Two sides of the same coin... or was it three?

[Taka]

you're making a whole lot of sense, jacey.

my daughter's a cute kitten sometimes, but rarely takes it as far as you did. i haven't seen her try to eat like a cat in a long while now.
doesn't matter to me though, i've always treated younger member of my family like cats. which also means i've sometimes talked to them in the wrong language and gotten puzzled looks in return.

i'm a very empathic person. it mostly means that i mirror other people's emotions well enough that family almost makes me go crazy just by being there. i need a whole lot of time without people around me in order to be able to deal with people in a sensible manner. my family unfortunately can't seem to understand that when i withdraw, it's because i'm about to turn all the negativity they send out right back on them. i'm much more comfortable around people who are relaxed and happy.

my empathy can turn off though. it's really weird when it happens and makes me feel kind of lost. a moment ago i knew how to relate to people, and then suddenly, i'll have to rely on memory to know what's the right thing to do. i fear that the state will last whenever it happens, while also longing for it and considering forcing myself into it when my feelings become too much for me. empathy isn't worth much when i haven't learned how to use it to show sympathyand all it does is hurt me with other people's loads of negative feelings.

my own homicidal thoughts are kind of... dark, twisted, weird in all kinds of ways. i have killed people in my dreams, and it was fun. they all had faces, and that may have been a reason for it being so much fun. but those are just dreams. it gets a whole lot weirder when i see some guy i kind of like, and start imagining ways to kill him. i don't think that's very normal. it's either a broken form of love, or a birth defect. i can't tell which it is, i've been like this since early enough that i can't tell where on my timeline of life it is placed, before or after love for parents turned into wishing them dead so i could mourn their loss. feels like a chicken or egg question. but it's mostly connected to sexuality it seems, which is probably the main reason why i avoid dating. the first and last boyfriend was really good at making me want to kill him, and i found the impulse much more difficult to control after i got a child. a girl could be possible though, or at least that type of role in a relationship. i see absolutely bo value in hurting someone weaker than me unless they try to dominate.

maybe tmi, but i hope not.

[Asche]

Drawing and writing stories became my outlet for my anger and frustration, nowadays, sewing is a hobby I enjoy and the hum of the machine calms me more than I ever thought it could.

I don't draw, but I do write stories; lately, I've been doing it obsessively.  I also sew (I need to post some pictures of my latest creations.)

I have been told when I was a child to stop crying because I was embarrassing (my parents) at the time. It was one moment but it stayed with me forever. I have not cried since,...

When and where i grew  up, boys weren't allowed to cry; if you did, everyone made fun of you ("crybaby!").  So I learned not to cry.  Now, I wish I could un-learn that, but I don't know how.  It's like I amputated part of myself.

It's one of the things I hate about being male -- you keep being forced to amputate parts of your self.  If you do it right, you don't mind marching into certain death like the Light Brigade, because you've killed off most of your self already, so it's not much of a loss if the little that is left gets killed, too.

I'm trying to go AWOL from manhood, but I fear it's too late, I'm not sure there's enough me left to go anywhere.

[Asche]

i've been like this since early enough that i can't tell where on my timeline of life it is placed, before or after love for parents turned into wishing them dead so i could mourn their loss.

I can relate to this, only in my case, it wasn't so much wishing them dead as feeling like they were already dead.  My mother especially, sometime between when I was 7 and when I was 15 I started to feel like there wasn't anyone there, just some simple-minded AI program, like the "eliza" program.  I think it made me feel like I didn't exist, because once severe depression wasn't my normal state, I noticed that every time I visited, I would be almost suicidally depressed for weeks.  And when she died, I felt nothing at all.  On some level, for me she'd been dead for decades.

I've noticed that when love or connection turns sour in me, it doesn't turn into anger or wanting to kill someone.  It turns into me wanting to walk away, never to return.  I struggled for years in my marriage, but at some point, it was just dead for me.  "All over but the shouting" is how I expressed it to myself (uncharacteristically verbal.)  The same with people and places -- at some point, it's over, it's dead for me, and I just walk away.

[Taka]

i've read some science that says people only become more like themselves the older they get. which would explain why lying about one's personality or gender identity becomes increasingly more painful with time.
it's difficult to unlearn things that you feel like your life has depended on, but my own experience is that the more fake i peel off, the more of the real me suddenly reveals itself. i've found sides of myself that i never knew existed until i started this excavation.
like a treasure hunt...
i believe you're still hidden in there, asche. i'm hoping to see more of you soon, your personality is a little fuzzy to me, almost like you're making an effort to hide it. that's not necessary to do here, but i understand how difficult it can be to become a person again after having made too much effort to become a robot. isn't that what you become when everything of your own personality is hidden away...?

i hope i'm not offending, i'm just telling my thoughts so you can prove me wrong if you see reason to.

