Defining Class Dysphoria ©, by Holly Marie Armishaw

​Class Dysphoria describes the mental state of unease that one experiences when they are unable to easily categorize themselves into a binary or trinary class identity.  
- Holly Marie Armishaw (January 2019)
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"Class Dysphoria™ " (Jan, 2019) 20 x 16" Hand-Gilded Gold Leaf on Watercolor Paper / 20 x 28" Hand-Gilded Gold Leaf on Pastel Paper, © Holly Marie Armishaw

It is my agenda in this article to coin a new term, to create and define a protologism.  If you were to google “Class Dysphoria” (at the point that this article was written) you would not find any exact matches to this term.  What your search would yield, however, are definitions on “dysphoria” and particularly “gender dysphoria”.  So, let us begin there.  Dysphoria is the opposite sensation of euphoria.  Wikipedia defines dysphoria as: “(from Greek: dysphoros - difficult to bear) a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction.  In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation… Common reactions to dysphoria include emotional distress; in some cases, even physical distress.”[1]  

A Google search also produces several results related to gender dysphoria.  Wikipedia defines Gender Dysphoria (GD) as “the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth”.[2].  Transracialism may evoke a similarly strong  state of distress.  However, it is not my contention to go into detail on either the topic of gender dysphoria or racial dysphoria, but rather to allude to them in order to draw parallels that aid in defining class dysphoria, since gender, race and class generally constitute the three main pillars of identity.  

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphoria
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria

In a world that recognizes that gender and sexuality are fluid, and that race and ethnicity can be any number of combinations, it should also be clearly understood that class identity does not fall into neat and tidy packages either.  Class, or to be clearer, socioeconomic class, is fluid.  A trinary system of categorization - lower, middle and upper classes - are not always viable parameters for many people. 

"Infinite Shades of Grey - The Fluidity of Socioeconomic Class" (2019) Holly Marie Armishaw

Class Dysphoria speaks to anyone who finds themselves lost in clearly identifying within a singular binary or trinary class identity.  Examples include:

• those who grew up in a socioeconomic situation that is distinctively different from their present one
• ​those who live on a source of mediated income, such as a trust fund, and constantly feel themselves to be on a financial leash; their peers may perceive them as wealthy, but they lack any true financial autonomy 
• ​those whose financial status changed rapidly and dramatically, perhaps due to a windfall in the stock market, receiving a major inheritance, or winning the lottery; the same can be said for those who experience a sudden loss of economic status
• those who are surrounded by a peer group in which they are either considerably under or over the average socioeconomic status of the group
• people who aspire to rise into a wealthier socioeconomic class and so spend beyond their means in order to create the illusion of wealth, thereby ironically keeping them from ever attaining that status that they appear to be and so desire
• those who live well below their means; it has been said that they middle class live above their means while the wealthy live below their means
• ​those who marry above or below their own class status
• those who attain an educational or other status that exceeds that of their family
• those whose profession attaches a socio-economic status upon them whose income may be disparate from the normative expectation; ex. a doctor must be wealthy; an artist must be poor

There is a famous statement quite frequently misattributed to Queen Victoria: “Beware of artists.  They mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous."  In fact, it was in a garbled letter from her Uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, who in 1845 wrote to his dear niece "To hope to escape censure and calamity is next to impossible, but whatever is considered by the enemy as a fit subject for attack is better modified or avoided.  The dealings with artists, for instance, require great prudence; they are acquainted with all classes of society, and for that very reason dangerous; they are hardly ever satisfied, and when you have too much to do with them, you are sure to have ​des ennuis."

Amidst this epic age of culture clash rigid categorizations of identity, including class, are insufficient and distressing to say the least.  We have not had the right combination of words to express this feeling of unease regarding class definitions, until now.  

- Holly Marie Armishaw  (February 2019)