Elizabeth Devine shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Elizabeth , thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What battle are you avoiding?
In some ways I’m avoiding diving back into the battle for human rights. I know I need to. I’ve been an active activist for decades, but after the election to push trump out of office the first time, I looked and felt like I had been hit by a train. I doorknocked masked.and observing social distancing, did text banking, phone banking, training for running for office and more. While I passionately believe in the full scope of human rights for all, I have been avoiding the battle in front of us all in eliminating fascism from our country because my soul desperately wants art, beauty, creation, and peace. I may have no choice but to run for office. I avoided it in the last election before trump took office again and the office I would have run for was taken by an anti-choice imbecile that ran uncontested.
I don’t want to run for or occupy office. I want to write, to paint, to make music and films, but sometimes you’re born into a generation who has to fight for the right for others to live that sort of peaceful and free life, instead.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Elizabeth Devine, and I’m a second generation poet, a published writer and screenwriter, an indie actor with two decades of experience ranging from the dramatic to the ridiculous. I’ve been a semi professional wrestler, a professional dominatrix, a public menace, a fetish modeling legend, and I’m also a forth generation psychic medium who reads tarot professionally and investigates paranormal activity for fun.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was a kid who loved nature and animals above all things. Then I was an obsessive reader who loved huge libraries and old buildings. I loved dinosaurs and bones and cemeteries. I was a bit of an ugly duckling as a kid, so when I blossomed and bloomed and was suddenly “hot” in my late teens and early twenties, I ended up in the small time modeling industry and was completely out of place. People imposed their versions of me that they wanted to see, and I had to act more shallow or be more quiet to feel like I felt in, but I never did. I had no real concept of boundaries when I was younger, and it took a lot of hard lessons to learn them. I even had to go train as a dominatrix in New York to learn the power of no and of prioritizing my own preferences instead of people pleasing. It was a rough time. To be honest, I’m enjoying getting older so that fewer greedy men hound and slather and beg at and attempt to coerce me. I’ve also found celibacy to be a great friend when the crowd that tried to change me into what they wanted would have hated that word and its threat to their entitlement.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
I’ve almost given up many times. I’ve been homeless a few times in my life, I’ve gone without food, would forget to drink water, have stayed up for days at a time, struggled with mental health issues.and have watched my human rights erode and dwindle into nothing. I’ve spent days, weeks, sometimes months mostly in bed before. I’ve lost everything multiple times in my life. But fundamentally I’m too stubborn to give up. I dream of my books being in libraries so some other neglected or isolated kid can find themselves by losing themselves in my words one day snd providing a tether for someone else to hold on to.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Is the public version of you the real you?
I’m working to align my public self to my true values. I developed DID at some point and there ended up being a few public versions of me. From 18-21 and on and off beyond, my public image was presented by photographers and producers who hired me to present their fantasies to the world. The more I present my real self, the more I shake that up. My fans are often upset with me for it, but I’d rather that then pretend to be someone I’m not. Some of it was all fun and games, but other bits were a direct contridiction to who I am that I look forward to thoroughly correcting.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
People pleasing and putting others first is the first thing to go. I’m still working on that, because I’m an elder daughter with a severely co dependent family. Instead of having a support system, I am the support system. I still need to correct that. I’ve spent my life making others happy, and now I want to be happy (which is part of what makes activism difficult right now, too, even though it’s necessary).
I want to write, do art and music, act, go back to school, travel the world…. but most of all I want to know what it’s like to experience the love for myself from myself that I give to others.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Eadevine.com
- Other: @eadevi.bsky.social
Image Credits
Some photos (beach) by Benjamin Dover.
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