SUICIDE

[Lady_J]

I have contemplated suicide and with the exception of being suicidal following the loss of my mother each and every time was directly related to my transsexuality.  I find as I grown older life has had a way of slowing down which is good for me.  When I began hrt I was so suprised to find that what I refer to as my inner life became so much calmer and tranquil.  Yes, I cry sometimes and I still get depressed but the episodes of being depressed are few and far between.  I suppose for me it's a matter of having simply grown tired of living a life which never fit the person I really am.  Being over 50, I'm not going to say to heck with the world and what it thinks but instead embrace the world and learn to love myself.  I was created this way for a reason and being naturally hard headed I am going to make the most of the years I have left. 

Whenever I hear of a trans person dying by their own hand I feel as if I've been punched in the stomach and I feel sorry that there was nothing I could do to help them see that life is worth living.  If any of you ever feel suicidal please, please get help whether it's by calling a friend, a helpline, posting here or contacting me.  I'm no psychologist but I do understand how being different in a society which is moving at a snail's pace toward accepting us or at least tolerating us is. 

We're all worthy of happy, rich and fulfilling lives.  All of us.   

[AbraCadabra]

I think when I was 28 when I came THIS close to make bloody mess of myself and end things. (wrists and razor blade...)
It was the realization that I had no vagina and no boobs and it just got so bad at that point. I'd thought that my "hetereo" relationship to a BI marriage partner was doomed because of that. The word transsexual was not known to me and neither to most any of medical folks in SA.

Nobody could help, or in the least even make me understand what was going on --- still for years later. It was in the 70s and going to a shrink was a declaration of being one serious nut-case. Psychotherapy was just so loaded with shame and failure it's for most not even imaginable today.

Well, so I put my clinical-depression-back-pack back on and trudged on --- and here I was.

Having gone through all this stuff for years and years makes one so appreciative when FINALLY you are allowing yourself to be who you are. There is no greater joy.

Greetings,
Axelle

[Randi]

Yes I have.

[Kim 526]

Been there too. Meds helped me also.

[Cindy]

Yes 'tried' as a teen and young adult.

Since beginning transition no way will i give in.

Cindy

[Cindy]

And I am here for any of you who need or want, or have to talk.

I am Cindy James and I am here for you

Cindy

[Cindy]

I'm also a really bad dancer

[Tamaki]

It was never an option to me until I stated to address my gender issues. Life sucked and I trudged on. Now I know who and what I am and that something can be done about it and the suffering I experience living as a man is unbearable. Thank god I don't own a gun! It's one day at a time, move forward with transition because it brings me happiness and don't stop or turn around because death is right behind me.

[Janet_Girl]

I, too, Have tried several times.  Pills, a car twice and a razor to a wrist.  But I am still here. 

And now I am almost done with transition.  Only SRS is left.

Hang in there, it does get better.

[cynthialee]

I have in the past considered it and have gotten right up to the moment of truth with a gun in my mouth. I never could pull the trigger....

I have made progress in transition and I am a very happy person compared to where I ussed to be at.

If it ever does come to the point where I kill myself I promiss you all that my gender issues will not have been the deciding factor.
It will be the unremiting and constant state of pain and agony I am in that drives me to that point. Gender is not a valid excuse in my world.

[Sigil]

I've thought about it but I'll never act upon it. I'd rather suffer through the worst to the light at the end of tunnel. I chose substance abuse instead, but I should be technically be dead if it weren't for my luck.

[Cen]

I've contemplated it a few times, but it was almost always more of a combination of a lot of bad things going on at once.  The only time it was strictly gender related was in elementary school, where I got the idea into my head that I might be reincarnated into a girl if I killed myself.  Wishing certainly wasn't working.

[xXRebeccaXx]

I know Ive thought about it, and through the process of coming to terms with my gender identity vs social revelation. Ive tasted the barrel of a gun. Let me clarify that it was not because I yearn to be female, but rather the fear and projection of the social ramifications associated with the process of transitioning and coming out.

That being said, we need to clarify just how prevalent this is.
How many of you (MTF and FTM) have contemplated suicide as a result of your gender identity?

I have an antique machete from the civil  war hung on my wall, it shall be used as a decoration, nothing more.

