The Species That Saved Me

Introduction

Before I begin I want to make several acknowledgements. First, there will be elements from this story that took place in various US states, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, Ohio, and Nevada. I wanted to take a few sentences to acknowledge the original stewards of all of these lands: Podunk, Tunxis, Niantic, Wappinger, Wangunk, Lenape, Quinnipiac, Pequot, Mohegan, Narragansett, Wopanaak, Seneca, Wenco, Erie, Shawnee, Ute, Navaho, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Apache, Coahuilteco, Shoshone, Salish, and Cayuse peoples. Without their initial presence on this land, I may not have been able to appreciate the ecosystems around me. 

Welcome to the world, welcome to the world. Welcome to the motherfucking world! This is the standard greeting my captive animals get upon hatching or birth, and boy the world is an unsavory place for everyone! You're not getting off this plane of existence alive, and basically your mission is to see just how long you can stick it out on this hostile planet. Now, the captive critters you'll read about here have significantly fewer predators, parasites/parasitoids, and diseases to contend with than they would out in nature, but that doesn't mean they're out of the metaphorical woods by any stretch of the imagination. We'll cover captive strain later in this memoir, but let's just say being captive exposes an organism to a unique set of problems (for example, animals that are sufficiently stressed may catch opportunistic infections a wild individual would never be plagued by) that may kill them. Additionally, excess specimens in my care are subject to feeding off to larger organisms in higher trophic levels or culling/composting. My rearing approach is streamlined and things that can't keep up aren't babied. While I won't give things inadequate care, I won't coddle things either. This memoir will introduce you to an evidence-based approach to animal and plant husbandry called "the neurodivergent rearing approach". 

If you're reading this, welcome to the book where I talk about my life experience through other species. This is a memoir about c-PTSD, so tread carefully. I like meeting new species. I don't want to overlook anything, from the mites creeping through my skin to the trees that were in my front yard as a child. But don't worry, you're only going to read about ten. The ten that are talked about here are the ones that stood out to me the most. When I was really little, the species I interacted with were simply humans, my gut/skin microflora, a dog and a cat, lawn grass, and maybe a handful of other common garden plants. But as I grew, so did the number of species I'd interacted with. Some were species I ate. Others were things I captured in the yard. Some I wanted to keep captive, and others I was terrified of. Some that I used in research, and some that make me tick.

E.O. Wilson said that you can't call yourself a biologist unless you can name 100 organisms, but I say you have to have experienced 100 organisms. I use biology as an escape from the heartbreak of being who I am. I'm different from most people on the planet and we all know it. It wasn't until well beyond my formative years that I had someone I felt genuinely connected to. But that's not the point of this book. This book is my experience with non-human species.

This is a story about love and loss. This is a story about excitement. This is a story about happiness. This is a story about mental illness. This is a story about autism. This is a story growing up. This is a story about failure. This is a story about success. This is a story about abuse and assault. This is a story about an eating disorder. This is a story about several dogs. This is a story about healing from complex trauma. This is a story about the rearing room. It's a story about self-harm. It's a story about mistakes, innovation, joy. It's a story about never giving up. It's (a fragment) of the story of how I came to terms with myself. This is the species that saved me.