8-17-11 I'm getting help

So, the other day(Monday) I was feeling really bad(depressed, hopeless, wrong, failing) and I started thinking, like I have at times, that I would rather (stop being, sleep forever, not exist) than feel as bad as I was feeling.  Then I started making plans.  I started to plan how I would get my affairs(money, possessions, cat) in order before killing myself.  This really scared me.

I realized what I was doing and focused on, well, not thinking about killing myself.

I've felt like I would rather die than keep existing before but I've kept this feeling in check.  I know that killing myself is not the answer.  One of the pillars of my personal moral code is to cause as little harm to others as possible.  Killing myself would cause massive harm to those that love, like or even just knew me.  It is not an option I am willing to take.  Except for a brief period of time I was willing.

I went today to the Gulf Bend Center to start getting help.  I have to go back for a diagnostic assessment.  It has been hard to make myself seek help but Monday I realized not getting help was not really an option.

It was hard once I got there to say I needed help.  Even harder was explaining how I've been feeling.  I told the woman I saw about being depressed on and off for about ten years but that it had been getting worse recently.  I had to mention my sister's death which started some water works going.  The woman I talked to asked if there was anything that might have caused my depression.  I wanted to tell her that I'm transgender.  I couldn't say it.  I knew I wanted to be honest but didn't feel like I could trust her.  I knew that I could trust her but I didn't feel it, if that makes any sense.  I had to write it down and show it to her.  She reassured me that she wasn't there to judge me or anything bad.

So recap:  I'm getting help for my depression/anxiety.

7-21-11 Bras, self hate, suicide / I'm feeling better

This week has been one of the best weeks I've had in several months.  I've had some rocky moments but overall I haven't felt really depressed.  I've felt dysphoric about my body though.  A couple of days I've felt... wrong.  I've felt like ripping apart this corpse that I walk around in.  I've felt like a freak.  I'm scared that I will never be who I feel I am.  That everyone will look at me and not see 'me' but this flesh that doesn't meet their expectations of what a woman looks like.

Besides that I really am feeling a lot better than I have since even before my sister died.  I'd like to say that the hormones are leveling out my mood.  It's been three weeks since I restarted hrt.  Part of me really wants this to be the case.  Part of me knows I've had good weeks like this before and they always end.

***

I bought some sports bras online.  I wore one today to work.  I was a little nervous that someone would say something.  After a while I started to relax and mostly forgot about it.  I realized that I'm not wearing it for anyone else but myself so no one has any right to question me about it.  Not that anyone did.  I'm pretty sure that it isn't that hard to notice that I'm wear it but that might just be me knowing what to look for.

To be honest I've needed to wear something to contain my breasts for a while now.  I've put up with a lot of jiggling because I was afraid.  I was afraid of what other people might say.  I was afraid of being who I am because all my life the message I got from society was that being trans* was wrong.  It's weird and freaky and no one wants 'that'.  I bought into this message for twenty odd years and have spent several years trying to deprogram that message from my brain and learn to love myself.

I'm almost there.  It's still in there making me doubt myself and making me want to step backwards.  I am stronger than that.  If I wasn't I wouldn't be here now.  I'd be dead.  Cause that's what that message leads to. Death.  Every dead trans* person is dead because they bought into that message that they are less than.  Less than a man.  Less than a woman.  Less than a person.  How can anyone who believes that keep on living?  They don't.  I've stared into that dark path long and hard.  I still sometimes glance down it.  It promises relief from the unending torment of living.  "Peace," it whispers, "in death."

If there was something after death I might take that path but there isn't.  At least there's no proof that there is. This is my one chance at life.  I'm taking it.  It's taken me too long to grasp this simple idea.  This is the only chance I get to live my life, so why am I not living it the way I want to?

It's easy for me to spout super positive stuff like the last paragraph.  It's harder for me to live it but I'm trying.  I'm trying but it's hard to fight yourself.  I'm taking things one step at a time until I've walked to where I need to be.

This kinda got away from me.  I really just wanted to say I've started wearing sports bras and find them comfortable(no more jiggling) not reflect on my self hate and suicidal thoughts and current feelings of such but there it is.

Tell next time.

Gilly

5-10-11

I'm still here.  I don't know if I really want to be here.

Every morning I make the choice to get up and go to work like a real person.  I don't feel like a real person.  I'm empty.  A shell that looks and moves and sounds like a person.

Hopelessness burns like fire on my soul.
In this moment and the next and the next I am fine.
Only when I let the future in does the emptiness try to consume me.
What am I living for?  What is my purpose?  Why don't I just give up?

I want to stop living.
I want peace in my soul.
I want quiet in my mind.
I want a respite from this endless fight to be.

