Category: suicide

Saturday Blog 36

I went to the Square and didn’t get stranded. I was so happy the bus came on time to take me home. I did a little bit of writing on my new story that I wrote almost a month and a half ago. It was the first time writing on it since I drafted it. The pen I was using ran out of ink, but I came prepared this time. I had two pens in my pocket, each a different colored ink. I didn’t care as long as I wrote something to this story. When not working on the whole of the story, I have a notepad by my bed that I write my ideas on. I will inject these ideas when I am typing up the whole.

It is fricken cold today, despite being close to 60 degrees. I just wore a T-shirt and it turned out to be a mistake. I should have worn a sweater. I had time to grab it but that would mean walking down the street I hate, going up two flights of stairs and then going down same flights of stairs, up the same street that I hate and wait for the bus. Wasn’t happening so I froze. I don’t know why Starbucks had the damn AC on. Maybe the place has to be kept a cooler temperature for the machines. We had to be kept cold in the lab because the analyzers ran so hot. So even on a cold winter day, the temperature in the lab was cold as well. I don’t ever remember the lab being kept warm, except by the machines. I didn’t care as I was always hot. It was very rare that I was cold due to the temperature of the lab. I wouldn’t wear shorts, but I always wore a T-shirt or short sleeved button down. I miss working in the lab. I wish I could work just a few hours but I know my ankle would act up even before I got to work and then by the end of the shift, I would be in more pain. I no longer have a car so going home by T would suck really bad. But it depends on what shift I would work. Preferably, I would love swing shift, this way I am not there early and I can get out early. But with my LTD, I can’t work at all and I can’t risk losing it in case working doesn’t work out.

It was stressful in the lab because of the high demand of patient samples on any given shift. During the week was the worse because of outpatient samples. They would come in by the truck load. And there was no keeping up until they stopped coming in. It had its moments though. I was a senior person, even though I never got the actual title for it. Even supervisors would come to me with questions on how to handle a difficult specimen. I seen it all, all types of body fluids, tissues, you name it, I probably saw it, except for body parts. That was another department.

My twitter buddy posted some stuff today that really got me angry. Apparently, there is a petition going around the internet wanted to remove the “T” from LGBT. As if being transgendered isn’t hard enough. They got like 1000 signatures. What fucking morons. What is next, removing the “B”? I don’t get it. I didn’t want to even look at the stupid petition because I knew it would upset me. I am already feeling like an outcast in my own skin, let alone to the LGBT community. I had a weird dream last night that I was thrown out of the house and I had to call this 800 number to get to Houston. My cousin lives in Houston and the number links to him. I would go there to live. It was the strangest dream I ever had. I guess yesterday’s blog really sunk into my subconsciousness. I have been meaning to call a transgender hotline, just to talk about being transgender but the hotlines are mostly for crisis and I am not in crisis. I would hate to take time up while someone who is in crisis needs to talk to someone. I wish they had email or something that I could use. It would be helpful to talk to another FTM. My brother in law’s nephew is FTM but he doesn’t like to talk about the specifics about his condition. He has been through so much discrimination and I hate to bring it up because he always seems to stand offish. One of my brother in law’s brother used to be gay, but gave “it” up when he became a Jehovah’s witness. I don’t know how you can give up your sexuality, but then I don’t understand that faith at all. He says he is depressed at times and I wonder if it is because he isn’t who he truly is meant to be. You can have a relationship with God or a higher power and still be gay. I just don’t understand. People do it all the time. I don’t have a relationship with God or a higher power. I guess it’s because of the way I grew up that I don’t believe in it anymore. I had one person tell me when I was at my lowest point that maybe I should seek out “his guidance” all because he prayed for me all the time. I got really mad because I felt like who are you to tell me this or tell me what I should or shouldn’t believe in. It was very upsetting to me.

But getting back to the transgender piece, I often feel so alone. I don’t have many gay or lesbian friends that I am close to. I never belonged in the community even when I went to the Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY). I still felt like I was an outsider even among my peers. We had MTF leader but I never was able to get close enough to her to talk to her about how I felt. I just was a tomboy lesbian to the group. I didn’t know what being TG was until I was in my 30s. It was then that I realized part of the root of my suicidality was that I was the wrong gender. It was killing me and I had no idea. Every time I would get my menses, I would get seriously suicidal until I started bleeding. Then I would be “fine”. It got worse as time went on. I dreaded getting the menses every month and the suicidality just got worse. I split myself in two, the part that had to go on living and working to sustain myself and the other part to end my life because it had become so unbearable. All of this was before I found Shneidman and Jobes. I think if I didn’t find their work, I might not be here today. Ten years ago this month I made a plan to end my life. I went on business as usual until my therapist as what was really going on. I remember laughing at the question because I was so split. I was bored in therapy. I mean what was the point as I was going to kill myself. But she got to me and I made the decision to tell her my plans before I acted on them. I somewhat regret that decision at times. I know I regretted it a year later when I got hit with CES again. I think it was around this time that I was putting two and two together around being transgender and how much it was killing me not being who I was. It was killing me being a female, literally. The only thing that I wanted to do more than anything was to either have a hysterectomy or stop my menses. It took a couple years of trial and error with pills to get to where I am today. Even when I have to have break through bleeding every 4-5 months it doesn’t bother me as much as it did. It does bother me, but I am not suicidal over it.

I know there are FTMs out there. I just got to find them and hopefully they will accept me into their community. Being alone sucks and is so isolating. Even if I just had one person to talk to, that would be good. I hope I find that one person that doesn’t think I am a freak.