place in the world for tact, for moderation (especially as I have obsessive tendencies), and situational awareness, but I learned that there are always ways of being true to myself. 

I learned a lot. I realised that often the world will not just automatically make a space for those who are a little too different, so it is up to us to make our own spaces, and to seek out the others like us. I learned that politeness, compassion and competence can get people to see past difference, especially with patience and kindness. I came to see that being true to myself, and giving myself the freedom of divorcing myself from the pressure to live up to other's expectations, was the key to my happiness. I learned not to really care anymore about the opinions of strangers and busybodies, and to live for myself. Life wasn't about external acceptance, and my self-esteem was no longer predicated entirely on validation from others. 

I also met other people with common interests, and while I will say that my self-worth comes from inner acceptance, it is certainly easier in life when you have support from others. I'm naturally a bit of an introvert, and not the most actively social individual, but even I have found a value in community; a tree can be strong and sturdy on its own, an ancient solitary oak living hundreds of years, even over a millennia, but a whole forest is something else. Goth and Neo-Paganism have been where I have found like-minded individuals, and a sense of homecoming; certainly I'm different even from other Goths, and Neo-Pagans, and will probably always be something of an anomaly in all situations, but this subculture is where I've found my people, and there's something to knowing I'm not completely alien in this world. I don't have to pretend around other Pagans and Goths, I don't have to hide who I am. 

I also learned that it was a waste of energy and time, as well as quite misguided, to be consumed with bitterness at the rest of the world, to define myself by opposition to others, to rail against the "conformists" as terrible people, and bristle with defiance. Instead, I would focus simply on being myself and doing what I enjoyed. 

What this little bit of autobiography is trying to say is this: be yourself, live life for you, and don't let the world break your spirit if it wants you to be something you're fundamentally not. This world has many strange people who are proud of being strange, and who have found, or carved out, their own niche, and have happy, successful lives - even if some of them measure success by different yardsticks. Often the road less travelled is a harder, rougher path, but it is worth it for what you find on the journey. As long as you aren't hurting either yourself or others, do what you enjoy and live life your own way. 

Being An Adult Goth

Being an adult Goth has its own challenges.

I wrote about being an adult Goth before, ::here::. After watching ::this:: video by Mama Bat on YouTube, who wanted to hear from Goths over the age of 25, I was inspired to write about it again. I know I'm probably repeating myself, but I hope I am not repeating myself too much.

Firstly, some clarification. I'm not an ElderGoth; I don't remember the most of the '80s  as I wasn't even born until the latter end, and I wasn't part of the scene in the '90s, and I only started getting interested in Goth in the early to mid '00s - that's still well over 10 years ago, but it's only a fraction of the time some people have been in this scene, and I don't want to claim experience that I don't have. However, I am an adult, and I've had to live in the 'big wide world', beyond education institutions (school, college, university) and there's definitely a shift that takes place when you have different considerations in your life. This entry is mostly about the differences in my experience being a Goth as a teenager and as an adult. 

It's NOT Just A Phase

As a teenager, I did go through phases of experimenting with subcultural identities, starting with Goth and eventually returning, and this, coupled with the general misconception that Goth is unilaterally an expression of temporary teenage angst and rebellion, meant that it was very often presumed that it would be something I would grow out of. Adults around me often refused to support me in being Goth, because of this - it wasn't based around disapproval of the content, more that when I was still dependent on my family financially and was fixated on the idea of made-for-Goth clothes and buying my music as CDs, I wasn't going to get bought anything Goth as it was seen as something too transitory to invest in (this was less of an issue when I realised that charity shops sold non-mainstream things and adaptable things, and how to customise things, and as I got older and could earn my own money, etc.). As I did flit between subcultural identities this was understandable, and as stroppy as I may have been about this when I was 13/14, I don't begrudge it now. The other problem I had was how my mental health issues, as real and obvious as they should have been, where dismissed as me "attention seeking" as some sort of angsty teenage phase connected to my being Goth, but that is another issue. 

Still being Goth now, all those years laters, has proven that this time, it wasn't a phase; this actually is who I really am. Some of my family are now more accepting because of this, and others are less accepting. I think there were some who tolerated it because they thought it was something I would have abandoned soon enough anyway, and now that I've demonstrated that this is who I am, they have more of an issue with it. I feel that there is a sentiment that if it had been a feigned interest done for temporary rebelliousness, then that was something tolerable because it wouldn't have been a reflection of me, just an affected pose, and therefore while pretentious and annoying, not an indication of my truly embracing values and interests that they are opposed to. 

I also get criticism from strangers - often variations on "aren't you too old to be trying to piss off your parents?" and "how are you supposed to get a job when you look like that". My rebuttal to the first is that my father's completely accepting of my dress sense. He doesn't personally really like that style and I think he liked it better when I was into more hippie/bohemian things as that is closer to his interests, but he also accepts that there's nothing wrong with it, and has no problem with me being Goth or dressing the way I do. As to the underlying idea that Goth is inherently for teenagers, I explained in previous article that it's actually aimed more towards adults, especially when the club scene is such a major component. My reply to the second usually was "I have a job!" but now I'm at university and had to quit my job to study (architecture is an intensive course, and I personally can't juggle the course and a job), my response is a bit more detailed; there are plenty of Goths who have jobs, but I accept that some employers prefer a more conservative appearance, and I can change my look to be appropriate to the situation.
This brings me on to the next topic..

Balancing Employer's Requirements And Goth

This is something I touched on in my previous blog article about being an adult Goth.

One thing I worry about is if employers and potential employers would deem my subcultural affiliation as a sign that I might be a bad employee - there are reasons I keep this blog under the pseudonym of 'HouseCat', and where I do use my real name, only use part of it,  and one of those is that if potential employers search me on the internet under my full name, they won't immediately find my work in the subculture. I'm not ashamed of being Goth, but I am worried about the prevalence misconceptions and misinformation; a lot of people think we're deviants and delinquents, when we're really nothing like that. When I do things with a subcultural leaning that can be relevant work experience, I get very conflicted, and think very carefully about how I word things, often leaving out the word 'Goth'. 

Each employer and each job will have different dress-codes, some have uniforms and some are very strict about a homogenous appearance. Some are also more likely to look down on anything relating to subcultural identity - I worked in one place that had a policy of "pale" nail-varnish colours only, and where I got reprimanded for silver nail-polish (definitely pale!) while another girl with a more mainstream aesthetic was allowed to wear neon yellow and I got told that there wasn't going to be a colour I would be allowed to wear that would fit in with my style, and that they'd prefer pink... In general, however, I've found that my aesthetic quirks are usually accepted as long as I am smart and well-groomed and wear whatever attire is required for the job in hand. 

