What is it that makes up keep fighting to become ourselves?

[Julian95]

I just came home from dinner for my father's birthday. I didn't eat anything. Not even the appetizers. Whenever I go out I'm consumed with so much anxiety I just want to crawl under a rock. I deal with depression. I have good days and bad days. Today was a bad day for me. When we sat down at the table a waiter came by and he looked down at me and said, "wow, you can tell she doesn't want to be here. God!" Everybody else at the table laughed. I thought what he said was rude. From personal experience I don't pick on people or say things that might embarrass them or hurt them because I don't know what their going through. But he did have a point. I don't want to be here. And when I say here I don't just mean at the restaurant. I mean 'here' as in alive on this planet. I don't want to be here anymore. I was hurting so bad today I didn't even have an appetite. Today is not unusual. I've suffered from lows like this before. But I wake up the next day and do it all over again. And I don't even know why. I cry so much until I can't cry anymore. One time I cried for hours and it seemed like I couldn't even stop myself even if I wanted to. My parents and my sister was dressed up. I wore a basketball sweatshirt and sweatpants with sneakers. I wanted so bad to wear a suit and tie. My mother was talking about how next year our birthdays would be milestones. My sister will turn 30. My father will turn 60. I will turn 21. Every time I'm able to celebrate a birthday it's a huge achievement. Not one day goes by when I don't think of suicide. So turning a year older is a milestone in and out of itself. I thought about not possibly being alive to celebrate my birthday. Then I thought about why I have to go through the things I go through. The pain I feel every day. I go to sleep knowing what demons I'm going to face when I wake up. I know if that day will be a good day for me (meaning I can somewhat function and put my mask on) or if it will be a bad day (I can't put my mask on and usually people can tell something is wrong with me like the waiter). I feel so bad because I want to be like other 20 year olds who are in college and enjoying their lives. I don't want to have depression. I feel so old and tired. The kind of pain I feel is the type of pain where you don't even know if you can make it through the night without doing something to yourself. I know I'm not alone in how I feel although it feels like it. We go through so much just to be able to be ourselves. What is it that makes us keep fighting? As a person of color who will eventually transition into being a man of color I feel like the world hates me and I have no place in it. As a trans person I really feel like the world hates me and I have no place in it. What is it that makes you keep pushing through the hard times? I want to know. Maybe someday soon I will be able to wear a suit...

[Jera]

What's the alternative?

[jlaframboise]

Look into a blog called "Channeling Erik" I found it incredibly helpful in those times of feeling low. We're all here to do what we have to do man, as annoying as it is to say, it gets easier.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Julian95]

What's the alternative?

The alternative to what?

[Julian95]

Look into a blog called "Channeling Erik" I found it incredibly helpful in those times of feeling low. We're all here to do what we have to do man, as annoying as it is to say, it gets easier.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's funny you said that. I've been a member of the blog for years now.

[Jera]

The alternative to what?

To fighting so very hard, so very always. You mentioned it in your own post, though not in the same words.

What choice do we have?

[Julian95]

To fighting so very hard, so very always. You mentioned it in your own post, though not in the same words.

What choice do we have?

To me there is no other choice. Living a life not authentic is not living at all. Even though I haven't made it to that point where I can transition I imagine that when I do everything will be worth it.

[Jera]

To me there is no other choice. Living a life not authentic is not living at all. Even though I haven't made it to that point where I can transition I imagine that when I do everything will be worth it.

Exactly my point. We both fight for the exact same reasons.

[Arch]

At one point when I was where you are now, my therapist asked me what had kept me going through all the years of desperation and unhappiness. I was startled by his question, and I had no ready answer. I finally said, "Hope?"

I hated the very word then, and I still do now. I mean, I tell people that there IS hope and that they CAN get through the hard times; I've seen living proof in myself and other trans people that we can survive and eventually thrive. But hope seems such a cruel emotion. It keeps stringing people along, year after year, until they are so tired that they want to give in. But hope is what keeps us alive. I wanted to die, but I couldn't. I suppose hope was at least partly the culprit. That, and my insanely strong desire to live. I've never been able to beat it.

However, if I had been in full possession of my faculties on that day, I would have added, "And pure bloody-minded stubbornness."

If he were to ask me the same question today, I might very well reply with all of the above, plus "Control." I don't want to give up control to anything or anybody. Suicide would have meant that "they" had won. Or that life had beaten me down. And yet one of my key coping strategies, a tactic that kept me going day after day, was the knowledge that if things got to be too awful, I could always end it all. Seems paradoxical.

But regardless, I hung on and hung on. I am here now, and I've seen so many others make it, too. In the final analysis, I suppose my survival can be attributed to a combination of things. Nowadays, I'm grateful that I had not one or two things going for me but several. They kept me alive.

[Elis]

My therapist asked me a similar question 'why do you want to transition'. All I could think to say was I've been unhappy all these years being female (21 now) and I hope T will finally make me happy. I have nothing to lose. I had almost 4 yrs of having the kind of depression you have were I wanted to end it. What kept me going was a fear of dying and the fact I didn't want to be buried as a female I never was. Or remembered as that strange person that nobody understood who made no difference. I want to be remembered as somebody who had friends and who was a happy man who made some kind of mark on the world. Also as Arch said it's also stubbornness, I can't let them win.

I only came out to my dad and brother, who I live with, a few months ago bcos I simply couldn't take it anymore. I think all trans people get to that point were fears of what others think outweigh your own mental sanity. I also came out at work this August and had my name changed. Although my family isn't very supportive work is which keeps that hope alive.

I used to hate those trans people who said it does get better. I hated that they got to transition and it seemed so easy for them. But of course it's not easy but life does become easier. I'm starting to believe next year maybe I will be that happy man with friends and a life I want. I just have to keep telling myself I have achieved a lot even though it doesn't feel like it; even if the only achievement of a particular day is being able to face the world. Time has gone by quicker than I could have imagined, it'll do the same for you too.