[Vicky]

When you look at the medications on the kitchen counter, and read the number of  "do not use alcohol while taking this medication", take all of them except one at the right doseage, and the one you double because it makes you forget to be careful, and then have a liter of wine, and go on and drink six beers.  Not a quick suicide, but you don't give a darn about running the car off the road, or getting into a head on collision.  No thought about suicide, just you hope its your last sleep time!!  (2.7 years of sobriety because I faced my GID!!) 

A study released back in February put the score at 51% of TG people try suicide at least once. 

[Meshi]

Imo, if you are contemplating suicide, because of constant worrying about "coming out" than perhaps you need to seek a therapist educated with experience dealing with TG..You have to figure out first who you are and which gender you are..If you dont know this than perhaps you are not TG...Alot of ppl ive come in contact with have this problem, because they are in conflict with themselves and worry about what others think..I personally do not care...

[Tammy Hope]

I know Ive thought about it, and through the process of coming to terms with my gender identity vs social revelation. Ive tasted the barrel of a gun. Let me clarify that it was not because I yearn to be female, but rather the fear and projection of the social ramifications associated with the process of transitioning and coming out.

That being said, we need to clarify just how prevalent this is.
How many of you (MTF and FTM) have contemplated suicide as a result of your gender identity?

I spent more days than not thinking about it from the age of 17 or so until well into my 22nd year - with one significant interlude of several months when I thought I'd found a solution.

lately, over the last 6 months or so, I muse about it again but not because of my GI - just more a matter of circumstances...kind of the notion that I've so throughly failed in getting to this point that I'm actually hurting the circumstances of others by my existence.

I've not gotten very close to be sure, but i linger over the thought some days.

[RhinoP]

The only suicidal thoughts I've ever had directly correlate to Gender Identity Disorder, and the trials and tribulations that come from being in an extremely male body that does not represent who I am on the inside to the outside world, which has directly caused unemployment, loss of family and friends, and various health issues. Not once have I thought of suicide outside of my disorder, because quite frankly, I do not make my own mistakes; I have one of the highest IQ's in my entire State, and I've never once been arrested or participated in behavior that destroyed anything in my life. Every negative in my life is an outside force that incorporates the discrimination I received because of My Body vs. My Gender.

Which means, quite frankly, it seems as though many people here have disorders outside the Identity, which can indeed be a confusing palette when one is trying to discover if they're truly of GID or not. The funny thing is I'm somehow the person who gets accused most of not having GID (especially in the eyes of professionals), apparently because I haven't been a "wreckless man" yet. It seems that "destroying one's life during a period of gender-denial" is a requirement for being diagnosed with GID. Strange ol' contradictory world we live in. However, I personally have always been a perfectionist instead, that's sort of "my" tool for dealing with my life.

For instance, I'm literally broke because of the severe discrimination I've faced in my medical life, my business life, and such and forth. I have not made a single life mistake that attributes to my financial situation, my entire life situation has been caused by criminal behavior that has been done against me by multiple doctors, employers, family members, friends, and professionals. I've not made one mistake. And of coarse, my sense of honesty and perfection gives me a quite direct feeling that the entire world is against me (many criminals in my life have gone 100% unpunished), which, unlike a hormonal teenager, my feelings of the world are quite accurate, especially in relation to the extremely discriminatory area that I live in. I live in a different type of area than most young adults and trans live in.

[Vicky]

Are you thinking of "Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey" - the American one published Feb 3 with 6450 respondents? The figure was 41%, but that doesn't include those that succeeded, obviously.

Sorry, finger slipped!!  That one.  Actually one sub group did go way higher than the average though. (Can't find my file on the report.  I actually downloaded it.)

[jamie nicole]

yes i have.  a handful of psych meds and a bottle of vodka.  wasnt related to my gender identity, but was related to being ->-bleeped-<- upon by the man I thought that loved me. 

[inna]

I was there, begging god to take it away, and felt the time had stopped, in my hand white pills fulfilling the end, only one movement of my hand and it is over. But the image of my beautiful child, so perfect, so innocent, so wise and thoughtful kept my hand from reaching. I sat there, tears pouring, still begging for the end but somehow I knew it wasn't mine to take away. Moments have passed, then minutes and hours, exhausted I fell to the bed, and kept on sobbing and repeating, why me, why me, why me.

I am still here.