I know that architecture, the field I will be going into, requires a more conservatively professional aesthetic than some, but it is also a creative field, so there is some leniency for eccentricity. I expect that it will be beneficial to me in the search for employment to dye my hair a natural colour, for example. One of my friends, a purple-haired Goth lady, has recently got an internship with a firm in the US, and she is dyeing her purple hair a more natural colour for that. When the time comes for me to sacrifice my emerald green hair, I will either seek out either a PPD free black dye (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!) or go for a redhead look. I have been ginger before, and I liked it, however I do sometimes miss my jet-black hair, hence the collection of black wigs. In the meantime, I will continue to revel in the freedom being at university gives me. 

While, in an ideal world, aesthetic preference wouldn't be taken as a measure of competency, and whether you prefer dyed green hair to dyed blonde, or have piercings and tattoos would be irrelevant as long as you maintained a smart and well-groomed appearance, we're not living in an ideal world, and I accept that compromises have to be made. All my tattoos are planned for parts of my body that won't show under usual office attire, and I took most of my piercings out years ago. I have a real passion for architecture and especially for historic buildings, and if modifying my appearance makes it easier for me to do what I love, then I'm willing to make compromises, especially as Goth is so much more than just fashion, so even if I'm making compromises with my appearance, it doesn't stop me from having an '80s 'Trad. Goth' playlist for my bus commutes or going out to a Goth event on a Friday night instead of a regular bar, or whatnot. 

Benefits Of Being An Adult Goth

The obvious benefit of being an adult Goth is that I'm old enough to participate in the club scene; I'm above legal drinking age (18 in the U.K.) and to go to gigs at venues that sell alcohol, and therefore take part in a huge portion of the subculture I couldn't take part in as a younger teen, but that's not the only benefit. As mentioned before, having my own independent income means I am free to chose what I spend it on (even though often times that has meant spending what little I earned primarily on rent, food and utilities, with little spare for things like music, clothes, books, etc. - being an adult also means adult responsibilities) and even though I certainly don't think how Goth you are should be measured by disposable income spent on Goth, it certainly does make things easier now that I can buy records or velvet skirts for myself, or tickets to gigs, entry fees to clubs... As I've progressed in terms of employment and had more income, that has allowed me to afford to spend more on Goth, too. I'm now a student again, and gave up my job to study, so I'm back to thrift shopping on the rare occasions I can afford even that, but when I was working, that certainly helped with how much I could participate.

I think the best thing about being an adult and a Goth is that I can travel around more independently. Personally, I am unable to drive due to health reasons, but there's still a lot of benefits to being able to travel independently rather than having to ask my Dad for a lift, or always having to travel with friends, in terms of flexibility of participation. I only have to fit travel around public transport and my own schedule, not everyone else's. While I am limited by my schedule and by the reach of my disabled person's travel pass (Scotland only), it's nice to be able to go beyond the town I live in to access Goth gigs and events, and meet up with friends in the subculture. As I live somewhere a bit more rural, this is definitely useful, as even nearby towns don't have much in the way of Goth events and gigs, and it usually means a trip to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Having my own space, free of parental rules, or the rules of dorms and student housing (eg. no posters on the walls was frequently a rule, as this was seen as a fire-hazard, and also all electrical items must be safety-checked, including string-lights, and this had to be paid for so a £1 set of Hallowe'en scary-lights suddenly would also have to cost an electrician's safety-check fee, and seemed a less attractive proposition, and again another fire-safety rule was absolutely no candles or incense) meant the ability to have a space I could make more homely, and more in keeping with aesthetic and musical tastes. Rental properties often didn't let me make any major changes to the decor, but I was free to put my own pictures up, to have string lights and candles, to put in my own furniture, etc. Now I've got a mortgage on my 'own' house (well, it doesn't feel like it's completely mine all the time the mortgage is fairly new and the amount we've paid off is tiny compared to the size of the loan) I can completely re-decorate - a process I am thoroughly throwing myself into.


This is mostly my own experience as an adult Goth, and I would love to hear about the experiences of other adult Goths. Also, as someone who feels like they missed out on the first 25-ish years of Goth, I also love hearing about Goth before I started being one in the early/mid '00s (although that is somewhat tangental from this blog entry). 

Celebrating 2 Years In Scotland

Yesterday evening Raven and I celebrated 2 years in Scotland

We had a small gathering yesterday - Raven and I, and eight friends (some of which are not pictured in the photographs - N. left before we were photographed, Suzy_Bugs and her husband don't do flash photography, and the chap photographing us was behind the camera, not in front.)

It started off as a garden party in our back garden. I do quite wish I had taken a few photographs as I worked quite hard to make it atmospheric. Anyway, this isn't a post about silver doilies and piles of cushions, this a post about having lived in Scotland for two years now, and what that means to me.

First of all, it doesn't feel like I have lived here for two years - I still feel so new to the area, and feel like it was only a few months ago that I moved here, and that I don't really know the area. I certainly don't feel like I have been here for an entire 24 months!

From left to right; M.W, K., me, Raven, Brian, and M.G.
Photograph by S. Goodwin

Secondly, moving to Scotland was a whole change for me; so many new and different things. I moved to a new country, moved in with Raven for the first time, moved into our very own apartment, both of us moved to completely new jobs  - both twice, after I was made redundant a month into my previous job, and after Raven decided that moving into hospitality from nursing was a bad idea and went back into nursing - new friends, and a very, very long way between all that and what we had once known. I was previously living in the Thames Valley, and Raven was previously living on a farm in Wales, each of us were a good day's driving, or a couple days by train, from where we had once lived. 

I have never been homesick; while where I lived was beautiful, and while I had friends there, I knew I had to go. Sometimes I miss my friends, sometimes I miss my cat and my Dad, but I never miss the actual place. When I left I was so excited; I packed all of my things into the car and could hardly move (I had cans in the footwell and was sitting on cushions...) and just went North and more North and more North... I had no realistic idea how much of Scotland I still had to cross before actually getting to where I now reside, and thought getting as far as the Scottish border had been a really long way. The drive itself was through some incredible scenery. The UK is mostly known for gently rolling hills, little fields with livestock and nice woodlands, for rivers winding through small towns and villages and generally quite a tame view of rural life; Scotland does not look like that. I travelled past mountains and waterfalls and heather moors and ancient castles and suddenly realised just how much the landscape called out to my sense of adventure. Scotland good be Westeros or Middle Earth.