[captains]

You mean like, as opposed to eating a bullet? Inertia, mostly. It's actually pretty hard to stop living. I do nothing, I wake up the next day. Lazy option for a lazy person. That and, as Arch put it, "pure bloody-minded stubbornness." Now that's a mindset I endorse.

I really empathise with your post, Julian. As a middle eastern trans man, I feel like social refuse sometimes too. It's really freakin' hard -- and that's just that single aspect. Personally, I spend a lot of time feeling like all I wanna do is claw my own skin off. I got a garbage brain and a garbage body, and it sucks, it really does.

For me, it's the intermediate goals that keep me going. That sounds dumb, but I don't mean short term like "next ep of tv" and I don't mean long term like "when I'm 50" so that's the best way I can think to phrase it. For me, it's my school. I want to graduate from this level of my education, so these next few years? That's what I've got. Working towards something is the most important thing in the world to me, and imo, setting up challenges to reach towards is the only way to get through the garbage. I need to have something to keep pushing for. But that's just me.

Do you have mental health support, like a doctor you can talk to about your depression and stuff? Doing anything at all takes so much herculean effort when you're depressed. If you're not on anti-depressants, I might consider that. Take the edge off. I dunno.

It does get better, man. I hate to say it because I know how it sounds, but it does. Working towards your transition gives you that "intermediate goal" focus and with each step, things get easier. You know yourself and you know what an authentic life is for you. That's a lot of hard work you've already done, and I think you deserve a lot of congratulations for that. Now, all you have to do is figure out what's next and start walking towards it. ("All you have to do" makes it sound easy, but of course it's not. It's hard as hell, but obviously, you've got a lot of fight. I mean, you've made it this far, right?)

Take care, dude.

And PS: that waiter was extremely rude.

[Mariah]

Julian, I can remember reading in chat that you were dreading this moment coming in and well despite how things played out you survived. Some people like myself may make this look easy. I'm sorry that we do because it is nowhere near easy. Stubbornness definitely played a big role for me, but also my putting and taking care of my family first played a huge role to me. After my first go around at transition, I backed off because my mind was to focused on everything I couldn't fix and its affects on family were the final nail in that coffin. After I backed off, it gradually ate away at me tell a faithful day in June 2012 when paramedics showed up at my door. I remember speaking to him for a moment or two but that is it. The next thing i remember waking in the hospital a few days later due to a laundry list of issues. I was in such a fight for my life that they had to place me in a medical induced coma in hopes my body could enough to live. By the time I had been admitted to the hospital, 2 organs had already failed and others were not far behind from doing so. How did I recover to the extent I did and live to be able to be able to come out of that coma, I will never know. I still right it off to God and nothing else for me. At that point my focus turned to my kidney's for a brief point, but once they were healthy enough again I turned my focus back to my gender issues. A friend of mine said that I need to see someone to deal with them yet I knew I just couldn't do it at that point. I wasn't ready and then about a month later she died of suicide. A moment that rocked my world like nothing else before. It made me realize I had to do something about my gender issues and not die as a male. My problems seem so small now in comparison to her death and maybe so since I live to see another day. At that point I focused on what I can fix and do and not what I couldn't once step at a time. I had to stand up for myself because no one else would. In retrospect that maybe exactly why I survived to transition successfully this time and that is my standing up for myself because no one else can for me because I had to do that. I had to at least try. Those family milestones are so hard to handle and I have one coming up this summer that in some ways turn my stomach yet I know I will make every attempt to go anyway while being my authentic self without caring a lic of what others may feel or think of my doing it. It sounds cold, I know, but it is my life and not theres. The point is what keeps us fighting and trying for another day differs for all of us, but in the end there is something were living for. It's no doubt that it is hope for a better tomorrow than the today I'm in. I won't say it gets easier because it doesn't but with each mile stone you climb it will. I'm not sure what your situation is, but maybe the next time you have one of those milestones go in a suit anyway and forget about what they think because your opinion is the only one that matters. As long as you have control over things, no one can stop you from doing that. It's your life an not theirs. Good luck and hugs. We are always here for you so please feel free to vent both here and in chat. We understand. Hugs
Mariah

[Peep]

I used to struggle with self harm as a teenager (from 15-19) and i started getting those feelings again and thinking about what would happen if i got caught, and i thought I'd probably have to come out about my dysphoria, and it struck me that i could try coming out to a few people and it might make the trapped feelings that were making me want to hurt myself less. and it did, so far.

I guess the word is hope for me too, mushy as it sounds, but i definitely go into this with hope that things will get better. I was always taught that if something upsets you or makes you sad, you should try to change it.

I also don't feel like i have much to loose - i have only ever made one lasting relationship, no friends, no relationship with my extended family, no job - and staying female wouldn't get me any of those things.

[jlaframboise]

It's funny you said that. I've been a member of the blog for years now.

Dude for real? That. is. awesome. It's helped me find a lot of acceptance for being trans. Also Erik is a great guy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kylo]

For me it is:

a) Death is assured anyway. If death is some kind of release from all this, I have already won because one day I'll be free. I'm just passing time here, in the way I want.

b) Life seems to like giving me a hard time. Fine. I won't give it the satisfaction of seeing me quit. Fighting spirit - whatever you wanna call it - is apparently what keeps me from throwing in the towel.

c) There isn't anything to lose. We come from nothing, we go back to nothing, in my view. Might as well see if I can transition and be happier with the time that's left than do nothing at all about it, or just kill myself. 

d) There is no alternative other than to be what you are. The 'choice' is to live in misery, or act to change it. For me defeat and misery is never an option. I simply can't live that way.