I'm tired of fighting myself.  I'm tired of everything.
Why can't I just lie down?
Why don't I just end it?
Why do I keep pretending everything is all right when my world is crumbling burning falling drowning bleeding into nothingness?

Because I don't know how to do anything else.
I've told you a thousand times in my head these things.
And a thousand times you've said nothing back.  Not even in my dreams.
How could you when I will never tell you these things?

I'm afraid to die without telling you.
I'm more afraid that once I tell you I won't be afraid to die.

This is not a suicide note.  This is merely a brief snapshot of my state of mind.  I will return with happier or at least less depressing posts.

~Gilly

1-26-11

I feel terrible. My head hurts and I'm hungry and thirsty because I've not eaten or drunk anything for about six hours after eating a small lunch. I'm in the middle of a fairly bad depressive episode. I've been reading the internet for most of those six hours to distract myself. It's a weird habit I have to block out how I bad I feel by immersing myself in readings blogs. It works to a degree but doesn't really make my feel better and some times backs fires when I run into news of bad stuff happening to people.

Earlier I had the urge to get up, walk out the door, and jump in front of a fast moving truck. I'm still here obviously. I say I don't want to kill myself but what if one day the urge is stronger than my rational thoughts.

I wish some times that I could just stop living. I feel empty inside. Like I'm not a real person. Just some kind of construct pretending to be a person. Some times it just hurts so much to exist that I just want it to stop or I want the pain of living to stop. That sounds so childish but its how I feel.

So thats a little peek at what's going inside my head right now. I'll be better tomorrow hopefully.

Gilly

New Years Update

So yeah this is a little late in coming.*shrugs*

New Year's Eve I moved into my new apartment and spent the last night of 2010 there. I woke up in 2011 in my new apartment alone except for my cat. As I said in a previous post this is my first time living alone. Yeah I'm almost thirty and I've never lived alone. So far it's been fine. It's not like I've never been alone before but those times have always been short periods of time that end with me not being alone again. Now I'm facing an unending period of my life alone. Gezz that sounds like I'm sinking into depression but I'm not. The last week has been very much depression free. I think it may be because I'm focused on living alone and dealing with that. I may just be going through a general upswing in mood. Lately I've been distracted by another issue that I won't mention here from posting and writing in general. If you really want to know about it leave a comment and I'll reply.

On the subject of writing. I've been in a bit of a rut. Partly because I haven't been able to talk to my writing partner as much and partly because I let myself slide on writing everyday. I'm going to start working on getting back into practice writing every day no matter what. It's a habit I need to cultivate if I'm going to really be a writer.

On the subject of my transition. It's been about two years since I came out to my sister. That moment is a dividing line in my mind from when I was still questioning whether or not I was transgender and when I really accepted that I am transgender. Since that event I've made a few baby steps toward transition. I've been on HRT on and off during this time. I had one laser hair removal treatment. I came out to a few friends. But in the end I feel like I've almost been spinning my wheels. The last two New Years I've made the same resolution: make some progress on my transition. I'm making a different resolution this year. It's less a resolution and more a goal: Start laser treatments. Last time I started them I had to stop when I quit my job and then the place had shut down when I could afford them. I'm not sure how I'm going to afford them but I will.

Where is this determination coming from? Well you see I had a dream and in this dream I shot myself in the head with a shotgun because something was wrong with my life in the dream. There was more to it but that's the gist of it. I thought about it for a couple of days and realized that it was a warning from my subconscious that I needed to take action in my life or I might end up taking the permanent solution for a temporary problem.

I'm doing other things that don't need to be stated as goals like getting over my fear of shopping for women's clothes or wearing women's shirts around the house and out of it or getting back on HRT.

You know a lot has happened in the past two years. I've grown my hair out, cut and donated it, let it grow out, cut and donated it again that time very short, and now letting it grow out again. I quit one job, start at another and quit it as well, found another job, got promoted, got salaried, got volunteered to run the place for a short while, got a new manager, got fired, got hired back at the place I first quit from. I made friends, good friends. I found a best friend and writing partner. I realized I'm asexual.

This is getting a little rambling so I'm going to end it here. Till next time, which will be soon I think.

Gilly

Drepression/Panic Attack

Saturday something unsettling happened.

I went in early because the regular slicer had been sick and it wasn't clear if he would be there Saturday. Well he didn't show up so I ended up slicing for the day. I was worried about getting back in the swing of slicing but after a couple of hours it felt a little like I had never left. It felt good to be back in the saddle as they say.