Aside: A lot of Game of Thrones is filmed in Northern Ireland (which has quite similar landscapes), some of it was actually filmed in Scotland, and Lord of the Rings was filmed all the way on the other side of the planet in New Zealand.

Every day I open my curtains to a view out across mountains (snow-covered in winter), the river, forests, farmland, and often birds of prey soaring on thermals. I would love to post a picture up of the view from our flat, but I think it would be too easy to locate where I live from it, so you will have to take my word for it when I say I have a broad panorama of dramatic and beautiful scenery. I've stayed in places with some nice views (like from the gable windows of my friend's Victorian garret flat overlooking Bristol; it was a sea of lights at night.) but now I get to actually live in one. I never, ever get tired of looking at the view. My favourite thing is watching how varied the skies can be, and how colourful. 

Four lassies
Photo by S. Goodwin

Up here it is also quite a different place to live in terms of people. I have noticed that people here are a lot friendlier than where I used to live - total strangers often acknowledge each other with a "morning" or "afternoon" as they pass, people talk to you on public transport and it's not considered weird or even rude, and I actually get a lot more friendly and positive interactions for my clothes than I do get snooty or rude ones.  I have noticed that it is generally speaking (there will always be exceptions) the case that the further from London you get, the more friendly people on public transport are, with West Wales and Scotland being the places I have experienced as the most friendly. It is not perfect, and have been insulted in the streets even here, too, but I have experienced less than I did when I lived in the Thames Valley, even if there are far fewer Goths here, so I stand out from the crowd more. 

No place is perfect though. I guess the thing I dislike the most is the sort of wind-blown driving rain we get here. It falls so far off vertical that it gets under my umbrellas and into my coats. It falls for a lot of autumn, winter and spring, and I end up wanting to stay at home in the warm and yet I have to go out for work. The wind chills, too, so I sometimes end up quite wet and cold, despite being thoroughly wrapped up in several layers. 

Altogether, I am really happy that I moved here, and I feel that it really is something to celebrate, as is living with Raven for two years and still being in a happy relationship. I think the initial period after moving in can be the most difficult stage of a relationship as dating someone and living with them are two wholly different things, and I am glad we have managed to negotiate a peaceful coexistence and never really argue much at all. Two very happy years and a nice party to round them off. May many more happy years follow!

Arthurian Legend, Medieval History and Gothic Architecture

Or how I came to fall in love with anachronism...

This is in response to Jess, who suggested the topic on the Domesticated Goth Facebook Page.

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I have always had a broad appreciation of history. My father is involved in archaeology as a geophysicist and archaeological surveyor, and I was therefore brought up saturated in local history and British history. This, however, can only partially explain why I like history in general, and not really explain why I have a fascination for the medieval in particular, or how this ties in with my other historical interests (we're heading over to Pre-Raphaelite territory...)

My attempts to be a real-life Pre-Rpahaelite depiction of Morgan LaFey

⚜ Childhood Fascination

It all started with an illustrated book of fairy tales from when I was a very, very small child. In it were children's versions of some Arthurian tales. I really, really wish I still had the book, but sadly it is long gone. I can't even remember what the book was called, but I remember that it had lavish, beautiful illustrations in full colour and great detail. There was this fabulous image of a knight in armour on a horse, with the horse adorned in barding and caparison and the knight with a very sharp and shiny looking sword. Then there was a book ordered from the back of a packet of Weetabix (::this:: book - I'm showing my age! ) which I read avidly and repeatedly and with great enthusiasm. It was the first book on history I ever owned, and my favourite section was that from the Norman Conquest on to Henry VIII - just a bit broader than the time-span  referred to as the 'High Middle Ages' and 'Late Middle Ages'.

This interest was picked up, and I was given a French language (I was brought up bilingual, my first language is actually French) history book with a few transparent pages called ::Le Château Fort:: which just fed this interest. I even got taken on some trips to some real-life castles, such as Rochester Castle in Kent, which probably sealed it for me. 

I can't really place what it is that drew me to these things, but  it was partially a confusion between what was myth and reality (probably on account of being a child with a broad imagination). There was something wonderful and exciting about believing that all these knights and maidens and brave chivalrous warriors and fierce monsters and witches and wizards had been real, just centuries and centuries ago. For some time, as a small child, my career ambitions were "knight"... 

As I read more I quickly learnt that no, dragons were not real (dinosaurs, on the other hand...) and neither was the Green Knight, and that chivalry and courtly love were not as later poets would have us believe. I also learnt, over time, that the "shining armour" of knights was often actually depictions things such as 1480s Gothic plate armour from what is now Germany and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire, that there are an awful lot of types of "pointy arches" buildings, and recorders are fabulous musical instruments with a long, long history. Basically, I learnt that a lot of the things I found really interesting came from between the mid 11thC and very beginning of the 16thC. 

⚜ Art History And Gothic Architecture

The more I got to know of art and architecture from that period, the more I realised that it was rich aesthetics that I adored, and still adore. 

I gained an interest in calligraphy and illuminated manuscripts when I was about 12 or 13, after being introduced to them in an English lesson focused on Arthurian myths. I began my first pseudo-'illuminated' Book of Shadows, the precursor to my current book of Shadows, which is all written in uncial calligraphy, richly decorated with a mixture of foliate, spiral and knot-work designs, a lot of silver and gold embellishments (albeit via more modern techniques) and even has a few illustrations. 

I also fell in love with Gothic architecture (no surprise to my regular readers). I like most styles of highly decorative architecture on grand scales, from the temples at Angkor Wat to Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral, but I have a special fondness for the Gothic and Gothic-Revival. I especially like buildings in the later Gothic styles, especially the Perpendicular Gothic, with their emphasis on verticality and arrays of stained glass windows. I can't explain why I prefer a pointed Gothic arch or fan-vaulted ceiling to a round Romanesque arch or barrel-vaulted ceiling, nor what it is about tracery designs that appeal to me, but that is the way I am, and I could spend all day looking at them. 

It is not enough for me to merely find interest in the appearance of buildings, I am always led to their function, and that then draws me back into the history - old abbeys, cathedrals, grand houses etc. always have rich histories, and it fascinates me how the uses of buildings change over centuries, and boggles me to think of all the thousands of people from so many periods and places that have visited these places and looked at them with their own unique perspectives. 

