Category: transgender

fricken frustrated about things

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, transgender

Fricken frustrated about things

I know I kind of did a lot today. My pain levels were up and I took meds to bring them down. Then I got up to get something and when I went back into bed, my pain shot up again. Now I am having nerve pain. I am so damn sick of being in pain all the damn time.

I was writing to a friend today about how things have been for me the past few months since the cops showed up at my house and how my blogs have basically not been the same. My writing has changed to not be so suicidal and to be honest about my true dark feelings. That I keep for my journal. I have to write and blogging was an outlet for me but some jerk ruined the experience for me. I still don’t know who that person was or how they found out where I lived.

I am just so frustrated by being depressed all the time and not getting relief from it and then add in chronic pain and it’s a recipe for disaster. Yet some how I am still here despite not wanting to be. I must have thought a half a million times tonight alone that I should just end my life. But I can’t do that to my psych. We are coming up to almost 25 years of working together.

The friend that I mentioned earlier wanted me to enter a writing contest for the organization I once belonged to. I told her that I did but didn’t win the first year they had the award. I had written about my experience of being suicidal because of being transgender. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I came to the realization that at least 85% of my suicidality was because I was in the wrong body. It took me another year or two to put together that having menses really fucked with me and caused instantaneous suicidal impulses. Once my menses stopped, I no longer have that great suicidal urge once a month. It sucks that I have to take female hormones to stop my menses but it is what it is, for right now.

The only thing stopping me from becoming a man is my mother. She will not understand it at all and the rejection would kill me. I would die as her daughter rather than her son. I do hope to change my name legally sometime this year. It’s something I wanted to do last year but something came up and I was not able to go ahead with it. It also is a lot of money that I need to save up for. I am hoping that one of my paychecks once I get caught up on bills I will be able to go to the court and file the paperwork needed to do it. This is something I have been dreaming about for years. I have always, always, hated my birth name. Course there have been different names that I have wanted. Alex and Mike have been the few names that I thought I wanted but I got used to people calling me G or GC so decided to stick with those lines. I still have not decided, fully, which of those initials to go with. It’s hard.

TG Issues 7: Name Change

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide, transgender

TG Issues 7: Name Change

I have been struggling with my identity for the past two months because I had to play “daughter” while my father was sick and dying. Now that he is gone, I am still struggling because I keep receiving mail addressed to my birth name as well as on Facebook. Despite me kindly telling my close friends that I no longer want to be called my birth name, people forget and so call me what they always call me. They don’t know that it is hurtful. Even today while I was at my psychiatrist’s office it was apparent she didn’t know what to call me. She thought I was still changing my name to Alex when I made the decision to be called GC or G two years ago. I have never signed an email to her with that name so I am not sure where she got it from. I did go by Alex for a while when I was playing around with names. In my memoir, I think I said my name is Mike. I thought about Mike for a long time because it’s something that I always liked to be called. But I am so used to people calling me G that I think Mike would be a bigger transition. I do go by Mike on this blog. I might use it as my middle name as I don’t have one.

A fellow blogger wrote about her identity issues and that got me thinking of my own. For some reason, today my breasts feel so heavy and disproportionate to my body it’s not funny. They just seem bigger than they normally are and it’s driving me crazy because I just want them removed. And that is where the self-loathing comes in. I hate who I am. I hate having to play a female and now that my father is gone, I know I don’t have to but yet I still do because I haven’t made steps to be a male. I am kind of scared of going that step. I know that if I don’t, I will just kill myself, eventually. It’s bad enough that I am dying every day pretending to be someone I am not. I am not an uncle to my kids or a brother to my sisters. I am not even a son to my mother. Course she doesn’t know and I don’t think I am going to tell her. I have thought about it a thousand times but she thinks one way and I know she will think that someone is “influencing” me to be male. Just like they were influencing me to be homosexual. I love women. I have no idea how I am to have a relationship with one once I transition but hopefully it will work out. And if it doesn’t, I am fine being single.

I just feel really out of sorts right now. While I was in the hospital, there was confusion over my sex because one institution had me as a female and the psych hospital had me as a male since my last admission. It was so stupid and then the admitting psychiatrist asked me if I could be a female just for one night. Why not, I have been acting it all my life. Just shrink my heart a little more than it already is shrunk. Eventually I will have nothing left and hopefully I will die a heartless human being that is a female. It kills me to play a female part because I am not “out”. Like tomorrow when I am out with friends and with my friend’s kids. I will be called “aunty” because that is what I have always been called. I will be called my birth name because that is what is what they know by. It’s like I have to hide myself every time I am with someone that doesn’t know I am a male.

