New (Years) Resolutions

It has been a while since I've written, and I left last time on a rather dramatic, worrisome note. In the time since then, I've pulled myself back together. I'm not sure completely, but it seems like the burden I carry for being trans is just a bit too much to bear at times.

Since then, I've had to celebrate the holiday with my biological relatives. I knew this was going to be a struggle when I left to visit them. The first night wasn't bad, but I got wind of plans for a "family get together" the next night. This was different as it was to include my father's surrogate daughter, her husband and newborn son.

I left the apartment early and didn't show up until after things were already going. I tried in vain to find anyone to give me an excuse to not return, I also tried shopping, movies, and driving around my old neighborhoods. I eventually returned, and only then, was it after wasting time at a local pub drinking beer, and debating whether or not to cut myself in the bathroom stalls. When I finally left, I walked outside and a chilling rain was dumping large drops onto my head and face. I looked up and just started laughing and letting it hit me for a bit. I wasn't upset at the rain, I was ecstatic for it as it reminded me of all things Seattle. Cold, wet, rain. It was cloudy, humid, and 80* when I went into the bar. I drove back in an ecstacy of tire spin and hooliganism on empty wet roads.

When I got inside, I said my hellos and gave meaningless hugs. I don't remember many of the nondramatic details. At one point, my father interrupted a conversation between my brother and I, so we could be sure and watch him take pictures of his surrogate grandchild. The impact of this, on my brother and I, is apparently lost on my father. After emotionally abandoning us to her, he still invites her over as if he had done nothing wrong. I appeased the bile and rage I felt and continued my escapism with my brother and his girlfriend. At some point, sentences by cisgender women began "As a woman". At this point, I felt I had to run to the bathroom for fear of hearing how that conversation would turn out. I bargained with myself in said bathroom to only do two more cuts. Exiting, sane again, I rejoined and continued a very shallow consciousness until the night eventually ended.

Christmas day came and went largely unnoticed. Gifts were appreciated, but nothing I could not easily live without. Especially considering they mean so little coming from people I've no real emotional connection to anymore. The entire time I kept hearing the theme of "it isn't about you" echoed by various people. I was forced into taking pictures I didn't want to be a part of, and instead of understanding that I didn't want photo's taken, I was patronized and told I'd eventually want them. I sincerely doubt this. Lack of connection aside, why would I want photos of me at my worst? The whole event shows a huge lack of understanding on their part, and a dismissal of my feelings.

At the end of the day, my brother repeated, again, the "not about you" mantra. What bothers me about this, is the sheer hypocrisy of the statement from him. I have lived these past 7 years completely for my parents. I answered every call, I cut spending when I told to, I came down when they asked, I did favors, I helped out where I could. I took out loans to help pay for my tuition and living expenses. I do everything I can to placate, and make their lives easier. Now, having graduated, and finally free from whoring myself out for their support, I can relax, be myself, and not do anything, I don't want to do. Meanwhile, my brother has done the complete antithesis of this, to the point that my parents either A, don't bother calling him as he never answers, or B, rant to me about how they can't get in contact with him. The nerve, gall, and hypocrisy of him telling me to do anything for the sake of them asking me to, is absurd and complete bullshit.

I've since vowed I will never return to celebrate any holiday out of obligation or guilt. Especially not with them. I want to celebrate with an actual family, one that when I leave I feel sadness, not relief. People I have an actual emotional connection and investment in, not a glorified financial planner and debt collector. The same applies to both sides of my family, I'd almost rather not take their gifts and cut off contact from them, than to have to remain attached to them because of material possessions.

That said, I am back home now, and feeling much more like myself now. Healing up, again, as per the usual.

Ends of the Year

I'm not sure what to do. I find myself having dark thoughts again, except the tricks that got me out last time aren't working. Everywhere I go, and despite who I am around, all I see are cisgender people leading their cisgender lives. Going about partying, talking, drinking, dancing, living life as they want and should do. Meanwhile, this just leads me to feel even more isolated and alone than normal. Exacerbated by the issue that even the GLB friends I have, don't understand what it is like to be trans. It is fine to offer support, but it can be nothing more than hollow coming from people who don't quite understand.