What also amazes me is the size and complexity of the buildings designed considering the limited understanding of physics and mathematics at the time. People sometimes think that because people in the past were illiterate and superstitious with a limited grasp of science and mathematics that they were stupid but education and intelligence are different things, as can be shown by ::this:: article, where it describes how a string and a weight could show if the vast spire of Salisbury Cathedral was straight or not (it wasn't, it was leaning, and Christopher Wren figured out how to straighten it in 1668) in an age long before optical surveying equipment, let alone laser levels! These cathedrals were built by a largely illiterate work force. People had to be creative and use their initiative to overcome the lack of technology and get things done by other means. 

This does not just apply to great cathedrals across Europe, or even to medieval times alone, of course, but it is one of the things about the medieval period that does intrigue me. 

Also, as an enthusiastic archer, and a person with an interest in historical arms and armour, Medieval European weaponry is very interesting to me, and to understand the weapons, one has to understand the conflicts that were their context, and how they became visual symbols in later periods, which necessitates some understanding of medieval life. 

(Those interested in medieval weaponry may be excited to know that I have asked a friend who is more knowledgeable than me in this area to write a guest post on such things!).

⚜Understanding Where I live
As my readers already know, I live in the UK, currently in Scotland and previously down in the Thames Valley. I am the sort of person that likes to know the history of the places where I live; they make up part of the culture, and inform present day attitudes (like someone I know here, with a tattoo of the Declaration of Arbroath, which was originally made in 1320). The history of the UK stretches back millennia and millennia before the Middle Ages, but much of its best recorded  history is that recorded by the monasteries and onwards, i.e Saxon through to Medieval and onwards. 

Earlier history interest me too, especially the pre-Roman 'Celtic' history of the various Iron Age, Bronze Age and earlier peoples of Britain, but much of these cultures is lost to time, and what we know is pieced together from artefacts and remains, and the writings of later Roman authors writing as outsiders. The very early history is full of mysteries, and these mysteries intrigue me, but they are mysteries, not things we know. 

Medieval history, on the other hand, includes quite a body of knowledge about what life was like then, and is quite accessible - it is not that expensive to go on a tour of Oxford castle and get quite good account of the castle's history, starting with its ecclesiastical history and moving forwards, and I certainly studied the Norman Invasion, the Charter of Liberties, the Magna Carter and the Peasant's Revolt at school, and am sure that various aspects of Medieval history are fairly widespread in history teaching at various levels. I guess it was something I could easily get into, and unlike Roman history, I wasn't faced with my Dad's near-obsession (he spent several years working at a Roman pottery manufacture site with several kilns and a processing works for clay) with the subject. 

⚜The Victorians Have A Lot To Answer for

Another thing my readers may well know is that I have an interest in Victorian things, and as all the Victorian-era Gothic Revival and Scottish Baronial architecture I photograph show, and the subject matter of many Pre-Raphaelite paintings also, there was a definite interest in a fairy-tale and Arthurian Medievalism in that period (as well as an interest in legitimate history). My interests become recursive at this point. To elaborate on the previous examples, I look at a Victorian Gothic Revival buildings, and see in them their stylistic ancestors (and giggle at the Victorian tendency to turn practical medieval things into nonsensical decorative devices.), I look at Pre-Raphaelite depictions of Arthurian legends, and wonder which suits of armour were used as costume references, and how many details are flights of fancy.  

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Hopefully I have managed to detail from where my interest stems in a helpful manner to those curious, and have not been too boring and introspective. Personally, I find the history far more interesting than my appreciation of it! I don't think this explanation is exhaustive, and in racking my brains I wonder if I am overlaying too much of who I am now onto my past self, but hopefully it is at least a bit helpful. 

Babybats, ElderGoths and In-between

I used to think a Babybat was a Goth under the age of 15 and an ElderGoth a goth that's also an adult. I didn't realise that there were a significant number of Goths over 30, and I thought that most of the time Goths got forced out of the subculture by the practicalities of work and children. 

I was so naïve!

I was also, like most people mistaken about this sort of thing, a Babybat myself. Yes, I'd been associating with various subcultures including Goth since my mid-teens, but I had not really walked deeply into the Goth subculture. I was socialising with a handful of Goths of a similar age to myself and not really talking to other club patrons as much as I ought. Internet goths got dismissed as people who were only on the internet and not participating in real life (terribly erroneous, I know). Basically, I was centring on a small world of those approximately my age and whom I knew well and inadvertently blinkering myself to the wider picture. 

It was partly because I was having too much fun with my circle of friends to be paying attention, but it was also because I was rather shy about talking to these older goths; after all, they'd seen and done things I only dreamed of. There was this fear that they would look down on me for being young, for not having been there in the '80s (Being alive in the '80s is not the same as actually having been to those gigs, those concerts, those clubs...), for getting things wrong such as not knowing things like that Robert Smith and Sid Vicious had played with the Banshees and that Patricia Morrison joined the Damned in the 1990s; for having wonky, under-practiced makeup and for not having quite the right sense of Goth fashion... Part of me really wanted to talk to these people who had been Goth longer than I'd been alive, and learn, and possibly make new friends, but part of me was too scared of being turned away with mocking words by people I admired. 

Now I am older, slightly wiser, and in time, I will be an ElderGoth (it's not like I am going to leave the subculture, at least not until I leave the world entirely). I've already realised that through writing this blog, some people look to me in that way but - openly - no; I am too young and too inexperienced to call myself that. I am also not a Babybat any more - having been in the subculture too many years and being too old. I have got to the age where random strangers have started telling me it is about time to "grow out of it".  So what am I, in this case of two worlds and the in-between? Well, just a regular Goth! It appears that there are those who think that "Babybat" and "ElderGoth" are the only two forms of Goth, but that is not the case. 

There is nothing wrong with being just a Goth.

It does not mean that you are not still learning, and it does not mean that you haven't got anything to say. 

There was a time when there were no such concepts as Babybats and Eldergoths, when everyone was fairly equal, and didn't always even call themselves Goth (that term, by the way, was applied to the subculture from outside, by the music press) but over 30+ years of the subculture's existence  and a constant fresh intake over those years, these distinctions have been made. The first person I saw using the terms was Jillian Venters, also known as The Lady of The Manners, who runs the online Goth agony-aunt and advice site ::Gothic Charm School::. I don't know if it precedes her, but do think that the popularity of her website has certainly helped spread the terms. 

Plenty of remarks have already been made across the internet on various blogs and forums about how older, more experienced Goths should not shun and mock younger Goths, even younger Goths that are getting it terribly wrong, but educate them politely in the hope that the polite lessons will stick. Plenty of suggestions for Babybats in that vein have also been made, some more factually accurate than others. There is no need for me to repeat these things. 

