Tag: suicidality

TG Issues 2

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide, transgender

Battles with self

I talked with my therapist today about a few things. She didn’t get the packet of letters that I mailed to her last week yet so I didn’t bring up the subject of grief.

What I did bring up, I have been wrestling with all day: my transgender issue. I have been born a biological female yet my head thinks I am a male. I asked my therapist calls me and she said a heterosexual male. My fear is that talking about this is going to stir up some feelings of suicidality. It almost always does because I am not born a male. I just think that I am one. I feel like I am one. Coming to terms of this has not been easy. It has only been so for the last few years that I have been open about this. I wish I could go back and say when I first started feeling this way and it would be around the time that I was in kindergarten, when I felt different than other girls. I always liked taking things apart to see how they worked. I didn’t like dolls growing up. Though I did like trucks and stuff. I would love playing over my friend Tony’s house. He had all the cool boy toys. We would play for hours. I was also into a lot of sports growing up. When Tony started to play baseball, he was on the Oakland A’s. He then decided he was not a Sox fan because he was on the A’s. I got mad at him for that, because I always felt like you had to root for the home team no matter what.

During the registration period, I asked my father if I could play baseball. It would have made me the happiest in the world. But my father said no because that was a boy sport. I was so hurt. But I didn’t let anyone know how hurt I was. We were poor so I never got the equipment needed except when a neighbor across the street cleanout his place and threw away his gloves. It was the first time I actually had baseball equipment. Tony and I played baseball together after school for I don’t know how long. When he was off with his team, I would throw the ball against the steps making diving plays and making believe I was throwing out the runner on second base. I played like that for hours. It was really fun. I could hit better than Tony did. I guess because I had a lot more anger than he did, I could also throw the ball farther too. We would have contests as to who could throw the farthest. I always won. I also threw the highest. Red Sox baseball became my passion. I would love to watch them play. I didn’t go to many games as a kid. Again it was because sports were a boy thing not a girl thing.

The only sport that I did get involved in was basketball. I might have been able to cream Tony but I never was good enough to make varsity. My career high is 4 points in one game, and that was because only five players showed up. Me being one of the five. It was a good game as we crushed Brighton. It must have been the first game that I ever played in the whole game, minus the time I spent nursing a calf cramp.

My father and mother never went to any of my games, even though we lived only a block from the high school. They just were interested in me. My couch told me I was the shortest player to jump high. That was because there was a high beam between my parent’s bedroom and the parlor. I used to always run and jump to see if I could hit it. It took me a long time but I finally was able to do it, though the downstairs tenants didn’t like it much.

Growing up I look at all the things that I hated about myself. I hated getting my periods and that caused me so much pain. I hate developing breasts. I was always bumping into things with them. And it hurt! I never liked the way I looked because of these things. I still don’t. I still think I am the ugliest person on the planet. And who could blame me. My father helped by calling me Faccia Brutto (ugly face in Italian) everyday for as long as I can remember.

I still am not happy with my breasts over all these years. Though I am getting creative and calling them gynecomastia (male breasts) and hoping that if I lose weight, they will shrink. But losing weight is hard when all you want to do is kill yourself.

For a long time, I never put the two together, the being a male and my suicidality. I really had no clue why I was suicidal until one night I had the revelation that it could be because I think I am a male and I really am not. It is very hurtful to be called a she when you want to be called a he. There was a time that I would always get complemented as a he and when the person recognize my gender they would get all frazzled and apologize. I always said it was ok and that I liked being called a him. It just feels more natural to me than being called a her. I can’t stand it. And I guess, subconsciously, it was hurting me. It took me to a dark place where suicide became my life’s goal. All I thought about was suicide. Killing myself was the ONLY way out of my situation. If I couldn’t be a male and be called him, then what was the purpose of me living.