This came to a point at a party last night, that I had to leave. I was able to maintain my guise of strength for only so long, and managed to escape with little attention paid. This speaks volumes of the emotional intelligence and observational skill of some of the people I label as friends. Everything, it seems, just pushes the isolation. By the time I got home one of my neighbors found me sobbing in the car and helped me inside. I don't think I've ever cried as much, or as hard  since I was an a young child. Even balled up in her arms I still felt alone, surrounded by cisgender people who may be friends, but will never be romantic. She stayed with me for a while, taking my knife with her. This nigh crippling melancholy continues still, and if I deviate from escapism for to long it strikes me quickly and painfully like a knife to the heart. It usually forces me into a semi-human like puddle on the floor.

Normally, when people talk about being alone, this is countered by comments of "oh well if I were single I'd date you". I find these comments to be completely untrue, and used as a convenient way out of feeling guilty. The fact is that when telling someone you are trans, makes them completely disavow having any interest in you, makes one feel subhuman, ashamed and unworthy. I find it harder and harder to admit to myself that I'm worthy of being loved. When so many people tell you the counter, or only want to objectify you for your genitals, it becomes second nature to simply assume you're second class.

I thought about simply driving to the coast, but I don't have the time to make it there and back...There are obligations this week, at this moment, the idea of having a large party of people over that are my so called friends horrifies me. Having that loneliness strike me without a place to hide is a terrifying thought.

Now, my fear is that I'll slide back into depression from this hole. What is the point in life if you spend it closed off from other people...I wonder if I'm simply not strong enough to tolerate my existence on my own. In need of a crutch simply to survive is a poor form of life for any being to create.

Frailty

I've been crying a lot more it seems. Well, at least more regularly. I've been reminiscing  about my childhood, watching old cartoons from when I was a kid, and just remembering a lot of things with a new perspective. Just before I tried to go to bed I kept thinking about all the things I'm denied by birth. I'll never know what it is like to grow up female. I'll never experience a girls locker room, I'll never get to gossip with other girls over trivial bullshit. I know it is petty, and that most girls won't say any of these things are really hallmarks of their life, but they shouldn't have been hallmarks in mine as well.

This speaks to the larger, longing to which I've come to succumb to. That of the normal, cisgender female. While, I'm pretty sure just about every trans girl ever to have been has longed for this, I find it is the smaller details and memories that I miss out on that bother me more than the physical aspects of my body these days. Not that my body is particularly appealing to me still, but at least that is progressing. There is no way I can gain those memories and experiences.

I find it strange that during these lows I still get suicidal notions. Being out of my depression it is obviously less of an actuality, but the fantasy is still there. Maybe I should stop watching the wonder years, though I find I get similar themes in other shows from my childhood, things I don't remember feeling when I watched them at the time, but that I know where there...hidden, deep inside. I'm glad I can remember those emotions, but I can't bear them full on. The intensity of them scared me when I first pushed into those emotional memories and I'm hesitant to test how strong those currents run, lest they take me with them.

I'm not sure this is something I can face. There are few things I'm scared to deal with in my life, confronting my father on his emotional neglect, facing the explicit limitations of being trans,  and apparently the depth of how much I've hidden away from myself over the past 12 years of hiding. I knew I was good at faking normality, escapism, but I didn't think I'd actually been so good as to hide it from myself. Sometimes I find it amazing that I'm alive at all.

Obligations

Oh the holidays, what a useless period of time. I'm actually a big fan of what the holidays stand for, but it is another one of those things that I seemingly do without. The holidays are in general a huge source of conflict for me. While I'm grateful that my family relatives accept me for who I am, there is a growing disconnect between them and my life. The more time that passes, the less I feel any connection with them in my life. Aside from their support, and blood relation, I really don't see a binding tie between us. I just get this lingering feeling that they don't understand, and that something is missing. Looking back it seems that the notion of family left around sometime in my teenage years.

Specifically on Thanksgiving, it has become more and more about the food for me, and since it is usually pretty crappy food, I see no real desire to go outside of obligations. This is a notion that I think carries through to the rest of my relatives. People arrive, eat/finish the preparations, wait around for ten minutes, then leave. No one really wants to be there, they simply have to be out of obligations. Which makes me wonder what the point really is aside from keeping up some asinine gesture towards being a normal family, when, we aren't really at all. Everyone keeps secretes from each other, no one says what they mean, or secretly want. All of my relatives keep each other at such a huge distance that, I just can't help but feel isolated from them.