Time and a dedicated interest in the subculture are the only things that make Babybat metamorphose into a Goth, and as long as they fabricate their chrysalis (or pupa) from good resources, a full Goth butterfly (or moth) should emerge.

People learn throughout their lives - once they have become fairly established  as Goths, they do not suddenly know everything about Goth just because they are no longer Babybats, nor do they suddenly know everything about anything else.  There is always more to learn, there will always be another band to come across, another fashion idea to inspire, another interesting book to read, another factoid to amuse. Even the ElderGoths who have been at this lark for longer than I've lived will still come across new things. It is important to have an open mind, and never be too fixed as to be immovable in the face of new information. 

Goth is a subculture based around musical tastes, aesthetics and a broadly dark mindset, apart from facts such as who sung in what band, what date a book was published, etc. a lot of Goth is about subjective matters and personal tastes and opinions, and those things do not have a fixed right or wrong, more what one likes and dislikes. There is no fixed line, just general consensus. Remember that if you stray out of the vague boundaries of Goth that being Not Goth is not bad, it's just not Goth. 

30 Day Goth Challenge, Day 4

I'm usually mostly out and about after dark. That is partly because I've moved North, and the days here at least feel considerably shorter than they were, but I think that this is partly because I am ringed by mountains, so the sun has set behind the mountains long before it would set behind a flat horizon. This is also because my partner works until quite late, he often finishes work at gone 19:00 and then has a 45 minute commute home, so if we want to do anything together, including mundane shared chores like food shopping, it is usually done after 20:00. I am up and awake long before then, and do get up at a sensible time, but with the weather having turned for the worse, there's less conservation work for me to do, and I am less inclined than usual to walk into town, especially as I know I'll be walking home alone in the dark if I do that. Also, if it gets dark before 16:00 and light after 09:00, there's not that much of the day when itisn'tdark here in Winter :P I'm also a sucker for not going to bed until I've done a task - for example last night I stayed up working on a Doodle or Die drawing of a Samurai, in great detail, until it crashed at 03:30. If I start something, unless something really distracting happens, I'm usually locked off from the world until I've completed it.

Pale As Death

I'm naturally rather pale, though pale with a reddish tinge, and I tend to do my makeup not to make me actively paler, as I'm pale enough anyway, even for the Gothic look, but simply to make my skin less pink. I am often asked if I'm feeling ill, or what the matter with me is, but the truth is I'm fine, this is my natural, normal skin-tone. I've also got poor circulation, so my hands and feet are often very cold. As you can imagine, this means I end up the butt of corpse-jokes, but that's fine by me. I've found a lot of Goths are naturally pale people, maybe it's because Goth provides a style alternative for people who are never going to pull off the sun-kissed blonde look but can do pale and interesting quite well.

All Black Everything

Black is not my favourite colour, but it is one of them. I do tend to pick the black option even when buying items with little inherent Goth potential, not just because I don't want my cleaning stuff to clash with my clothes, but simply because I like the colour black. My four favourite colours are purple, green, black and blue - in that order. This said, I have, and this list is not exhaustive, the following: black coat-hangers, black-handled cutlery (and that actually IS deliberately Goth), black serviettes, black bedding (also Goth), a black "Gothmas" tree, square black crockery, a black electric-guitar-shaped grater, black towels, black coffee mugs, black tissue-box, black sushi plates, black plastic cooking utensils, black-handled scissors, black photo-frames (also fairly Goth) etc. etc. My wardrobe is a black-lined pit of black clothes and black shoes. Sometimes I wear a bit of green, blue, or purple, but it's mostly black on black. I get teased by friends who, when I buy something totally not goth-related and it turns out to be black, say "Oh! What a surprise! It's pink! Wait, no, it's black." Even my socks are at least mostly black.

Skulls Are Beautiful

I collect animal skulls, collect skull-shaped items, wear skull jewellery, and generally love skulls. I even paint and draw them. I also like Reapers, and bones, and other stereotypically skeletal things. I want to get a biology model skeleton to hang on my wall because I think they're aesthetically pleasing as well as educational. All my animal skulls are found pre-deceased (and mostly picked clean) on walks. I do boil them thoroughly and wash them thoroughly before displaying them. I like deer skulls the best, but have the skulls of other wildlife. I want a raven skull. My favourite art pieces are Memento Mori and Vanitas paintings.

Caught In An Explosion In A Lace Factory

I think this is as much a Lolita/Aristo stereotype as it is a Gothic one, but it's often true for me. I'll wear shirts with triple-lace cuffs, a lace trimmed skirt over petticoats, a lace jabot, lace head-gear and lace as cuff-bracelets and then tie another bit of lace in a loop under my collar and over my jabot, probably in contrasting black, and then carry a lace parasol. Trim my lace with more lace! Lace is a favourite material of mine, I love its intricacy and delicacy and the beautiful patterns it is made in. If I liked pastels and suited them, I'd probably be a Sweet Lolita cliche. I always feel very elegant when I'm wearing lots of lace.

Breathing Is Unimportant!

I lace my corsets tight and wear them pretty much constantly. I'll wear leather studded corsets with buckles, and I'll wear fancy brocade corsets over lacy tops. I like underbust, I like overbust, I like anything as long as it is mostly black, has proper steel boning and pulls me right in like an hour glass. I like white and ivory corsets to wear under period-inspired clothes, I like fancy PVC outerwear corsets to wear as a futuristic cyber-goth. I really, really, really, like corsets. In fact, I think I'm in love with them. They make me look skinnier, bustier and better proportioned. They're warm in winter. They're sexy. They're classy. They're everything I could wish for in one garment.

Bleak-eyed Writer

I wrote my fair share of angst-ridden poetry and bleak, dark fantasy fiction as a teen. Now I'm writing an apocalyptic novel set in a world where civilisation has collapsed and humanity is tearing itself apart, the environment is ruined and a lot of people die. I guess it's gone from Gothic to Rivethead literature, but hey, it doesn't depress me to write it. That said, I'm writing this novel as a warning, not an instruction manual for annihilation nor as a morbid adrenaline-junky's holiday brochure. I also like black humour, and write things that are funny-yet-morbid. I still write poetry, though it is more in the vein of admiring the beauty (and dark beauty) of the universe than in complaining about how awful my life is in poorly-written verse. My poetry abilities have also improved since I was a teen, mostly because writing poetry is one of those things I do quite frequently, for example when bored, on trains, while waiting for public transport, on long journeys, or anywhere else I get 5 or more minutes of sitting-down time. I have also learnt that angsty ramblings are not good subject matter and that good poetry requires more than just rhyme and raiding the thesaurus.

