Category: transgender

Transitioning isn’t easy

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

Transitioning isn’t easy

I just wrote to my support group that I will be changing my name. I feel comfortable in this group and hope that once my book is published, I can be the name I picked out. I have decided that this is the year that I am going to move forward with my transition. I am going to try and do it, weighing my options to what I feel comfortable with and hopefully the depression that I feel around it will be lifted. I have always felt like a “he” more than a “she” most of my life. I have tried to emulate a masculine persona and I think I have succeeded in doing that. The only thing that has prevented this from happening is the things on my chest. They are useless to me. I will never use them as they were intended to be used as I will never bear a child. I have a useless reproductive system that refuses to be stopped. I am hoping that it has stopped, that Dec 29th was my last day of having my menses for a while. I have to be more vigilant about my meds so I don’t run out. Funny how I am lax with certain meds and more mindful, so to speak, about others. I still can’t believe that missing one pill messed me up so badly. Bleeding for two weeks sucked the life right out of me. I was never more depressed than I was during those two weeks, and added to the spotting that I had prior to that, it makes for four weeks almost. Hopefully, I don’t have to buy stock at Always.

I don’t know if I am going to tell my family this year. Maybe as I get closer to changing my name officially I will. But I still am four months away from that. I have to look into it as I am not sure how it is done or if I will have to pay to change my name. Then the hassle of changing everything to my new name will start. Maybe then I can feel more confident in myself.

I just realized that I spent the majority of the day in my room. I have played my mundane game most of the day. I had a late lunch and that was the only time I left my room, and to watch college football for about an hour or so. Today is a holiday and I just didn’t feel like venturing out. I could have. I had my sister’s car I could have borrowed but decided not to. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow all day. I just hope that my therapist’s town doesn’t cancel school. I really want to keep our appointment for tomorrow. It will really suck not to talk to her because then it will be a full two weeks that I have not had therapy. It will be the longest stretch since my having surgery in 2001. Granted that was more like four weeks but still, I have stuff I want to talk about with her. Mostly dealing with this idea of transitioning more.

I am also going to try and set a weight goal for the new year. I hope to be less than what I am now come this time next year. I know it will be a herculean effort as I love sweets and buy them all the time. My new favorite is Edimann’s Donuts. Now I have to stay away from Stop and Shop, or at least the Edimann’s display, which isn’t easy to do because it is right where the yogurt and frozen foods are. But any donut is my weakness. I am surrounded by Dunkin Donuts. There are at least 4 within a mile radius of my house. And of course, Starbucks has them too. Luckily, the last few times I have been there they have been out of my favorite donut. So not eating a donut in 2014 is going to be difficult! I have to eat better, I know that. I am going to try and stick with the cereal diet but lately an hour after eating, I am starving. Losing weight just seems like a losing battle. It’s much easier to gain than to lose. I wish I could exercise but any walking activity is going to flare up my ankle. And no, I don’t do swimming of any sort. I just have to cut the calories and stick with that without starving myself.

Another goal that is more pressing is to see a dentist. I haven’t been to one in over two years. Mostly, it has been my fear that has keeping me from going. I hate the scraping sound and feel of my teeth. I know that if I go regularly, it won’t be so bad. But something always happens when I go for my next appointment. Last time it was because I was in the hospital. I canceled the appointment and never made a new one. But I really need to see one because I am getting really paranoid that I have a cavity. And I am not sure I am still going to have dental insurance throughout the year. I think my benefits are going to stop sometime in April, least for my private insurance. Then I will have to go on the state’s insurance plan, which I have no idea if they will offer dental. All the more reason to make an appointment now rather than later.

can’t sleep

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, transgender, writing

been trying to get to sleep for the past two hours and have not been successful. My mind keeps thinking about things, mostly about how I have not been thinking of suicide the past few days and it just seems odd. How can I go from thinking about suicide every day to not thinking about it at all? Weird. I also have been in pain the past hour or so. I just took something for it.

I am feeling like I should be doing something. But it’s one thirty in the morning. I thought I would write as it just seems like that always brings my thoughts down and makes them go away enough that I can actually sleep. But my I just realized all I had to eat today was some eggs with ham and a few doughnuts. That was quite a while ago. I didn’t have supper. I wanted to order out but I took a nap instead, which is probably why I can’t go back to sleep. I keep looking, well actually scrolling, through Facebook on my phone and going on twitter but nothing new is happening.

I really feel like I should be dead or something. This living thing is hard to really think about. I don’t know what my life is going to be like now. I still have thoughts of buying a cemetery plot and a casket. I really want to buy a casket. I know that is really morbid but it is how I feel. So I might not be suicidal but I still think about death and dying. It is not the same as wanting to kill myself because I am not planning my death. I am just wondering what it would be like if I were dead. I wonder if people will think about me in the same way. I know my mother would be heartbroken. I could careless what my father feels. I don’t know how my sisters will feel.

I have been thinking about reading something. But writing is much more fun. I have been trying to get into the new book called “far from the tree” by Andrew Solomon but it stirs up too many feelings. I am having a hard time reading it so you know it is a good book. It talks about homosexuality and disability. Both of which I am. I didn’t choose to be gay, I just am. I like women. But seeing as I am a transgender, I guess that would make me straight. I don’t know if I ever will be the man I am meant to be. It seems like it is too difficult to try and do. I hate being called “her” or “she”. Some parts of me just feels like I have to accept it. But it hurts when I try and settle for the wrong gender pronouns. I am sure my father wouldn’t like to be called a her. I had some stubble growing again on my chin. He said I should shave. The stubble was irritating me anyways so I did. I then felt bad. I don’t know why I did it. I knew I would feel bad afterwards. But at least I know that it will grow back.