Last year I decided that I was going to change my name to Mike and be Mike. I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be. It still is hard. I told my middle sister this and she was supportive but scared for me. Flashbacks of when I came out gay as a teenager came flooding back. I couldn’t tell my other sister I wanted to be a male or my mother. There would be no way for them to accept me for being me. My eight year old still asks if I am a guy or a girl and I always answer with, what do you think. And she goes with girl. It hurts. I will never forget the day when she came in to the bathroom when I was going and found out the truth. I was crushed. Really crushed. If there was a noose waiting for me that day, it would have had my neck in it. I so wanted to die and still want to die because I know I can’t live my life as a male. I don’t really know what that means because technically I do live as a male. I wear the boxers and clothes that are mens. The only thing female that I own are underwear and that is when I get my stupid period that has not been able to be stopped. I can’t go on if I am bleeding monthly. I know this deep down inside because it kills me to have a monthly so bad. It hurts. And there is no other way to describe it. I can’t tell you why it hurts, it just does. I have been living this way for most of my life and it kills me when people get the wrong pronoun and such. I know that by coming open will get people confused. I feel like I am causing them a burden and believe me, I would rather die than cause this grief.

I had a talk with my mother years ago about why I need to buy male things but it went by the way side. Even my youngest sister tried to get me to buy women’s clothes. I hate them. I never have like them from day one. They just don’t fit right. They don’t feel right. I wear mens clothes because they are comfortable to me. My middle sister wanted a football jersey for Christmas last year. She got a men’s large but she didn’t like it because it didn’t feel right. She wanted me to get her a female version but the only jerseys that I could get were men’s. Oh well. I ended up returning it for a medium. Now the guy is in jail for murder so she won’t be wearing the jersey at all!

I wish I could say that I am a female but it goes against the grain. Even typing the words has my gut in agony. I am a male trapped in a female’s body. I do not like it. I hate myself because of it. And I want to take my life because of the shame it has caused me.

What is fine for one day is not fine for another

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain

Watched the Ohio State football game until halftime. They were leading 30-13 at the half when I decided to take a snooze. I thought I would only be out for twenty minutes. The twenty minutes turned into two hours! I missed the second half of the game. Final score was 40-20. Buckeyes have their first win of the season!

I had ordered some journals as a reward for my writing. I didn’t think I was going to open the package but I wanted to see if that is what I wanted. One of the journals is, the other is not so I am going to return it. It’s so hard buying journals online because you can’t see what they look like before you buy them. Though right now, even though there is a grocery store just a little ways from me, I want to order some ingredients for my cupcake recipe just so I don’t have to go to the store. It’s not like I hate going, its more that I don’t want to waste time on my feet and suffer the consequences afterwards that is preventing me from going. I wanted to go today but I am in a grouchy mood after I woke up from my nap. The kids next door are screamers and there still is a little dog that loves to fricken yap. I want to muzzle all of them! So they got me in a bad mood. I have been up since six this morning because I wanted to listen to my favorite DJ on the country countdown 40. She was filling in for the regular guy Bob Kingsley. I just hope they don’t take her away from Boston!! It was good to hear her voice.

As I was up so early and didn’t know what else to do beside listen to the radio play country hits, I wrote a few pages for my book. I am one page shy of completing my goal for the day. I don’t know what I wanted to write about. I thought what I did write was going to take up four pages, or more, but my condensed style of writing fixed that plan. I guess if I could bullshit, I could write more but it isn’t in me. I can’t bullshit my way out of a paper bag! I found that writing in college way horrendous when something had to be a certain length, like they almost always do. Sometimes I had to make stuff up and it was painful. I am a literal person so I write things literally. The only time I was creative was when I was taking a creative writing course. And eventually, my creativeness got blocked. Half way through the semester, I ran out of gas to my stories. I found that I was writing dark stuff and it was just draining. I couldn’t write a happy story if you paid me. I would have had to experience happiness and I never have.

I finally got Luke Bryan’s latest CD and I love it. There is a song, “Play it again”, that I have been listening to almost non-stop. It is such a cool song. That was one of the reasons I had to listen to the Country top 40. I wanted to see if any songs from this CD made it and sure enough, the first song, that’s my kind of night, was like 28 or something like that. And the CD has been out for only two weeks! I love Luke Bryan’s music.

Tomorrow I am supposed to go out with a friend to see a movie. I am hoping my foot isn’t too bad as I had to cancel plans last week. It sucks when you have chronic pain and can’t keep or make plans because of it. Even though my foot is under the covers, I am still having pain and spasms. I haven’t done anything to warrant it, except going up and down stairs a little bit too much today. But I never know what is too much or not. What is fine for one day is not fine for another. It is so frustrating! That is why I am afraid to go to the grocery store for fear that my plans for tomorrow will have to be canceled because I will have to rest. It sucks.

writing is difficult at times

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression

I went to my “happy place” (Starbucks) today to sit and write. Unfortunately, all I did was sit and check twitter on my phone. I decided to write an introduction for the book I was writing. Nothing came to me. ZILCH in over an hour. What I did write was the shortest and most boring introduction to a book. I might as well just have written the word INTRO and call it a day.