Which brings me to connections, love, really. I think about those that I truely care for, the people who alter my existence by simply being in my life. When I apply this to my relatives, there really is nothing beneficial there outside of financial support. Yes, I know they love me, but lately, I find that this is more because we are relatives, and not simply because we love each other. If they were just another couple, taking in a poor transgirl, I don't think my perspective or feelings would change much. This differs greatly from the people I consider my family, who inspire me to greatness, and make me want to be a better person.

So, the holidays feel more like a hassle, given the process I have to dance around to satisfy both sides of my relatives. It simply has no meaning left for me anymore, between the materialization, bad food, false pretenses and fake emotions, I really see no harmony in the season.

This lies on top of my own issues with family, and the feelings of loneliness that accompanies everything. There isn't anyone among my family that understands my issues, what it is like to be unable to bear children, for example, or dealing with hate groups and systemic discrimination. This all just leads to a feeling of alienation.

Lastly, I get feelings of guilt built up from everyone. From my friends who are envious that I get to spend time with my relatives, or indirectly from other transpeople who don't have families that accept them, or are no longer around. I get pushed from everyone to participate in these holidays because apparently one day they will no longer be around. Yet, for me, they haven't been around, nor will they be around, for me. They are just strangers who share DNA. In exchange for financial support (for the time being) I give them a the time of day, and my presence, for a little while if nothing more.

I feel no greater connection than that, which, as we know, is quite lonely. I think it is more, simply, time to move on with my life. I know, better than most, what a true family is, and what it is not.

Note mentioned in previous post

Also, I just noticed that the post Showers, was post #100. Yay.

Dear Assholes, I'm not sorry that I intimidate you. I'm not sorry that you can't comprehend me, that as a being, I am so beyond your scope of reality, that I might as well have beamed down from the mother ship, and slapped you in the face with my alien cock. I'm not sorry that you are so primitive, that you can barely realize your own motivations and emotions. I'm not sorry you are so primitive that you engage in tribalism and hedonistic behaviors that oh so mimic our common ancestors.

Dear Assholes, I'm not sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. I'm not sorry for simply existing in a world that you can't fathom.

Dear Assholes, I'm not sorry if I spoil your party, and I'm not sorry if I turn you off, ruin your mood, rain on your parade, or piss in your cornflakes.

Dear stupid, redneck, white trash assholes, I'm not sorry if my handshake is a bit firm, I was under the impression that men, manly men, such as yourself, could take a slight palm squeeze from a frail thing such as myself.

Dear inbred hicks, I'm not sorry that I am taller than most other girls, and I'm not sorry if my size 11 heel gets stuck on your throat/balls/hand/foot/ or face.

Dear drunken, sister-fucking, impotent, small minded rednecks, I'm not sorry that I don't play into your games, and I'm not sorry for being myself when invited out by my friends.

Dear right wing, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racists, heterosexists, privileged white males, I'm not sorry that in being so far beyond your comprehension, you don't realize your stupidity when interacting with me. You see, you're really just children, hiding behind your mother's skirt. Maybe once you've grown up a bit, she will let you come out and play with the rest of the grown ups.

Nonhuman

I've needed to write for a while just to ..explain the insanity that was last weekend. I wrote about Friday's events, but had no idea the theme of complete overwhelming insanity was going to continue. So stick around as this one will probably be a bit lengthy.

Saturday.

The importance of Saturday lies in the evening, so I'll skip there but just mention that I woke up that morning feeling like I normally had, like shit. Having this continue through the evening left me restless. At one point I decided to opt out of escapism and simply lay down and ponder things. A while back my therapist had told me that depression is sometimes a coping mechanism for stressful situations. I focused on this and began listing all my issues. The first and foremost was what my plans were for post-graduation. So I then asked myself if I would continue to feel like shit if that was no longer an issue. The answer came back no, and when I realized that, instantly a tremendous weight lifted off me, and the fog that clouds over everything vanished. It was that quick and simple. I started to cry and the simply laughed at myself for a good while. The overall simplicity of knowing what triggers my moods, and being in control of them is a powerful thing. I woke up the next day feeling absolutely amazing.

