Quote from: King Phoenix on December 20, 2015, 10:36:03 AM
Yeah. I want to be this way. Its so hard though. I know I make posts where I might seem like a "thug," but I'm the softest plush teddy bear ever. 
I am a huge empath and will cry at the most unimportant things. I don't know how I can become invulnerable to this, but to be honest, I think I am slowly getting better at it. Its just gonna take some time.
I agree that the bigger man is the man who shows resilience when in the face of an insult and things of that nature. Almost reminds me of the dude from Road House that Patrick Swayze (R.I.P. Pat
) played as. He remained so calm, cool, collected and composed (as I like to call, The 4 C's of Peace) throughout the entire film. Though I honestly hated this movie, I did like the way the main character was portrayed to an extent.
I know it was just a movie, but I think people can really achieve this level of subtlety. I remember as a kid how a substitute teacher (who was also the counselor) from my elementary school days, had the students do an exercise where two kids would walk side by side down an isle of other kids who were asked to say hurtful, teasing and annoying things to purposely push those kids' buttons who walked down that "Isle of Hell." I didn't understand its purpose then, but as an adult, I do now.
I am going against what I preached. I mean, I told one fellow on here basically the same thing you are telling me, T.K.G.W. I don't know what's causing me to feel so defeated, but I think I better call emergency and ask for admission so I can get dialysis as soon as possible. I'm gonna use your words as a shield against the cruelty of misgendering. Like you said, this is just background noise and should not be allowed to get in my way of getting treatment.
Thanks, man.
Thank you too, Dena. 
No problem.
Nothing wrong with having a soft side (I have one too), but kinda like how you don't want your innards on the outside where they'll constantly be damaged, you want a skin or some kind of barrier to protect you from feeling too much all of the time. I used to have problems with feeling too much, feeling more pain for some of the friends I was trying to help than they were feeling when they were having problems for example, or just carrying the weight of all the screwed up stuff in the world on your shoulders... you don't need to do that. It's not something you should have to carry, and even if you did, just carrying it and feeling it still doesn't help anyone else, much less you. It's not some responsibility that you're bound to. I'm not saying be an unfeeling jerk or be selfish and insensitive or anything - but just to accept that even if we worry about every injustice we hear about... unless we dedicate our lives to fighting it, worrying about it a lot is just pointless. I can't dedicate myself to fighting it because I'm just trying to get by and make a modest living myself, but I will help out others if I can. But feeling too much all of the time was just bad for my mental health.
So dealing with it is a matter of justifying that you don't deserve to feel so bad all the time by these things since it isn't serving a lot of good for you or anyone. I donate to homeless shelters, and Wiki and animal charities and disaster relief and so on if I can afford it, but I still have my own problems and my own life to worry about. And that's fine. Look after #1, because if you don't #1 won't be able to look after anyone, much less himself. You gotta get yourself in shape, body and mind, and then you'll be able to take on the world, as it were. Or start helping out others and sharing in their problems and issues. Make sure
you are ok first, then then you can be the change you wanna see in the world.
With the role models, well we all need those sorts of inspirations; I've had plenty of them from all kind of sources, real life, history, movies, books, people I know, etc. You really can work toward whatever person you want to be - although yours will be a unique take on it and not some copy of an archetype. A person can have many layers, anyway. They might be tough on the outside, softer on the inside, tough sometimes, not so tough others... or a whole bunch of things. You can be whatever you want to be. At the moment I still feel a bit more than I would like to - I sure wish I could flip a switch and shut off the "FEELINGS" department of my brain when it's not something I wanna deal with, but for now I just remember that it's not fair to beat myself up with emotions about things. And if I see something that really disgusts me about humanity - I go find some examples that show people can be just as good as they can be bad. Gotta keep it balanced.
Misgendering can be cruel, especially if its intentionally done, but I think I would just keep offering preferred gender to myself at this point so that it couldn't be used as a weapon against me. If I felt vulnerable about it, I'd keep it close to the chest while I was feeling down or raw. There's also the perspective that misgendering can make us feel bad, but there's a lot worse that could happen to us than that. That's not an ideal thing to say but it's still a perspective that helps, I think.