I have set what I think will be an impossible goal for me, to write four pages a day till Sept 20th in my book. I have found that once I start, I have a hard time stopping. But the thing is, to get GOING! Lately, even with my blogs, I have been finding that I have to turn off my phone so I am not bothered with incoming text or email messages. I don’t get phone calls anymore. If I do, I usually have the MP3 player going so I know when I have a call. I actually have tracked my phone calls since I left work. Hardly any minutes go for landlines anymore. I get like 700 minutes a month and at least 70 minutes will be used. I have unlimited mobile to mobile so it doesn’t matter how many minutes I use. I kind of hate it because I am paying 450 minute for nothing, get 300 bonus minutes, and I don’t use it anymore. I just pay for my data plan, which is reasonable I guess. I never use more than 2GB of data a month, but then I have unlimited data so it doesn’t matter. I am paying for a tablet that I don’t use data for. I would love to cancel the contract but it will cost me $200 to break the contract. I have until March to cancel it anyways. Not like I use it much. I just use it for the Kindle app so I can read, but I have so many hardcover books that I am reading, I hardly use the tablet anymore. It got old a month after I bought it so I am not sure anyone will want it. I do use it for email or something when I go in the hospital. But I don’t know if they will allow it anymore. Some places are going all no technology. Even using a cell phone is prohibited.

I am kind of feeling pressured to write these four pages a day. But I added some stuff to the document last night from a previous version of my book. Taken together, I have like 150 pages of stuff. The first version is just a compilation of my first few blogs and some other stuff I wrote that I think should be included in the book. The thing is, that I have become such a condensed writer that for me to expand is difficult. Sometimes I feel like I write and just go on not making any sense.

I have been having waves of sadness hitting me pretty hard today. I don’t know why as I had such a good day yesterday. I think it is because my foot has been bothering me today. Since this morning, my foot and leg pain has been bad. I literally had to force myself to go out today. Even putting on my sneakers today hurt, which almost made me want to go back to bed. After getting my latte, I was really hurting even though I was just sitting in Starbucks playing on my phone. I tried to come up with something to write but it was impossible. The sadness was so palpable.

Tomorrow is my BFF from childhood birthday. It just is another reminder to me that I am getting older and I don’t like it. I never imagined that I would make it to my thirties, let alone past my twenties. Pretty soon I will hit the big 4-0 and I am not sure I can take it. I just want to die now so I don’t have to spend my days in bed withering in pain.

I meant to go to the grocery store today. But after getting out just for my coffee, I couldn’t bear standing anymore. I will try tonight when my brother-in-law gets home so I can take the car. I got a pumpkin cupcake recipe off the internet that I am dying to try. I love pumpkin! And this will be the perfect snack for me to have or even a good breakfast. I just don’t know if I can stand to do more today or not. But I am getting hungry and have not had dinner yet. I am debating on making pasta or reheating the left over Chinese food I got last night. I just don’t want a repeat of what I went through last night if I have the Chinese food. I got really bloated from the grease. I should have ordered from my usual place but I wanted to try another restaurant. Now I know better!

loss of self

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression

Today I broached the subject of grief with my therapist. She hasn’t received her packet of letters that describes my grief and how I think I should address it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I think the reason for my craziness the last few months has to do with my grief and not dealing with it. Course, I didn’t think much of it until I asked if grief can cause psychosis. Then I just shut down. And thank god, it was the end of session. She wanted to see me tomorrow but I told her Tuesday was fine. It will give me more time to think about how to approach this.

She encouraged me to write about this stuff and how I am thinking about it but I don’t know how. Just thinking about my losses just makes me extremely sad. It’s like knocking the wind out of me. I mean, I used to be able to work two friggen jobs and now I can’t even work one. I was stable enough to work in one job for fourteen years and then I messed it up because my foot got messed up. I don’t know if I could work again at the same job. I would like to. But I can’t be all running around like I used to. Thing is, being a lab assistant, you sometimes have to do phlebotomy (draw blood) and I was never keen on drawing blood. Even the easiest of veins I blew and I don’t want to go back to it ever again. I was lucky my department didn’t have to do that. There was a separate department for blood draws.