[Satinjoy]

Trigger warning.



Rage is kindled.   The wrath of a fairy father

For yours, for mine.

A child bullied to insanity, me.   Primed for alcohol, doomed from the start.
A stillborn child, buried in secret while the wife lost her mind, only to be revealed years later, and a wife's grief as she was given the opportunity to mourn our son.
A daughter molested, carrying the secret for years, only to be revealed when I told her mine, that I was more than male.
Children and family driven out of their home overnight, a midnight move, into the safety of an attic a hundred miles away, deep in stealth.  Children in grade school, taught that the world is not safe for the interracial, that hate extends to babies.
Driven out again by a preditor of sex, the women losing their minds, two hospitalized, the rest never to be the same.  High school girls learning it is unsafe to be pretty.  Unsafe to be alone.  Unsafe to be alive.  The father runs a thousand miles, hiding them one more time.

The mighty rage of the fairy Satinjoy.  The burning fire of diamond trans, the wrath of a father, nonbinary warrior, the only stability a family knew, other than their God.  They will not lose their Dad.

The beard will stay.

[Satinjoy]

So what was my foolish, self serving tirade about?

We are the strongest people I am aware of.  The integrity is deep, the instinct to protect fierce, the understanding of others astounding.  So as a group we endure together.

I am criticised for making hard choices for family, forcing myself to accept a face I did not want, but that I have so much respect for.

I would not sacrifice a second of my past, for it has shaped the transgendered person I now own.

For my critics, those who or may not feel I don't go full time because I don't have the balls...what would you say to my damaged daughters?

Hard choices.  The rage does nothing for me, it is useless unless it creates the courage to stay alive, to help others, and to light a fire of light that fills a soul and let's them know their inestimable worth in the family of trans.

So be it, darkness shall not be my path.  It is not my way, but I would not dream of criticizing another's darkness.  It can be a blanket, a safe place to heal, and this fairy would fight for you like my own.

Thank you for reminding me why I choose this presentation, when I have spent thousands and years of anguish to buy the body I can no longer resist.

For those who commented on Taka s thread, and for Taka, your courage and your character are beyond words.

How shameful those who snub us are.  How pitiful the ones who bring pain.  They know nothing of what they do, they cannot see the unseen, they are doomed to see only themselves, they will never know the great value we carry, if we only allow ourselves to know this, to know how much we help those around us, lives touching lives, giving others the courage to come out, carry on, and live another day.

The fairy lights a candle in the forest.


Blessings

Satinjoy

[Jessica Merriman]

For my critics, those who or may not feel I don't go full time because I don't have the balls

NO one has ever said this, period. We HAVE shown concern for YOUR mental health. I am not very happy with that statement.

[Satinjoy]

I know that.  I know, when I crashed last time you were spot on, I was in trouble.

Yet, it is how I felt...

Not fighting with you Jessica, not at all.


But, it still is the pressure and subtext I sometimes feel.

I hope you understand.  I appear to be a bit damaged on this point. 

[Jessica Merriman]

I appear to be a bit damaged on this point.

Just saying statements like that will not get you any sympathy or assistance in the future. You might be cautious throwing things like that out there. 

[Satinjoy]

Sorry for the trigger.  Let's let this go now.

[Asche]

Just saying statements like that will not get you any sympathy or assistance in the future.

Can we please not talk to one another this way?

I won't speak for Satinjoy, who I assume is able to speak for hirself, but it's a tone that makes me feel like I have to edit who I am here, lest I get a similar response.  I've already had something here that felt like a dope-slap, which has left me feeling somewhat wary even now.

[Jessica Merriman]

Sorry, I won't express my opinions any more.

[Shantel]

Can we please not talk to one another this way?

I won't speak for Satinjoy, who I assume is able to speak for hirself, but it's a tone that makes me feel like I have to edit who I am here, lest I get a similar response.  I've already had something here that felt like a dope-slap, which has left me feeling somewhat wary even now.

Yeah it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize a pattern.

[JulieBlair]

Trigger warning.



Rage is kindled.   The wrath of a fairy father

For yours, for mine.

