Quote from: Beth Andrea on March 11, 2013, 10:34:56 PM
You're welcome to come to my place, here in WA.

Anytime.

Thanks Beth I've actually always wanted to visit WA. I may take you up on that offer someday.

You are not weired, you are lucky.

the number that floats around health care givers is "41% of trans people have attempted suicide" WOW that is high!

Quote from: peky on March 13, 2013, 05:42:54 PM
the number that floats around health care givers is "41% of trans people have attempted suicide" WOW that is high!

Anecdote. Last year I was having lunch with four of my transgender friends. Ages between 24 and 55. All 5 of us had experienced suicide attempts before we transitioned. Average # of attempts per person: 3.

Quote from: ashley_thomas on March 11, 2013, 11:52:19 PM
I've never been suicidal, I'm too optimistic for it.  Plenty of pain, despair, depression, shame, guilt and grief but I alway thought the negativity would be temporary and so far I've been right.

We should hang out

I consider you lucky. A few years ago, I decided it was get on hormones or that was the end. Anything beyond that I could face. Things like electrolysis are pretty easy when comparing the alternative, which is always in the back of my head. Now FFS is my new motivation. Without that, I don't see my happiness over the horizon. I'm glad you don't think like some of us do. 

I've gone to some pretty dark places mentally, but I've never seriously contemplated suicide. Hopefully, since I'm finally on the road to transition (on HRT, getting laser done, etc), I'll never have to face that sort of bottomless despair. My heart goes out to every who HAS been to that awful place

I've contemplated suicide. For me it was the just the feeling of hopelessness and regret coming from gender dysphoria. The hopelessness was from thoughts of how I will never pass, how I will never be accepted, how I won't be able to live a "normal" life, how I may never be able to have children, how I was stupid, how I was too manly, how I was too hairy, and the list goes on. The regret of course was from the internalized hate of me not transitioning earlier; I was an idiot and shouldn't have been in denial or I should have went through with it and now it's too late. And rinse and repeat that regret through my adolescence to my early 20's with each time it getting worse and eating at me deeper and deeper than before.

All of this just ate at me for a long time and after a while I never really felt like "I was there". Days kind of just blurred together and I felt like I was just a husk. It hurt extremely to see myself in the mirror and to have people sir me or treat me a certain way. It hurt extremely to see other women and feel like I was a fake. My appetite was nonexistent and just trying to eat gave me nausea. I just wanted it all to end. I just wanted to die. At least there I could get out of the prison I felt I was in.

I'm suicidal a few times a week. Have been for years. Fear of pain, fear of the unknown, and fear of leaving the few people I do care about is what keeps me planted here.

Feel privileged if you've never gone through it. It sucks.

Quote from: ashley_thomas on March 11, 2013, 11:52:19 PM
I've never been suicidal, I'm too optimistic for it.  Plenty of pain, despair, depression, shame, guilt and grief but I alway thought the negativity would be temporary and so far I've been right.

Ashley's reply pretty much sums it up for me too.  Through childhood, Pre transition, etc, I'd ridden a roller coaster of ups and downs and inside outs and upside downs, but always believed things would only get better and work out in the end.  Having been through it all and come out on the other side I can see quite clearly that those feelings were right. 

Maybe I was lucky?  Who knows.  You make your own luck.

I really do feel for everyone that has been so low they thought there was only one way out.  If I ever sunk that low I was going to leave everything behind and go and start fresh in a new place.  Luckily it never came to that.

You aren't weird. I have never been to the point suicide either.

I've always found a way somehow to solve a problem that was depressing me. But I've never had a clinical depression. A depression about things can be much more easily solved than one that is perpetuated by a chemical imbalance in the brain. An optimistic approach to life has always kept me in good stead. I've always believed that no matter how hard the problem, there's always a solution.

Quote from: peky on March 13, 2013, 05:42:54 PM
the number that floats around health care givers is "41% of trans people have attempted suicide" WOW that is high!

I saw this number recently also.

It's kinda tough finding numbers for a "per capita comparison"... As a starting basis, tomthom states that she has never even felt suicidal... I don't know what the statistics for this would be.

Then you get into numbers for attempted suicides (which run from 10-40 attempts for every successful suicide), but you have to attribute a certain number of those attempts as being duplicates and therefore not a sample representative of the population at large...

And then you consider other high-risk groups such as folks with substance-abuse issues; and comparing those numbers to the LGBT community would take a little number-crunching.

I think that one reason why there are reported numbers for some groups (again - such as the LGBT community... and most certainly those transitioning or transitioned) is that they have a therapy requirement which brings them into the survey.

I dunno... but none of this is to say that the rate of suicide, or attempted suicide, is artificially high for this group - it probably isn't, sadly.

I thought all people considered suicide from time to time. Really contemplating and planning it was only 2 times.

I looked at it objectively and every suicide thought was the result of me not being able to accept how I think others will think of me. I have a lack of confidence and I look for approval from others. Knowing this, I can take the feelings of need to die and ask why. I always comes to me not wanting to accept XYZ. I accept xyz and I am still here. I guess the wanting to die is a coping mechnism for me. I really just want the self inflicted pain to stop and I am working on it!

You are lucky to not have self destructive thoughts.

oh I still have self destructive thoughts, they just tend to manifest in procrastination and hubris.

Quote from: Jennygirl on March 14, 2013, 01:45:27 AM
We should hang out

Somehow I missed your first response to the OP, but I was reading this thread from the top and stopped on yours and thought it was fantastic!  We can be happy!

I've been suicidal before, or actually perhaps just self destructing, as I don't really know was it my true intention to die, but it nearly happened by accident several times. I just didn't care if I would die.

Now I feel I'm again approaching that dark place, as a I fear that I will be denied of transitioning, as the doctors want to dig up every old medical paper about me, including also those fifteen year old psych.papers, which states that I probably have a early stage schizophrenia, which hasn't started yet.

I don't know, I should have never hoped to transition, as now if I'm not allowed, it feels like the end of everything.

I am surprised...suicide always seems like an illogical move to me. Because death ends all possible outcomes subjectively as we know it, suicide ensures that you do not get what you want in life. By that, I advocate for avoidance of one's own death at all costs.

If someone has a gun to my head I will ask for a ten second extension before the trigger gets pulled!

Quote from: milktea on April 12, 2013, 04:06:44 AM
I am surprised...suicide always seems like an illogical move to me. Because death ends all possible outcomes subjectively as we know it, suicide ensures that you do not get what you want in life. By that, I advocate for avoidance of one's own death at all costs.

If someone has a gun to my head I will ask for a ten second extension before the trigger gets pulled!

Exactly. Being dead aint gonna make you happy now is it.

Worse I got is apathy. Living as I am right now might not make me happy either but pleasure through hedonism does not necessitate happiness. 

Quote from: Seras on April 12, 2013, 04:22:35 AM
Exactly. Being dead aint gonna make you happy now is it.

No, but it will keep you from being unhappy. The point isn't to be happy. The point is to make the hurting stop.