These are the main ones, but I also love ravens, magpies, crows and other corvids, do Siouxsie Sioux style eye makeup or draw curlicues, tend to go out everywhere pretty darn goth, read lots of vampire stories and hang around in graveyards. Yep, I'm a cliche, but I'm having fun being a cliche, so I don't care. 

30 Day Goth Challenge, Day 2

Share Photos And Experiences From Your Babybat Days

Well, I was only briefly a babybat, and there weren't any photographs taken, so I can't share photos, but can I can share experiences. I wasn't into babybat music, but was into classical music so did not wear band t-shirts, and took my inspiration from Goths at the mall when I had sneaked off from sanctioned shopping trips. I was not into Satanic imagery, but into looking like a spooky sort of Witch. Yep, I was a fluffy-bunny Wiccan at the same time as a babybat Goth. I avoided those two cliches, but I still fell into lots of others. There were two shops selling both hippie/pagan and goth things in the city, and I used to frequent them both. I remember the smell of incense, hanging around with the people in the shops, and coveting the swords I was too young to buy. My partner and I have an extensive armoury between us now. Coveting attained.

I thought wearing all black was all it took to make an outfit Goth, and terribly mismatched clothes not realising that it took more than two items being the same colour to make them co-ordinate. Consequently, I wore floaty skirts with grungy tops and my black shiny wedge boots with everything, and wore cardigans over t-shirts etc. etc. I believed that only prostitutes wore fishnet, so wore opaque black tights for a while, and then when I realised that real prostitutes haven't worn fishnet in decades, finally let myself wear fishnet. I couldn't afford to buy proper clothes, and my customisation skills needed a lot of work, so all I could buy was charity shop clothes, and as I was on a rather strict allowance, this meant my wardrobe took a long time to grow, which was part of why my clothes were so mismatched - I didn't have enough clothes to put together proper all-black outfits and my choices were based on price rather than style.

I didn't know how to do my own makeup and hadn't heard of foundation, so I looked a mess. I'd been brought up by my Dad and his brothers before boarding school, and these were mainstream men that don't have a clue about makeup. I'd had no mother's dressing table to raid, wasn't allowed fashion magazines, and the other girls who did know about makeup, even if it was only mainstream makeup, didn't talk to me.  So I drew swirls on my face in pencil eye-liner. I'm very happy there are no photos of this and that I didn't often have the courage to look like that in public. Looking back, I must have appeared ridiculous. I also couldn't afford to buy proper make-up and wore halloween face-paint up as goth make-up. I really did look like an abomination. I didn't know how to blend properly, that it is important to line lips before colouring them, or how to apply mascara without making a gunky mess. I didn't have independent internet access, and I'm not sure how many goth makeup tutorials you could find on the internet in those days. There probably were a few, but nowhere near as many as there are now. YouTube wasn't even around back then. So yep, I was a makeup disaster.

My jewellery was worn all-at-once. I still wear a ring on each finger, so that hasn't changed, but I used to wear all my pendants at once, and they clashed, hideously. I also wore an actual dog's collar as a choker.   I had pierced ears, and wore big silver hoops constantly, and they'd get caught in my bird-nest of hair. My hair wasn't back-combed, it wasn't even dyed, it was long, brown and got everywhere. I went back to my bohemian braids in the end because my hair was waist-length and very fine and became natty very quickly otherwise, especially when subjected to the English weather.

Being a Goth was even more frowned upon than being a Witch at my school, but that made little difference. As I was already thoroughly bullied and mistreated, it wasn't any worse after my change in wardrobe because it really couldn't get much worse. I just got called "vampire" instead of "crazy cow". Everybody already thought I was a freak, probably because of my strange behaviour due to my insanity at the time, and partly because I have never had anything in common with the mainstream. Fashionable clothes, music and popular culture has always bored me. Also, I was a scholarship girl and skipped a year, those things got me bullied a lot too. Not to mention being scrawny and very tall, and really, really pale by nature.  One more thing for them to pick on me for really didn't change anything.  If anything, I was smug in my anti-fashion and felt a little stronger facing the bullies.

It was probably a wonderful thing for everyone that I stopped being goth, and didn't come back to the subculture until I'd had several years experience of dressing in an alternative manner. The world didn't have to put up with my bad attempts at Goth, and the local members of the Goth subculture didn't have to put up with a mentally unstable babybat, and I don't have any embarrassing photos. Everybody wins.

30 Day Goth Challenge, Day 1

I am going to take part in the 30 Day Goth Challenge. This is 30 questions theoretically to be answered on consecutive days. I can guarantee these won't be up on consecutive days. These are the questions:

Day 1 – How did you come to the subculture? 

Day 2 – Share photos and experiences from your Baby Bat days. 

Day 3 – When did you come out the Goth closet? (If you didn’t then simply discuss the topic) 

Day 4 – Name a stereotype or cliche you can relate to. 

Day 5 – Is there a local Goth band or group in your area? 

Day 6 – Hand write your favourite lyric and take a picture. 

Day 7 – Ten of your favourite goth bands. 

Day 8 – What’s your worst and best experience with non-Goths? 

Day 9 – What genre of music do you dislike? 

Day 10 – What do you hate and love about the subculture? 

Day 11 – Is Goth a lifestyle for you? 

Day 12 – What’s your gothic inspiration? 

Day 13 – What was your first band t-shirt? 

Day 14 – What was your best and worst DIY disaster. 

Day 15 – Your favourite or most expensive item in your wardrobe. 

Day 16 – What’s the most casual you’ve ever dressed? 

Day 17 – Your favourite Goth brand. 

Day 18 – Worst hair experience. 

Day 19 – Share beauty advise and take a photo of your make up. 

Day 20 – If you could dye your hair any colour what would it be? 

Day 21 – What body mod do you have or have you considered? 

Day 22 – If you could attend any Goth event what would it be? 

Day 23 – Your favourite artist or photographer. 

Day 24 – Name the best websites for Goths. 

Day 25 – Did you ever consider leaving the subculture? 

Day 26 – Show a photo for every year (or month if you’re new) that you’ve being into Goth. 

Day 27 – The worst thing you ever did to a newbie. 

Day 28 – Do you consider yourself an eldergoth? 

Day 29 – What do you think will happen to Goth in the future? 

Day 30 – Make a list of blogs you regularly read and link to them. 


I'm not sure who started it, but I want to take part. 