A child bullied to insanity, me.   Primed for alcohol, doomed from the start.
A stillborn child, buried in secret while the wife lost her mind, only to be revealed years later, and a wife's grief as she was given the opportunity to mourn our son.
A daughter molested, carrying the secret for years, only to be revealed when I told her mine, that I was more than male.
Children and family driven out of their home overnight, a midnight move, into the safety of an attic a hundred miles away, deep in stealth.  Children in grade school, taught that the world is not safe for the interracial, that hate extends to babies.
Driven out again by a preditor of sex, the women losing their minds, two hospitalized, the rest never to be the same.  High school girls learning it is unsafe to be pretty.  Unsafe to be alone.  Unsafe to be alive.  The father runs a thousand miles, hiding them one more time.

The mighty rage of the fairy Satinjoy.  The burning fire of diamond trans, the wrath of a father, nonbinary warrior, the only stability a family knew, other than their God.  They will not lose their Dad.

The beard will stay.

Satinjoy,
You are magnificent, and I honor and love you.
Julie

[Asche]

i hope i'm not offending, i'm just telling my thoughts so you can prove me wrong if you see reason to.

I'm not easily offended, except by deliberate or callous mistreatment of others.  I do get frightened (spooked) easily, though.

i believe you're still hidden in there, asche. i'm hoping to see more of you soon, your personality is a little fuzzy to me, almost like you're making an effort to hide it. that's not necessary to do here, but i understand how difficult it can be to become a person again after having made too much effort to become a robot. isn't that what you become when everything of your own personality is hidden away...?

I don't think I'm making a conscious effort to hide myself.  But after all these years of trying to be what I think others want me to be, I don't know who the "me" is that I would be/would have been if I'd just let myself be.  I'm not so much a robot as a failed attempt to be some mish-mash of characters from morally uplifting tales.

Unfortunately, I learned at a very early age that who and what I was was just wrong, that the one thing I could count on was that whatever I did or said or thought based on my own judgement or feelings was guarranteed to be wrong and would be taken as (further) evidence of my turpitude.  I was expected to suppress anything and everything that came from inside me and paper it over with stuff that people told me to do, to think, to feel.  My mother was particularly good at impressing this upon me in a loving way, but I got it from just about everyone.  It's really only been since my divorce 10 years ago that I've consciously resolved to be who I am (whoever the h. that is), and if people hate me or even kill me for it, so be it.

[JulieBlair]

I can relate to this, only in my case, it wasn't so much wishing them dead as feeling like they were already dead.  My mother especially, sometime between when I was 7 and when I was 15 I started to feel like there wasn't anyone there, just some simple-minded AI program, like the "eliza" program.  I think it made me feel like I didn't exist, because once severe depression wasn't my normal state, I noticed that every time I visited, I would be almost suicidally depressed for weeks.  And when she died, I felt nothing at all.  On some level, for me she'd been dead for decades.

I've noticed that when love or connection turns sour in me, it doesn't turn into anger or wanting to kill someone.  It turns into me wanting to walk away, never to return.  I struggled for years in my marriage, but at some point, it was just dead for me.  "All over but the shouting" is how I expressed it to myself (uncharacteristically verbal.)  The same with people and places -- at some point, it's over, it's dead for me, and I just walk away.

Hmm, My parents are both dead, my marriage has ended.  But as I walk away, it is to walk forward.  I'm no longer afraid to by real, to be authentic.  When we open our souls we are never wrong. That someone, anyone would tell you so is beyond evil.  You are remarkable and I am grateful to know you.  Asche, you have made the declaration, once I did that the rest was easier.  I am no longer contained, like Satinjoy my heart is available to be broken. 

This afternoon I thought I might be banned from Susan's for a while, seems it won't happen now, but I would rather be banished than to tolerate what I perceive is injustice.  You demonstrate that sort of moxie all the time.  Thank you for your courage.

