Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan O’Sullivan.
Hi Morgan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My pronouns are they/them and he/him and I am a transgender, non-binary person. I’m an actor, director and writer as well as an herbalist and a healer, which informs a lot of the work I do.
I moved to New York City at eighteen years old from a very small town in South-Eastern Virginia, which was extremely conservative. I knew I was queer back then, but I was unaware of any queerness beyond sexuality, and that included the words “gay, straight and bi.” So at the time, all I knew was that I was a multi-sexual person. I knew that New York was where I wanted to be, and my dream was to do Shakespeare until the day I died.
I was very lucky in high school to attend a program called The Governor’s School for the Arts, and it gave me a foundation for understanding theater that I still consider some of the best training I’ve had to date. I had a community of young artists who were deeply engaged and had a well-rounded understanding of what it meant to make theater. It took me years to realize that community was something I really needed in New York, and it was just so hard to find. So, I settled a lot, tripped and fell, and buried any part of myself that I could see wasn’t “cool” to these new, older people.
By the time I reached twenty-four, I was hitting a wall. I was going home and binding (chest compression) without realizing what dysphoria was or why I needed to see myself differently in a mirror, but I knew that something wasn’t working. I was struggling deeply with depression, anxiety and substance abuse. By twenty-four, I was already a survivor of five separate instances of sexual assault, and managing my PTSD was taking up every ounce of brain-space.
I’m grateful to say that I got a second chance at life and got sober, which gave me the ability to manage E.M.D.R. Therapy and healing that I otherwise wouldn’t have been ready for. About two years after I got sober, I read a book that included the word “Non-Binary” for the first time. As I explored in therapy what gender meant to me, I was able to uncover that I had no relationship to being Assigned Female at Birth other than the violence that had been enacted upon me under the guise that I was, in my abuser’s minds a girl. As I healed, I found the non-binary little boy who had always been there and who I love very, very much. I had the capacity to *feel* the difference between Euphoria and Dysphoria for the first time as my nervous system cooled with treatment.
Now almost five years sober, my work focuses on gender expansiveness, healing from trauma, and stories about what it means to be recovering and queer. My life’s purpose has become to create safe spaces for authentic storytelling and healing to occur.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have to say, part of my trauma encourages me to say, “I didn’t have it so bad,” here. The truth is, I’ve had a quite a few obstacles and I’ve worked hard to not only overcome them but to admit that they were there and some of them really stumped me for a while. That’s tough to admit for some folks, myself included.
I’d say the biggest obstacle I’ve had in my life has been not knowing how to leave at the first sign of a red flag. As a survivor of sexual violence as well as narcissistic abuse, my coping skills look a lot more like, “I can handle this,” and a lot less like, “I don’t have to handle this.” Especially for queer and trans folks, I think we get an extra layer of “this is the best you’re going to get” and a lot of cultural and interpersonal gaslighting with a cherry on top. I had to make the really tough discovery that when I started saying “no,” to people who previously really thrived off of my inability to set boundaries, my whole life changed. That was really painful at first, but the hardest part was saying no. Once I started realizing I *could* as an artist and as a TGNC person, life got a hell of a lot easier. This proved to be true as an actor, too, despite what I’d been taught by the industry. Interestingly enough, I work more and create more work with artists I genuinely love and respect now, as opposed to when I handed my power over to others.
Living with PTSD, sobriety, navigating the world as a genderqueer person, these are all things that informed this obstacle but ultimately, no greater challenge in my life has existed than learning how to say “no,” and mean it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’d say above all else I’m an actor, and I think what sets me apart is how well I know myself. That feels sort of weird to say because I don’t want to imply that other actors don’t know themselves. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think our culture, especially in the entertainment industry, really glorifies staying stuck in pain and re-traumatizing ourselves for our work. If anything, my work as an actor (and a director and writer) has only improved with healing, in no small part because I have started to love myself; that includes the parts of myself I’m “not supposed to love.” Learning to let go, to love myself, to prioritize my peace, and navigate life on life’s terms has not only clarified what kind of career I want but has made my work as an actor more specific, grounded and it’s deepened the life I bring to my characters. There is no one else doing what I do because I’m the only me, and I’m grateful that this is the thing I have learned to cherish above all else. I think a lot of actors are moving to this sort of thinking, and it’s a really good thing. The industry wants us to think there isn’t room for us, but there is. We just need to start pulling up chairs to the table.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
In terms of networking, I think for a long time I really believed that it was about making sure as many people wanted to work with you as possible. These days I believe it’s a lot more about finding who *I* want to work with and who meshes with me as a person. Networking, at least as an artist, is about finding the people who understand you and who you understand. I would say the most important components of networking are these: know yourself and be true to yourself. If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know who you want to work with. And if you aren’t true to yourself, it doesn’t really matter if you know yourself because you’re betraying your own wellbeing by not listening to what feels good. Follow what feels good and take space, when you can, from that which doesn’t. I think the same goes for finding a mentor. I feel like a broken record at this point, but as hokey as it is… it’s true.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.morganrosullivan.com
- Instagram: @___mx_morgan
- Other: www.redseedfilms.com
Image Credits
Travis Emery Hackett, Ben Wolf Photography
