[feelingsdump] Another hard morning

[Asche]

I woke up again early (3:00 a.m.?  4:00 a.m.?), hurting all over.  (Not physically, exactly.)  I just wanted someone to take me in her arms and hold me and unlock my tears so I could finally cry and hold me until I'd cried all my hurts away.  I couldn't help thinking: if there'd been someone to do that for me 50+ years ago, it would have made a difference.  But there was no one.  No one.  And now, when there might be people who would want to, they can't get through the barrier that has grown thicker and harder with every year, the barrier that is both my protection and my prison.  And neither can I.

I wasn't able to actually cry, but tears did flow (silently) for a while.  As always, I eventually ran out of them, long before any hurts got cried away.

The hope I had less than a month ago seems to be gone.  Now I'm just getting stuff done through sheer force of will, and Will isn't always around.  I feel like I'm not going to make it.  It's like when I walk up the hill from the train station to my apartment and each step is an effort and a large part of me just wants to stop until -- until I don't know what.  But I know just stopping and spending the rest of the day -- or my life -- standing motionless between a busy street and a guard rail overlooking a grassy slope isn't really an option, so I grab myself by the scruff of the neck like some uncooperative dog and haul myself, one step at a time, up the hill to the responsibilities at home.

I tell myself I'll get through this, somehow, because I always have.  But I don't know how.  After all, after every breath is another breath.

Until the last one.

[Cindy]

I woke up again early (3:00 a.m.?  4:00 a.m.?), hurting all over.  (Not physically, exactly.)  I just wanted someone to take me in her arms and hold me and unlock my tears so I could finally cry and hold me until I'd cried all my hurts away.  I couldn't help thinking: if there'd been someone to do that for me 50+ years ago, it would have made a difference.  But there was no one.  No one.  And now, when there might be people who would want to, they can't get through the barrier that has grown thicker and harder with every year, the barrier that is both my protection and my prison.  And neither can I.

I wasn't able to actually cry, but tears did flow (silently) for a while.  As always, I eventually ran out of them, long before any hurts got cried away.

The hope I had less than a month ago seems to be gone.  Now I'm just getting stuff done through sheer force of will, and Will isn't always around.  I feel like I'm not going to make it.  It's like when I walk up the hill from the train station to my apartment and each step is an effort and a large part of me just wants to stop until -- until I don't know what.  But I know just stopping and spending the rest of the day -- or my life -- standing motionless between a busy street and a guard rail overlooking a grassy slope isn't really an option, so I grab myself by the scruff of the neck like some uncooperative dog and haul myself, one step at a time, up the hill to the responsibilities at home.

I tell myself I'll get through this, somehow, because I always have.  But I don't know how.  After all, after every breath is another breath.

Until the last one.

Then lean on me.

I can breathe for two or ten. I have cried and I know the futility.

Hold my hand and give me a hug and we walk together.

There is no reason to be frightened, we can do this!

You can PM me if you want to have a private talk.

Love

Cindy

[Asche]

(I'm at work now, got my Iron Man suit on....)

Thank you, Cindy, for responding, and I appreciate your offer, especially given what you yourself are going through right now.  There are people around me, cis and trans, who are offering me support; the hard part for me is asking for it and accepting that they can't exactly give me what I wish I had.  ("You can't always get what you want....")

I guess more than anything I just want to feel heard.  I'm trying to teach myself that I can tell people what I feel and not get blown off or ridiculed or have my feelings invalidated.  (I'm realizing that the reason I have always distanced myself from my family is that they routinely invalidate my feelings and always have.)

* * * * *

My best guess as to what is going on with me is that the emotional opening up I'm doing, of which my transition is a part, is getting me in touch with a lot of feelings from the past, especially from before I was 15.  I learned to bury my feelings because I don't think I would have survived if I hadn't.  I'm now digging them up, along with all the intolerable feelings I buried since then, and it's a toxic mix of loneliness, self-loathing, sense of worthlessness, and despair.  This is on top of all the fears and emotional turmoil that goes with learning to see myself and present myself differently.

* * * * *

I can't help wondering, though:

Does Iron Man cry?
Does Iron Man despair? 

[Tessa James]

Please know we hear you, we share those feelings too often and we are ready to reach out.  You can and will prevail.

[Soli]

It's like when I walk up the hill from the train station to my apartment and each step is an effort and a large part of me just wants to stop until -- until I don't know what.  But I know just stopping and spending the rest of the day -- or my life -- standing motionless between a busy street and a guard rail overlooking a grassy slope isn't really an option, so I grab myself by the scruff of the neck like some uncooperative dog and haul myself, one step at a time, up the hill to the responsibilities at home.

I tell myself I'll get through this, somehow, because I always have.  But I don't know how.  After all, after every breath is another breath.

Until the last one.

I know what you mean, I felt exactly like that so many times