So, for Day 1! How did I come to the subculture... Well, the very first goth I met was a girl called Rose or Rosie who was a few years older than me and at the first secondary school I attended. This secondary school was a state girls-only day school and we had a navy-blue uniform that was pretty conservative for state school uniforms (long skirts, shirts, ties, blazers), and she used to change into black dresses for the journey too and from school, much to the dismay of the staff, wore a "Vote Satan" t-shirt to P.E and had pentagrams drawn on her bag. I was just getting into Wicca at the time, and asked her if she was a Witch, but I was huge "fluffy-bunny" and I think I annoyed her. A fluffy-bunny is the Wiccan equivalent of a mall-goth or babybat, but they come in all ages, and some never realise stuff like that Wicca has only been around since the 1940's and that sparkly wands are just silly. I confess, I had a sparkly wand... Anyway, I thought she was cool, but at the same time I was terrified of her. There were a lot of rumours about her self-harming, that her and her goth friends slit each others wrists and drank blood, that she was on drugs, etc. etc. Now, I realise that it was a bunch of malicious nonsense, and it was probably the fact that she had to put up with that sort of bullying which made her snap when I asked her if she was a Witch too.  I regret having believed the rumours, and regret being afraid of her, as she was probably really nice. 

While not at school I was a bit of a tomboy, and as I had grown upwards unusually quickly and without much sign of  gaining curves, I ended up looking like a male teenage boy that was vaguely into metal and a bit of a geek. I wore baggy, ripped-by-use jeans and those black t-shirts with pictures of "cool stuff" on. My favourite t-shirts were one that said "I don't do mornings" and one that was all black with a space scene on the front. I'd wear chokers and my hair in a ponytail and wore those silver-looking necklaces that come on black cord. My favourite was a moon necklace, but I also ended up with dragons and swords and suchlike pendant designs. I had a girl ask me out when I was 13 because she thought I was actually a boy! I also ended up with big round glasses and a jaw-brace, completing my geekiness. 

It was a couple of years later when I got interested in Goth for myself. I was sent away to a very conservative Christian girls-only boarding school, where I did not fit in, was disliked by many of the staff and felt very isolated. I had a handful of good friends there, including Dawn who gave me that candle-holder, who I am all still friends with, but most of the girls spread rumours about me, didn't want to talk to me, and bitched about me behind my back. There were a lot of nice people there, don't get me wrong, but my  experience was mostly negative, and I will admit that my memories of this period are also patchy and distorted. While I was there, I was suffering from mental health issues relating back to my childhood, and the oppressive atmosphere and lack of support from my peers, who, admittedly I alienated further as I started acting on delusions and slowly falling further and further into insanity, only made matters worse. At this point I was having violent mood-swings, from deranged hyperactivity where I was gabbling nonsense and dancing about in the corridors, to suicidal depression when the hyperactivity and its associated distance from reality wore off and I was back faced with a life that had been rather painful, and only looked to be getting more painful. I started hallucinating and then became quite delusional, really believing myself to be an elf in a human body, and paranoid, partly because when I wasn't at boarding school I was being stalked by a neighbour and partly because I was also genuinely having bad things done to me by people who had realised that if I complained, nobody would believe me. The staff also used this - when it suited them to use it as an excuse, I was insane, the rest of the time, they said I was acting up for attention. I was seeing mental health professionals at this time, and the school ignored their advice. Needless to say, it ended badly.

My usual mode of dress at this time was rather bohemian, floaty, lots of green. This fitted in with the "elf" delusions, but when I was more myself - and I did end up with some extended periods of clarity - I started dabbling with an all black look, babybat Gothic. Part of me was being rebellious, as it was primarily the "preppy" rich and fashionable girls who mocked me for being at school on scholarship, for being socially awkward, for having no interest in popular culture. So I took on a Punk-inspired anti-fashion "I hate the mainstream" look, not one executed particular;y well, but one that was my sign of defiance. I had a pair of black patent wedge boots that I loved to death and did not know how to do my own makeup, and my spiked collar originally belonged to a neighbour's dog. Of course, this was seen as a sign of my instability or wayward nature, and while my Dad didn't mind, the parents of my friends and the school did. I quickly decided I was going to go back to colours. I had enough problems in my life, I did not need more.

I had begun teaching myself to play the piano in secret, after dark, as I could not afford the school piano lessons, and the school had halted my 'cello lessons as music was being considered a distraction. I would sneak in an out of the music department or the piano room below the dormitories of the younger children, still clad in my long white night-dress and pastel purple kimono/dressing gown, and I would play. I taught myself basic pieces, how to play with both hands independent of each other, how to play scales, and would write songs of my misery and madness because that way I could express all the things in my head without fear of being locked up for being mad or judged for being unorthodox. The piano was inanimate, but it was my confessional, my comfort, my link to sanity. Of course, this was thoroughly against school rules, so I learnt how to open windows from the outside, how to sneak around outside of CCTV view, how to hide and escape whenever some member of staff came to see who was playing piano in the early hours of the morning. I convinced several first-years that the school was haunted by a piano playing ghost, and I, all in pale colours, white as a sheet, with long scraggly dark hair and enough synthetics to spark as I ran, made a very good ghost when necessary. This might seem a tangental anecdote, but later on I will explain the huge impact classical music has had on my life as a Goth. 

After my GCSEs I left that school, and switched to another boarding school, but by that point the psychological damage had been done. I had become painfully shy, depressed and highly distrustful, even if my moods were more level and the delusions and hallucinations were gone. I kept to my bohemian look, and got a bit more hippie. 

At this point I met three wonderful people. Two were day pupils at my school, and one was one of their friends. The two day pupils weren't Goths, but one of them had a definite Gothic streak, with her attic bedroom painted purple, the empty bird-cage, the poetry written on on the door, her beautiful velvet skirts and her taste for the macabre, and the one who didn't go to my school definitely was a goth. I thought my goth friend's clothes were amazing, especially her towering Demonia platform boots. It didn't cause a change in my style right then, but it began something. I was given a purple, black and blue velvet lace-up medieval style blouse that suddenly became my favourite piece of clothing, and then a black peasant blouse got worn a lot... then I bought an all-black cheese-cloth ensemble. It had definitely influenced me. I was still predominantly a colourful bohemian, but a darker edge was beginning to emerge.  The dark one of my school pals steered me in the direction of deliciously dark books and horror movies. There was already a dark edge in my art and poetry, and I was working on the second draft of my post-apocalyptic novel (although it was more dark fantasy at the time).

