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blueradiokid-blog1 · 7 years

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the story of my gender and its links to mental illness and stuff

Hey guys. I’d just like to put up a trigger warning for a lot of stuff. If you think you may be in danger or triggered if you read this, then please don’t and if you ever need someone to talk to about that then message me. I’d be more than happy to help you.

When I was six, someone asked me what I want to be when I grow up. I didn’t really know what job I wanted to have at the time, but I knew one thing: I wanted to be a boy. So I said: “I want to be a boy” which scared the hell out of my mom. She’s really not accepting of anyone in the LGBT community, but she tries to respect them anyways (even though I have a feeling she’s not actually trying). From a really young age, I knew I was interested in girls more than boys (I did end up developing one boy crush in my life, but it really wasn’t serious at all) and at that time, even though gay marriage had been legal in Canada for a long time, nearly everyone I knew looked down on that and anything other than straight and cis. I started developing self esteem issues about that in grade three when I had a crush on my best friend (who later abandoned me) up until grade seven (that was when she started hating me because I cut my hair and “made her uncomfortable with my boyish manor”). Basically, when I started trying to be myself and working on self love, she hated me for it and grade seven was when my plans of trying to be a normal teenager all came to a crashing halt.

For the longest time, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Not wanting to be a girl even though I was born that way. I didn’t know what transgender was. In grade six, I discovered it and realized that that was the name for what I was. At the time, there was also a trans boy in my school. He was like, my mentor, even though I only spoke with him like, once in the two years he was at my school (he’s a year older than me, he graduated last year). My uncle came over one day and I told him about the boy at my school. He said that it’s a totally normal and okay thing and he explained that he knew a boy who had a girl body, but the mind of a boy. My mom told me that that’s not natural and it’s not okay. I asked her why, and she said it’s because boys can’t have girl bodies. I argued with her for a long time and eventually gave up, and shortly after that is when I found out what trans was online. I finally knew what I was, but I felt horrible about it because I knew that the majority of my family would hate me for it.

This is where things start getting ugly. On December 27th, 2014, I noticed I was, er...developing. I remember the day because I cried. I was convinced that because I was a boy mentally and emotionally, somehow I wouldn’t go through girl puberty. It was at a party, too, and I cried in the washroom for like, ten minutes and cried more when I got home. I started binding with duct tape and ace bandage which let me say, IS NOT SAFE AT ALL. DON’T BIND WITH DUCT TAPE OR ACE BANDAGE! Anyways, back to the story. I was already suffering from severe anxiety, but this made everything worse. I spiraled into a bottomless pit of depression in seventh grade because my dysphoria was getting worse and worse the older I got. I hated everything about myself. I had long hair and I was forced to wear clothes I didn’t feel comfortable in. I started cutting myself which was possibly the worst decision I’ve ever made. When that started to happen, I tried making myself happy. I cut my hair shorter to my shoulders and that made me feel a bit better (I wanted to go shorter but my mom wouldn’t let me at the time), but what made me really down was that friend I liked. She stopped talking to me because I cut my hair and I was depressed. And that made me even more depressed.

November rolls around and I’m really, really sad. I started hiding my tools in my wallpaper. I became so addicted to punishing myself that I brought them to school and hid them in my multiple sports bras so I could cut in the boy’s bathroom stalls. Yes, I did get away with it. One day my mom went on a rant about how much it upset her that young people feel the need to change their gender and they must be mentally ill, and that was when I really broke. That same night she even found out I’d been binding. I waited till everyone was asleep that night and tried killing myself. Everything went downhill from there, especially in December. I’d also stopped eating from the loss of appetite and body insecurity and ended up fainting in math class. I regularly fell asleep in that class because of sleep deprivation and boredom, so I guess everyone just thought it was that. Please take care of your body, it’s the only one you have and the only one you ever will get.

In December, I tried to stop cutting. But of course, I didn’t succeed. I stopped talking for a long time, in fear of a Freudian slip and because I hated how I sounded like a girl. I got even worse and I was really mad I made the suicide attempt. On December 27th that year, I tried cutting off my breasts with a goddamn kitchen knife. The day was timed intentionally. It hurt so damn badly that it hurts just thinking about it. There were noticeable scars on the sides and bottom and it didn’t make me feel any better about anything. I’ve since used scar cream and very shockingly, it’s barely noticeable, but I’ll never forget it, even if there’s no scar. In this month I also started using nutmeg to get high. I even smoked it once when no one was home. I was twelve and already addicted to some sort of drug. My addiction to nutmeg is still something I’m struggling with, but I’m really trying to stop.

Then it was 2016. I was determined to be happy. I started joining LGBT support forums and looking to things online for comfort and it really helped. I even had this internet friend that I was insanely in love with who helped me through a lot and in January, I stopped cutting (thank god). To this day, they’re one of my best friends in the universe (ily my friend, you know who you are). March was a pretty crappy month for me though. I didn’t really have many real life interactions. But March is a month that means something to me for two reasons: 1. a lot changed and 2. it’s the month MCR broke up (cries). In March, I decided to ignore my mom about my hair situation and whip out the scissors and cut my hair all short and emo-like. I intentionally cut it bad so that she would take me to a hair dresser to get it cut even shorter. Surprisingly, she didn’t hate me for it.

Summer was crap. The hot weather made it uncomfortable to bind and the only shorts that fit me and didn’t make me awfully dysphoric were capris. I totally hermit-ed it out. I mean, it could have been worse, but I just got really sad from everything.

The end of 2016 is when things started getting better. I found friends who accepted and supported me in my gender confusion (I recently came out as gender queer and gynesexual) and I love them for that. The bump in the road that I had to wherever I am now was in January when I tried killing myself again on the day that marked me a year clean. Gotta start counting again I guess -_- But that’s not the point of why I’m writing this.

I’m writing this because today I felt awfully dysphoric and I hated everything about myself once again. But I looked at how far I’ve come. It’s been over a year since I tried transitioning. I’m still sad a large amount of the time but hey- at least I’m not sad all the time anymore.

To anyone out there struggling, trans or cis or anything: there’s more to life than being sad. There’s more to life than following what you’re told to do or what you were assigned in life or at birth in fear of disappointing other people which I’m honestly still struggling with, but I’m trying. I really am. There’s more to life than hating yourself and down-talking everything you do and avoiding people because you’re too scared to speak, whether that be anxiety or because you hate how it sounds or both. Your voice is important and it’s the only one you have. So use it. You have the power to speak up and stand up for what is right and to be yourself, you’ve just got to find it underneath all the rubble.

#trans #trans body pos #transgender #ftm #suicide prevention #trans suicide prevention #depression #anxiety #self harm #recovery #healing

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