Sam Dylan Finch

Sam Dylan Finch

Bio

  Sam Dylan Finch is a transgender writer and queer activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He currently works as a Feature Writer and Social Media Associate at Everyday Feminism, and manages a magical blog called Let's Queer Things Up!. He can't stop talking about queer politics, body image, mental health, and pop culture. Find him on Twitter and Facebook so you can be best friends forever.

Sam Dylan Finch Articles

Image: Dane Schnittman/The Outlaws Photo Project.

I’m Transgender And I Need Body Positivity Too

This is fancy talk for “holy shit, I cannot make peace with my body today or ever, because this body is telling the world I’m a woman when I’m actually not.”

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I didn’t understand how serious you were until they told me. Now I know that my life will never be the same. Image: Stock.io/Andrew Weber

An Open Letter To My Bipolar Disorder

You were on the back burner — I thought you were Type 2, manageable, no big deal — which goes to show just how deeply I’d slid into denial. But there’s no denial here anymore. Just statistics and medical terms floating around in my brain, reminding me that I can’t afford to forget you, that you’re too “severe” for that.

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I shrugged off the red flags waving in my face, and I did what I could to hide the fact that I wasn’t as stable as everyone thought. Image: Thinkstock.

I Convinced Myself I Wasn't Sick — Until I Wound Up In A Psychiatric Hospital

What could trigger an episode? My life was perfect now. I took my meds (most of the time, anyway). I was a mental health advocate for a living, for crying out loud; I knew what I was doing. Besides, it had been so long since I’d experienced a real episode — I was practically cured. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to hit rock bottom, and really, was it ever THAT bad?

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Every article I find is an opportunity to think more critically about my own craft.

10 Tips That Made Me A Better (And More Productive) Writer

It would’ve been a whole lot easier if the writing fairy had dropped out of the sky and told me what to do, instead of wasting months and months trying to figure it out. So I’m writing this with the hopes that I, your writing fairy, am saving you a hell of a lot of time by giving you this advice upfront. Here are some pretty basic tips that have helped me to improve on my craft.

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Sam Dylan Finch.

Testosterone And Tea With Sam Dylan Finch: Week 1

Have you ever lived somewhere and thought to yourself, “I’m not home yet”? That’s what my body has felt like the last 24 years of my life — a mere point in time; a temporary condition. Looking in the mirror was the equivalent of sleeping in a stranger’s bed. I felt like a visitor in my own body.

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“You will only be happy if you ‘get rid of’ your illness.”

6 Totally Awful Lies That Mental Illness Told Me

I used to think that I would only be happy if I came as close to being “neurotypical” as possible. I thought that I needed to be cured to live a whole, fulfilling life (which is one of the downsides of the medicalization of our struggles, but that’s a story for another day).

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It’s like a care package, only you assemble it for yourself and open it up when you’re having a bad day. Image: Annie Spratt/Unsplash.

3 Mental Health Hacks Everyone Should Know About

Everyone, whether they have a mental illness or not, knows what it’s like to be in total despair and have no idea what to do about it. You’re curled up in bed, you don’t want to move, and you desperately wish you knew how to make things better.

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I'm painfully bored, but I don't have the energy to do anything. Image: Thinkstock.

5 Contradictions That Folks With Mental Illness Know All Too Well

One thing I’ve noticed about mental illness is that it’s a mess of contradictions. It tells us one thing, urges us to do another. We have one desire, but then act totally to the contrary because… reasons.

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