I am really confused by my identity issues. I know I am a male. I feel male in every aspect of my life. I wear male clothing year round except for that time of year when I have break through bleeding due to my biological cycle. I no longer have control over that but it doesn’t make me pure suicidal when it happens like it used to. I know that I have to have menses at least once a year or there will be problems. I just wish the problem, the uterus, can be taken out as it’s useless to me. I hear there are now transplants of uteruses. They can take mine for free if they want it that bad. It’s hasn’t been used at all for female things so I am sure it is viable! And if it’s not, just toss it in the pathological fireplace. I do not need it. I never wanted kids and still do not want kids. Men do not have kids.

Then I think this is all in my head and that I need conversion therapy or something but my therapist always reassures me that what I feel is what I feel. She gets me and calls me a guy, her buddy. We don’t hang out or anything (that would be too weird and awkward), but she accepts me. I just have a hard time accepting me sometimes. I hate myself because I am not who my mind thinks I am. And it hurts something awful. It hurts so much that I want to kill myself at times. I never put two and two together until I realized my menses were a huge part of the suicidal urges. Yea, PMDD had nothing on my suicidality. I had come so close to killing myself just before I would start bleeding it’s really a miracle I am still alive. The intensity of being suicidal was immense. And it was because I felt and feel like a man yet I was bleeding like a woman. How fucking confusing is that? Even when I got my menses so many years ago, I felt hatred because everyone was calling me a woman and I was like I am still a boy. It hurt so much and I am not talking about the physical aspects of the menstrual cycle. I wanted to die since I was eight years old. By the time I got my menses, that intensity increase triple fold. I so wanted a penis like my friend Tony. He is the male friend that I grew up with. I had hid myself and played the part of female for so long. Now it’s time to be a male and I am not sure how to come out. I am disgusted with myself. I hate my breasts. I hate myself period. I hate that I have to take meds to stop my menses but if I don’t it just kills me or will kill me.

The first thing that I am going to do is change my name. after that, I think I will be more comfortable going to the LGBT center to get testosterone treatments to become a male. I need to or I might as well join my father in hell or where ever you go when you die.

Saturday Blog 36

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide, transgender

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.

Random 504

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, transgender

My psychiatrist cancelled our appointment for this afternoon. I get to see her early Monday morning instead. This turned out ok except I didn’t go to Starbucks like I planned to. I woke up early enough but the dang tireds got me and I couldn’t leave my bed. I kept waking up every hour saying “ok, just a few more minutes”, but those minutes turned into hours. I had an errand to do with my mother and finally was able to get up around 1245 to go with her.

I figured I would take the later bus but the clothes I was wearing were making me really hot (sweatpants) on this very warm day. I still have time to go catch the bus but I think I will go tomorrow or try to. My luck for going to the Square on a Saturday haven’t been too good. But I now know a way around it should I get stranded.

One of my twitter buddies was talking about suicide and how people blame the patient for not getting well in therapy. It triggered me big time as well as pissed me off. So I did a little ranting about it as it really provoked my thoughts on the matter. I normally turn these rants into a blog because there were quite a few good thoughts on the matter. But I am too lazy to collect them. No one responded to my tweets, not even my friend. Oh well. I guess I don’t write very well. But then I don’t have many followers.

This morning when my psych emailed me to change our appointment, I was very surprised she used my birth name. I have always signed my name as the one I plan on changing it to for the past year now. It was kind of shocking. I thought she was ok with my transgender status. Now I am going to have to confront her on it. I am really nervous because it will be like confronting my mother. We never really discussed names. I always call her doc. I never call her by her first name. I don’t know if, because we have known each other for so long, she is having trouble calling me the name that I chose or that because I never brought it up before, she just doesn’t know. Calling me by my birth name really bothers me because I hate the name with a passion. I have been meaning to bring it up to her because this isn’t the first time she has used my birth name since coming out as TG. I know there have been a few name changes since I first came out. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to change my name to. But now I have firmly decided on GC or G. The thing that sucks is that I can’t discuss this with my therapist until Tuesday and my appointment with my pdoc is on Monday. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like writing her an email because I am better at writing than face to face confrontation. If it goes wrong, I know I am going to feel suicidal.