Julie

[Taka]

i would like to remind people that this is not a thread to go looking for support.
that's not my intention at all, and i think it's no one else's either.
threats of actively withholding support because of someone's honesty about their own feelings, seems absurd to me. i do hope i won't see that again.

another thing to remember about honesty, is that a person's experience of something is real, even if it's the complete opposite of what someone else intended when they caused that experience. we are having a dialogue where we actually throw a whole lot of feelings and possibly wrong fears or assumptions out, even at each other. it makes me happy to get honest feelings in return, they help me correct my thinking about my friends here, clear up misunderstandings before they settle.
it's a good thing to do, but it cannot be done by telling people that they got it wrong, it can only be done by telling your own side of the story.
(thank you shantel, for being so nice about my near-attack on you)

I'm not easily offended, except by deliberate or callous mistreatment of others.  I do get frightened (spooked) easily, though.
I don't think I'm making a conscious effort to hide myself.  But after all these years of trying to be what I think others want me to be, I don't know who the "me" is that I would be/would have been if I'd just let myself be.  I'm not so much a robot as a failed attempt to be some mish-mash of characters from morally uplifting tales.

a robot with too many programmers? maybe that wasn't the right word for what i meant, i hope you still understand it though, because i can't find a different word for this act where you only do what others told you to, and try to not even have your own emotions or opinions about it.
what you describe here, is the fuzziness i feel about you. if the effort were conscious, you'd probably do a much better job of masking the true self, and i'd have a clear, but wrong, picture of who you are. i'm hoping that you'll find more of yourself rather than give up on trying, because the little i have seen of you has been very interesting.

Unfortunately, I learned at a very early age that who and what I was was just wrong, that the one thing I could count on was that whatever I did or said or thought based on my own judgement or feelings was guarranteed to be wrong and would be taken as (further) evidence of my turpitude.  I was expected to suppress anything and everything that came from inside me and paper it over with stuff that people told me to do, to think, to feel.  My mother was particularly good at impressing this upon me in a loving way, but I got it from just about everyone.  It's really only been since my divorce 10 years ago that I've consciously resolved to be who I am (whoever the h. that is), and if people hate me or even kill me for it, so be it.

people have tried their best to mold me too, into something very different from me.
done with loving intentions, it has still damaged me. i grew up trying hard not to be wrong, when what people said was wrong actually was the right me to be.
it has taken me a long time to find something that feels like me and not someone else's expectations.
maybe i'm lucky that i'm still young. i never rebelled in my teenage years, but i've been doing a whole lot of that since i was around 23. that's when i found the first real life friend whom i could talk to about anything at all, and who even supported me in being me. never got all the way to trans, but the rest of me was covered, even the boyishness.

[EchelonHunt]

maybe i'm lucky that i'm still young. i never rebelled in my teenage years, but i've been doing a whole lot of that since i was around 23. that's when i found the first real life friend whom i could talk to about anything at all, and who even supported me in being me. never got all the way to trans, but the rest of me was covered, even the boyishness.

I can relate, having been the "good" child who never rebelled up until I turned 18 and started throwing away the female labels in desperation to  try figuring out who I truly am. I began to rebel in the years to come, to the point I quickly realized alcohol is a very tempting poison that changes me into someone very pitiful - it also made me vulnerable to other's coercion to do acts that I would not consent to in a million years if I were sober.  I did stupid things like mix anti-depressants and alcohol in the attempt to make the pain go away, I ended up having violent seizures and landing in the ER for the night. To protect myself and my mind from further damage, only just three months ago, I decided to quit alcohol entirely. I haven't looked back since, only to reflect on the fact that I may have well been a borderline alcoholic, I just didn't realize it.

Now at 25, I am still figuring out who I am but for the most part, I believe I have most of it figured out. If it changes, it changes. Identity can be fluid, I think?

Throwing this out there: Would identity be considered a different component from one's personality or are they closely linked? That question has always intrigued me.

[Taka]

i never tried to drown myself in alcohol. maybe a couple tries, but it didn't have any effect on anything, other than maybe making things worse. so i stopped trying to do that after very few tries. which means i can enjoy alcohol, responsibly. getting drunk isn't the main point of it at all.
smoking was equally impossible. they say it calms the nerves, and that's kind of true. but not true enough to be worth it at all, except at some rare party.
i won't even try drugs, the one time i got some lighter stuff, i decided i didn't like it at all. nothing gets to mess with my head that way.

identity and personality feel very different, but at the same time so closely linked that it can be really difficult to know which aspect belongs to which.
likes and dislikes seem to belong to personality. i don't hate or love dresses because i am this or that identity. i just like what i like.
how i view and relate to the world and other people seems to have more to do with identity. some parts of identity are chosen consciously, identifying with a group because of something we have in common that is more important than the differences. but it's still decided by a part of me that isn't the same as my personality, i think.
we'd probably end up in a chicken/egg circle trying to define this.

identity can be fluid. or fluidity can be part of identity. it's up the the person to decide which it is for them.
the most important discovery i have made, is that people can change, and that perfectly ok even if it's me.
if i change, i change. there's no point in worrying about that now, right now i have to be the person i am now.
let the future worry about itself.