Now, that isn't to say things are all rainbows and puppies. There is still an isolation and loneliness that chills me. However the chill doesn't penetrate me to the core like it used to a week ago. I still battle with the same feelings I had before, but the direness and hopelessness are gone. I've still no real idea on what I'm going to do, but not having that weight makes things much easier.

Sunday.
As I said earlier, I woke up feeling amazing. Later on that evening, I was dragged out by some friends of mine to go make/eat smores by a campfire just outside my apartment. Unfortunately for me, the group of people out there was not made up of what I would call "humans". When we got to the campfire, the was a period of about thirty minutes before the comments began. They started off innocently enough, comments on my height, naturally. This however quickly degraded into blatant disrespect and insults. In short, one person felt he had a duty or right to unearth my deception, as that was what it inherently was to him, to everyone else. He thought he should be thanked and respected for "telling it how it is", or something to that degree. About the time that this started to really flare up, my friends who asked me out there began to interrupt the offender, and the entire process by which it was happening. This, to me, was probably the sweetest thing i've ever had done for me. However, their appetite had been wet, and they weren't going to drop the issue. We left shortly there after, but not before my friends made the primary offender apologize to me. This was of course, heavily forced, and used as a way to deny my identity by saying "I'm sorry, Man". With the emphasis on man.

The whole ordeal felt very humiliating. I felt very self conscious until I learned that they had been told beforehand of my status. While I was very glad to see people stick up for a trans girl, overall it felt shammed in general. I did defend myself to an extent, though it wasn't quite the loud, in your face, sort of defense it should have been. I ended up crying a little, and writing an interesting note about the ordeal that I will repost here. Writing that made me feel better, and put that negativity out there, instead of within me.

So, that brings you up to speed. I'm feeling rather up these days, as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't quite feel as good as it could. There is very much still an issue with emotional connection that is being unresolved. However, things have gotten much better than they were. In regards to the events on Friday, I think something of that nature might be enjoyable now, if I was a bit less intoxicated, and knew what to expect going in. Given my mental state at the time, it is not surprising how poorly I took it when that emotional connection was denied.

Showers

How do I describe tonights events? Shallow? Insincere? I'm not quire sure suffice to say I was left feeling irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Once they had apparently had their fun with me, I was of no use to them. For anyone looking for advice, if you're feeling a bit..meaningless, do NOT go and plan an event around a bunch of people and sex. The whole event left me feeling more like a tool and an object than anything else. It was not something I think I would do again simply because when I choose to be with someone, I want there to be some sort of connection there. This simply wasn't the case with so many people involved and so many people doing different things.

So for me, who was already feeling meaningless, hollow, without substance, etc. The feelings are only exacerbated. The temptation to cut simply to feel something is pretty high. While it did do the job of getting me out of my head for awhile, it didn't help the rebirth of that mindset when it came back, which it did with a vengeance.

It wasn't a matter of attraction, there were plenty of attractive people, it was simply not I how operate with physical desire. What I crave more than anything else is the emotional connection supplied during intimacy, which wasn't only not provided, but seemingly flat out mocked  during the nights events. The whole night was rife with a casual air and apathetic nature that I wondered why I had even bothered. "Oh, its just some people having sex", Well then, I guess I'll just head back home. Though, at this point, I somewhat wish I had. Though I will add in that the night closed off with someone I've met three times before saying it was nice to meet me. See what I mean about irrelevance?

I somewhat wonder how I'm still alive after all this...Not just after tonight, but just, given everything...it makes me wonder why, and why bother continuing. My friend Lauren said there was light at the end of the tunnel, I look at her life, and wonder...really? Does this sustain you? Because It sure as hell doesn't sustain me. In larger news, to be classified as suicidal, one must have fantasies or idealizations three times a week or more. I think I'm around two or three for the week ( I was never counting). While I don't think it is at the point of motivating me to DO anything about it, the passive thoughts of if X were to happen, I really wouldn't care, are pretty normal for me. 

Now I need to shower and hopefully reclaim something of myself.