When I was working, I always shaved it off. I liked the idea of shaving every day. I wouldn’t touch my mustache but I would shave my goatee. Now that I am no longer working, I just don’t shave anymore unless I feel like it or I have to go some place important. I don’t know if I will ever take hormones to be a man. I would love to but I don’t know if I can at this stage of the game.

Well, my meds seem to be kicking in right now so I am going to try again to get some sleep.

at least we can say we tried

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide, transgender

All too often I get the how is your back, you look good bullshit. I want to strangle the person sometimes, especially when I have had a bad night the night before. No one gets it. My family keep telling me to see this podiatrist or go to this hospital or see this doctor. But they don’t get I am tired of seeing doctors who only want to stick a needle in my back or ankle and then say ok at least we tried, good luck to you and leave me hanging with NO FURTHER TREATMENT. Or they look at my ankle and xrays/Mri’s and find that there is nothing wrong with my back anymore or that my ankle looks perfectly normal. Well if it was perfectly normal why do I have friggen pain all the time?? I had another pain bout last night that I was climbing the walls with. And I didn’t do anything yesterday that would have caused it. I am just so tired of being in pain but I got to live with it and it sucks.

Last night I was in the deep throws of dealing with bad ankle pain. I wrote the above just now in response to an email that a fellow CESSG member wrote. I thought it would give me something more to write on but I just can’t think of anything more to say. I am all tired out from being in pain all night. Sure I had my coffee this morning and it was very good but it didn’t loosen my thought process any. I am struggling right now, really struggling with pain and my menses and the depression. No one understands. These three things make me want to kill myself. There is no one I can talk to about it. I sent off the blog I wrote last night to my pdoc, hoping for a response and still have not received one. Maybe she got mad at me because I wrote that she didn’t get it because she always uses the wrong pronoun with me. I don’t care. In my mind, I am a he, not a she. I think I got to let the group (the CES group) know that I have decided to change my name again. This one is a little more permanent and one that I have used since I was a teenager. I might still use Mike from time to time. I like the name, even if it is a common one. But for now I think I will just stick with GC. I don’t know if I will ever change my name permanently but I know that I like being called this and that is part of the transition.

The depression I can handle most of the time, except when everything I do drains me. It takes such an effort to get out of bed, to do daily living activities, etc. I rather just lay in bed and do nothing or instead I just play on my laptop or look at a blank page of a word document wondering if the words will come.

The menses are just an insult to me. I can’t handle it. I detest it with every fiber of my being. It is the constant reminder that I am not a male no matter how bad my brain thinks I am. It confuses the hell out of me and makes me think instant thoughts of suicide. I think it probably would take a suicide attempt for my treaters to know that I am serious when I tell them this makes me suicidal to the Nth degree. I can’t live like this anymore. And again I am downcasted by the psych profession. Call it what you will Gender dysphoria or transgenderism. I don’t care. I just know that I am in the wrong body and I want to kill myself be that is the ONLY way to solve the problem. Obviously birth control pills are not working. I have been on them for at least two years now and they just are not working. I get a few months break and then I get my menses again. This isn’t right. I don’t think my repro endo doctor care either. To her, I am just another female that cannot tolerate her period. But is it normal to want to kill yourself every time you get the bloody thing (pun intended)?? I don’t think so.

moments 2

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide, transgender

Moments

There have been many moments where I find myself thinking about suicide and moments where I wanted to act upon them very badly. Right now is one of those moments. I am suffering under a heavy coat of depression caused by physical pain and now mental pain because my body has gone back into female mode and I have my menses again. I wish I could say that I like it but I don’t. It kills me when I get it. I just feel so empty and despairing and there is no one I can talk to about it. I know I should seriously just end my life and leave people wondering why because that will be easier than trying to tell them I killed myself because I am in the wrong body. Even though I have tried to explain myself to a couple of people I still get called the “proper” pronoun and gender pronoun given this biological body. I must be crazy thinking that I am a male. And it hurts. I am hurting because I cannot get away from my menses. They can put a man on the moon yet they cannot stop this hurt. WTF. I was hoping it was just spotting but the true colors came out as I went to the bathroom just a few minutes ago. Just lovely. Here I am trying to finish my book and now I got to deal with this? I really just want to die. It’s bad enough that I have pain, physical pain that is so putting me over the top. But no one believes me when I tell them I want to be a male. My psychiatrist that I have known forever still calls me a “her”. I don’t tell her it bothers me because I am afraid that I will break down. I have never stood up for myself. Even when my father called me “his daughter”, I wanted to scream at him that I was really his son. I took a lot of meds tonight to deal with my pain, this was before my little trip to the bathroom. I am starting to feel the effects of the pain meds and muscle relaxers. Moments like these I wish I took too much. But I can’t risk having my mother or sister find my body in that state. It would devastate them to no end. Not like my death won’t do that to them anyways, but it’s better to remember me some other way. I am a transgender and that is why I want to die. I don’t think anyone can help me with this. I am too far gone. I am too far developed. But if only my menses could be stopped permanently would I not think about suicide all the time. Meds are kicking in really fast so I will end here. And unfortunately, I know that I will wake up tomorrow. That is truly a pity. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow or any other day. My life revolves around stuff that I don’t want it to be. Now I have to keep track of the bleeding and when it started and I just don’t want to. I just want to die. I just don’t want to exist anymore. Why is that so hard for anyone to understand that I would be better off dead. My psychiatrist would want me to call her right now but it’s 1 o’clock in the morning and I don’t want to bother her with my mundane argument. We have had these go rounds before and they usually, almost always, result in me going to the hospital for more mundane treatment. Moments like this, I wish there was a switch that could just end my life. And poof I will be gone…