My music of choice at the time was classical. I especially loved music of the Romantic period and 19thC.  Everything from stormy Beethoven to grand Mahler symphonies. The school did a performance of the Mozart Requiem, it wasn't quite Romantic but it was the most exciting concert I've performed in (and that still stands, years on and many concerts later) and that is when I started getting interested in period dress and historical fashion. I loved the passion, I loved the darkness, the power, the storminess. Liszt and Beethoven became my favourite composers. I read up on the Sturm und Drang movement, and felt I was born in the wrong era. I read Faust. I left school before completing all of my A levels because the pressure of school was starting to take its toll on my fragile mental health, and took a year out of studying at school, and became a bit of a recluse at home, but a very studious recluse. I had not previously had the opportunity to learn much in the way of music because of finances and attitudes from staff who saw my passion for music as a distraction from more academic pursuits.  Now I had time to myself, I threw myself into research on the Romantic era and latter movements such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 

I really wished for the money to learn instruments properly. My then step-brother (my Dad's now ex-partner's son) was off at Trinity College of Music in London, and I was in envy of his skill. The cheapest instrument to learn was the recorder, so I started studying that seriously, and I soon grew to love it and respect it as an instrument. I also ended up playing a lot of baroque music. I must say I still love the Romantic period more in terms of music, but I loved the period clothes on the covers of the music. I bought my first lace-cuffed shirt, and oh, how I adored it. The Baroque period was beautifully decadent, but I longed for the passion of Romantic-era music. I ended up learning a few Romantic-era flute pieces on the recorder for my amusement.

My passion for music had become a passion for history, art history and historical fashion. I discovered steampunk, and my daily dress was blend of bohemian, steampunk and historical influences. I had a pocket-watch, a parasol, and wore long velvet skirts, or dressed as a Victorian or earlier gentleman - not historically accurate, just what I thought looked good - but there was always a tendency towards wearing dark colours, and in looking for Victorian things I found a lot of Romantic Goth clothes. My music had diversified, I was listening to Evanescence, Marilyn Manson, Muse, Nightwish, Within Temptation and lots of other rock with a darker edge, including plenty of songs by mainstream bands that were tinged with a certain level of black. One day I went to a friend's house to play computer games (LAN party... I admit it) and they were playing Rammstein. I was in love with this harsh sound that was less growling than metal, with audible lyrics (albeit in German) and I discovered Industrial. I'd gone from orchestras and pianos to electric guitars and synthesisers, and was looking at rock music with the dissecting eyes of a music student. 

I also dyed my hair purple as purple is my favourite colour and has been for a very, very, very long time. I also went to college.

My first application was to do an art course rather than A Levels, but I was advised to get my A Levels and then apply to do my degree in art by the people at the first college, as they said I'd have got bored, and needed the academic side. I was really upset at the time, sick to death of academic pressures (I had been skipped a year at school, and it was always expected of me to be perfect, anything less than 95% on an exam was as bad as failure) and just wanted to be creative. I already had an AS in Art, though, so went to the local community college, and took my A Levels. My mental health had levelled out by this point, and I was lucid and socially aware enough to make friends, and I became friends with lots of Goths and Metalheads. My outfits were a mix of historically inspired, Bohemian, Steampunk and Goth. I studied English Literature, Classical Civilisations, Music, Art and Geography, all of which fed into my Romantic attitude. The more I studied, the more I absorbed. I started writing poetry profusely, composing my own music, and designing my own outfits. I read and read and read, and joined the literature society at college...

I had a mental health relapse as a consequence of being in a very destructive relationship, and ended up back in the pit of despair. I ended up hallucinating and with a fractured personality. Once again I was on the brink, but this time I was aware of it, and sought help, and eventually got the help of a reasonable psychiatrist after having been moved around the system as they couldn't pin a diagnosis on me, and came to the realisation I was not inherently mentally unstable, there was no neurological fault or chemical imbalance; I was an abuse survivor whose wounds had never been given chance to properly heal because instead of getting productive help, I had been pushed from one stressful and negative scenario to the next. I was also older and wiser, and realised that I was not a child needing the support of adults anymore, I was a grown woman who needed to fix her own life. So I did. I sought out my piano in times of emotional distress instead of cutting, I wrote bad poetry, wrote venting letters to my psychiatrists, and finally cut my mother out of my life like I should have has the strength to ten years previously. I faced my inner demons on my own terms and dealt with them.

A lot of my reading and music in this dark time was what could be considered Gothic. I felt solace in knowing I wasn't alone, that other people suffered, that other people went through this sort of agony. I started listening to Emilie Autumn and The Dresden Dolls a lot, and wrote a few angsty songs of my own. I started searching for beauty in the darkness, rather than fleeing. By this point I had suffered terrible abuses, gone mad and nearly died a couple of times - I had lived in the darkness - and I refused to let it dictate my nature in a negative, broken way. I was determined to use it as fuel to grow into a better and stronger person. My then boyfriend wounded me deeply, but in having to deal with him I found a deeper strength in myself. He also helped me pick my first guitar.

While I was in my final year at college (I spent 3 years there in total, as I took on music in my final year) I was definitely completely Goth. I wasn't a babybat aesthetically, definitely a Romantic Goth this time around, and I was also a modern Romantic, full of Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Liszt, and Pre-Raphaelite paintings, going out to seek experience, the awesome power of nature, trying to convey that in my own creative output. I was also into Victorian Gothic Revival art, architecture and design. I spent many hours in books and many hours outdoors being inspired.  Musically, though, I hadn't yet discovered the 1980s. My music tutor changed all that, he made me write an essay on the origins of Goth. In less than a week I'd listened to large chunks of the back catalogue of Siouxsie and The Banshees, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, and on researching the BatCave, Specimen. I learnt about Bowie and about Velvet Underground, I learnt about "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones and about Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain... I ended up writing two more detailed essays pertaining to Goth - one about Siouxsie and the Banshees as a punk band, post-punk band, and how they then kept stylistically changing, and another about multicultural influences in the music of Dead Can Dance (which I rehashed as an answer to a question on multicultural influences on modern music in an exam). With discovering 1980's goth music, I discovered the complete Goth scene, and finally felt like I had found myself in the process.

Years have passed between then and now, and I'm still a Goth, still a Romantic, still with my head in a book or out playing the flute above the creek. I changed, took on a degree in Creative Arts, grew up, moved out, moved country, moved in with my partner... I came to the Goth subculture in stages throughout my adolescence, skirting around the edges, but always being tugged towards it, finally, in writing an essay in my last year of college, I fell into the core, and have absolutely no intentions of ever leaving.