[Satinjoy]

BBig time trigger warning now

I would rather be banished than to tolerate what I perceive is injustice.  Julie

First, I am livid.  Look out.

JulieBlair if you get your ass out of this forum I wil have a complete and total meltdown of rage.  Tell me where the f..k you are going to find another decades sober nonbinary alcoholic that speaks the exact same language you do.  Your contribution here is beyond description and your contribution to me is essential, and that it exists publically like this is so freaking important that we need to be fully cognizant of just what kind of influence we have in a community with a 70% death rate.  And a 97% disaster rate in AA.

So be smart and don't f-- up.

Now, I have to say this.   Get right off the thread if you have anger or vulnerabiltiy issues, skip to the next post, I am impossibly furious.




It is the height of evil or of folly to use a persons emotional instability or rage to manipulate them.  One of my closest friends is gone because they were manipulated by their own anger to utterly self destruct, and the damage to the section is unspeakable.  I am so ragefully angry about this that it is all I can do to breathe and be.  I am not accusing anyone, but if anyone feels accused, then feel it.  But the manipulation and the vulnerabiltiy was obvious, some may not have intentionally done it, that is easily forgiven,  but some did play the game, and I wont ever forget that.

They are gone, my close friend that stopped me from annihilation,  its over for them, the forum is fu...ked for it because we lost both a sage but more importantly a suicide intercessor.   I am seeing red, if you saw my aura its blood red and shot through with flashes of sparks. 

You screw with someones head for 50 years and some day instead of running away you will come to know a person whos face becomes contorted with flaming rage and is unrecognizable from the moment before they triggered.  Beat them, r--pe them, mess with their minds, and then wonder why the f--k they  lash out when someone touches that spot again.  Well gee, what a big whipping surprize.

So we tell stories of survival and of building self esteem to get through the flipping day, so we can build enough of our shattered minds back up to go out and dare the world.

Pity?  Help? Oh poor me, oh feel sorry for me?  Screw it.  I dont want it, I want my warrior side, I want the notmale protection in me to stand guard and take the necessary actions to protect the brutally mindraped Satinjoy from further abuse.

Wrath?   This is wrath.

And stripping away the layers to find the self aint easy, but my dear Asche you are going to do it, and with that PTSD hypervigilance that I also share,  you still can do it.  And this section is a good place to start.

I was a bloody runner all my life, you see that, we confronted the one we did know, the predator, and had no police support, we confronted that one until by godd....mn poor little kids wound up in a feaking ward, one high up in a tree ready to jump and we got there first, the other cutting her wrists..... the wife screaming on the bathroom for because we chose to face our demon instead of running away, and now we have to forgive that son of a bitch and we actually did it?

I will not run from my home again, and like it or not, this forum is home.  And I am beyond livid that the one who continues to hold my mind together is gone from here, and if they read this, itll take weeks or months to get them calmed down again through the love of the fairy.  They hold me together, I hold them together. 

You think its easy to have a womans body and face you wanted all your life and have some son of a bitch take indellible marker and draw a ->-bleeped-<-..g beard on you that can never be washed off until your loved ones die?  Or wash it and leave them to face the ->-bleeped-<-s of this world undefended?  Do you have any ->-bleeped-<-ing idea how it feels to have full hormonal transition and accute body gender dysphoria and be forced to have half your face remain male?

And heres the thing, and this is for Asche, when you have had to do all this crap to cope, you don't even know what is you and what isnt.  I get this, my dysphoria clouds, the family needs cloud, the half century of abuse clouds, how do you break through all that to find the authentic core of your gender?

The mirror of truth.

Son of a bitch the fairy got loose again. 

Do not use a persons vulnerabilities to control them or attack them or manipulate them, it is evil.  Think first, then speak.

As to Jessica, understand this, I do not in any way think  that was her intent. Understand that, I wont tolerate an attack on her  by anyone here for stepping on the landmine of the volatility of Satinjoy's out of control female emotions.   But unfortunately for everyone now, the pin fell out of the satinjoy grenade, and it blew sky high.

I cant even see straight, I am so pissed.  At the past, at me for posting this, at being a ->-bleeped-<-..g emotional liability to the forum.  I know exacty what beam is high enough, how much rope, where to step off..... what tree is big enough, road long enough, car fast enough.

Thoughts never to be acted upon, but why the f...k do I have those places picked out and am aware of them.

Son of a bi---tch.