After work I went over to Hasting's to use their free wifi. I found an empty chair in their cafe and pulled out my netbook. I had planned on going through my feed reader and getting caught up on everything. It's been a little more than a week and I had over a thousand items to wade through. It took me longer than I thought it would but luckily I had packed my charger in my bag that morning and Hasting's has plugs for you to plug your laptop into. I finished up, unplugged my netbook, put it to sleep, stowed everything and walked out of the cafe.

I considered the time and decided to walk down the street to a different bus stop than the one closest to Hasting's so I could get home sooner at the expense of walking a few blocks. As I was about to cross the street things started to go bad. Watching for traffic to clear I suddenly had the thought, "That suv is going fast enough and all I have to do is step off the curb RIGHT NOW."

I stepped away from the curb, took a deep breath and cleared my mind. I made it across the street and kept walking to the bus stop. I felt puzzled as to why that thought had entered my mind. I hadn't been feeling depressed and nothing upsetting had happened, so why was I feeling the urge to kill myself. As I walked my thoughts shifted to negative feelings. I began to feel like everthing was spiraling out of my control and everything was going wrong with my life. Normal depression thoughts for me. I counter with repeating, "Everything is fine. My life is good." over and over to keep any other thoughts out of my head.

As I walked the feels seemed to strengthen and I had to stop walking a couple of times to calm myself down. I discovered that running my hands through my hair like I was petting a dog helps me to calm down some. When it came time for me to cross the street again I felt overwhelmed by the number of cars that seemed to be barreling out on me. I couldn't force myself to cross when any cars were even in sight. After crossing I once more had to stop to calm myself before crossing one final street to the bus stop. As I stood there waiting for the light to change so I could cross I felt surges of panic every time a car passed by. Finally the light changed and I was able to walk to the safety of the bus shelter.

I had one more monment of panic when I looked for the shelter and didn't see it right away in the dim twilight but it was there and I felt a little relief at seeing my destination. Once in the shelter, which is little more than a bench, three plexiglass walls and a roof, I turned my back on the street and concentrated on relaxing. By the time the bus came I was much more in control but still didn't trust myself to look at traffic. Thanks to years of riding the local buses, I felt safer once in the bus and didn't have anymore spikes of panic the rest of the way home, though I also did not look out the windows at traffic either.

The walk home from the bus stop nearest my home was also fairly uneventful thanks to the low traffic volume on that street though I did still feel depressed and was scared silly by a dog barking in a fenced yard(I am usually not scared of dogs barking). Getting home and into my room helped to drive away some of the fears I was feeling but I still curled up on my bed and hugged my stuffed lemur for about an hour.

I wrote the above Sunday night before I packed up my dirty clothes and took off to my laundry mate. On the way I had a disturbing thought. I was still thinking about Saturday and how upset I felt about feeling the urge to kill myself. Then I realized that the reason it upset me was because I really don't want to kill myself. But what about the day that it doesn't upset me? That will be the day I give in to those urges. That will be the day I kill or try to kill myself. I won't even care that I'm doing it I'll just do it. That really scares me. As one of my characters said, "No one want to kill themselves until they do it."

Dreams and other thoughts

I had a dream a couple of nights ago. I was in a doctor's office, the doctor was telling me about some test he wanted to run, I wasn't really paying attention until he mentioned getting a sample of my eggs. I stopped him and said that wasn't possible. He went on to explain that it was a very important test and it would hardly be any trouble for me at all. I then told him that I didn't have ovaries for him to sample from. He went on saying that ofcouse I did and that they were right here, he gently poked a spot on my abdomen. When he poked me I looked down and saw I the shirt I was wearing was open and I could my body, that is except for being a little thinner and having larger breasts it looked like my body. I looked back at him and very reluctantly said I was born male. He paused, hmmed, said then I didn't need that test then and went on with his explanations.

I've had dreams like this before. Not exactly like this. In these dreams I'm me but not me. I'm me after transition. I love this dreams for the hint of the normal life I could have, the life without this pain of not being me. I hate them because they end and I awake in the nightmare that is my life.

I want to talk about suicide. I have thought about it. Really thought about it. Sometimes while waiting to cross the street I will look at cars and trucks and wonder if this one is going fast enough to end me. I once walked past a steamroller and thought about diving under the roller. When I worked as the slicer at the deli I thought about using it to slice open my arms. I don't think I will ever act on these thoughts. As long as there is someone who cares about me I will not act on these thoughts. I could never hurt someone like that. At least I hope that I will never hurt the people who care about like that. I am depressed but I don't want to die. These thoughts of suicide scare me sometimes.

Ending a bit of a dark note here but please don't worry. This is not a suicide note. I'm not planning on killing myself. It's just been on my mind. The above paragraph is distiled from weeks of thoughts. I'm not emo or going goth. Not that there's anything wrong with that.^_^

Till next time
Gilly