It still hurts that after fourteen years of service I was just not accommodated by my job to do my job. It really hurts. I never told anyone how bad it is losing my job. Even though it has been almost a year and a half now. It also sucks I can’t do my other job of driving around Boston picking up samples because my driving record got messed up. I got a speeding ticket one morning because I was too sleepy to notice I was over the speed limit. But a State trooper noticed and I got fined. Then because I couldn’t pay the fine, my license got suspended. It took me almost a year to get it all cleared up. But it is going to take a while for me to have a “good” driving record again. And that kills me. I know it doesn’t matter now because by the time I have a car of my own again, I will be “good” again. But the fact that I can’t get a Zipcar to have some independence just kills me. I can borrow my sister’s car to go places but mostly her husband takes it and I hate driving the truck. I know I should conquer my fears and learn to get used to it but I have a peripheral defect and I am just afraid I am going to sideswipe someone or something. And I HATE backing up in the drive way because my sense is not great. Even with the car I hate it, especially when there is a car parked across my driveway.

I really have other deep losses such as the loss of myself and the loss of my abilities. Walking used to be my joy. I was able to walk long distances and think nothing of it. It never bothered me. Sometimes it did when I used to get Charlie horses if I walked too far and didn’t drink enough. But other than that, I really enjoyed walking to the train station which is about a mile away. I used to do the Walk for Hunger, which is a 20 mile walk around Boston. Haven’t done that in years but I am determined to do it one year, long as I go slow. I will have to do mega training to work up to it as right now my limit is four blocks .

Then I have the loss of my bodily functions. I never thought that at the age of 36/37 I would have to wear diapers to events that last longer than a few hours. This is because I no longer get the signals to my brain that my bladder is full. Once I am full, I start leaking excess until I do go. It isn’t until I feel wet do I ask myself the last time I went potty. The number 2’s are a different story. I can’t feel myself went I go unless my stools are hard. If you are the squeamish type, I would stop reading right now. This could be disgusting to you. If my stools are soft I don’t feel them as they move out. If I have the runs, I can quickly have an accident as I can’t hold them long, though I have been lucky the last few times in holding them in by not letting loose my farts. If I lose control of my farts, I lose control of my stool and well, you got it. A nice number 2 in the pants. It has only happened to me a few times, the worse was when I took too much fiber pills and thought I was farting but really I was shitting myself. That was a lesson learned. I usually take senna because I find that it is the only thing that makes me go without too much trouble. Too much however can cause very bad cramps and possible accidents. Every time I have an accident or have skid marks because I didn’t wipe myself well enough, I lose it. I really go into a darker place and usually want to kill myself. Same with when I have a urine accident but I am getting used to them. Having stool in my pants is a real downer. And I don’t think anyone can get used to that. It makes you feel so small. And people take it for granted that their bodies will tell them these things. My body, because of the nerve damage, no longer does. And it is a HUGE loss. Again, not something I have dealt with nor wanted to.

Then, of course, there is the loss of where I should be now had my mental illness not shut me down and forced me to stop school once again. I call this the “if onlys”, such as if only I didn’t have a psychotic breakdown in 2008, how different my life would have been. If only I went to a four year school instead of getting just my Associate’s degree I would be better off now than I was back then. If only I had decided to work part time and go to school full time would I have been better mentally than I am now. Or would the financial strain of not working been too much? Or would the strain of going to college full time really be my downfall? Either way, I can’t change any of it, but it is a HUGE loss to me not being able to go back because I fucked up. I should have just made a simple phone call to put my loans into deferment and I would have been able to go back now that I am just sitting on my ass doing nothing most days. I think me not going to back to college is the most hurtful to me because I loved my studies, didn’t matter what they were. I just loved being in academia. Psychology is really my thing. And I know I could have been a good therapist. But I don’t think those dreams are ever going to come true. Maybe if I win the lottery.

Then you take into account all the times I have been suicidal. It is a loss because I am still having to piece back my life and I don’t like it. I rather be pushing up daisies for eternity. But as past blogs have talked about, I can’t kill myself anymore than I can make a gourmet dinner. AND it hurts to go on living like this.