Doubts...

Everyone has doubts or fears throughout their lives. Sometimes they are small, other times, big things. It can range from a variety of things, from family, relationships, but more than likely, about ourselves. In the end, we all have to remember, that they usually aren't that big of a deal. I know I still have to remember that...

So far, my life has been a roller coaster of emotions, and events. I've experienced many things, and gone through many obstacles to become who I am today. And although I seem confident enough to go out in public as my true self, I still have my own doubts of passing. Especially when I meet someone new, or go to a new place. There's always that little nagging voice in the back of my head telling me all of the little things that stick out, and every little quirk that I do incorrectly, which could possibly out me.

I know that I do pass, even my friends and family know this. Very few people can actually see the flaws, if only because they knew my old self for a long time, or I have pointed out the flaws to them. Still, that little voice just keeps eating at you. No matter how much you seem to pass, it will keep eating at you.

At least that's my experience with it.

Sadly, almost anything can set it off. Sometimes you just have a small fit of a panic attack out of nowhere, or maybe you see someone who reminds you of a flaw. For example, say you are out with friends and you are having a great time. When all of a sudden, you see another girl with a smaller waist, or better make up on her face, all of a sudden, you start feeling unpassable again. It is a little worse sometimes because biological girls usually when they see that, they do kind of get a little jealous. But those of us who weren't so lucky, makes us feel more than just inferior. It reminds us all of our pasts that most of us would rather forget, or at the very least not be reminded of it constantly.

So, sometimes, biological girls trigger it for us. Other times, when we discover another trans person out in the real world it could be just as bad. Either they pass extremely well, and you feel like you don't, or worse. They might not be able to pass as well, and you still feel that because they can see them, they could discover you as well.

All these little things can make us feel really inferior as a group. It doesn't seem to matter if you are only starting your transition, or if you have been fully transitioned for years it seems like. All we can do is just remember that we do have a difficult journey ahead of us. Luckily though, we have friends and family to help us along the way, no matter at what age, or what part of transitioning one might be at. I know I need to remember that all my little flaws aren't as noticeable as I might think.

Until next time, with love,

~Ellie

P.S. I might have to go and rewrite this later. It feels like I mostly just slammed it out, without thinking about it too much. Or maybe its the lack of sleep that has been going on this week. Who knows. :/ Maybe a day or so of having it posted will help me out. 

We must face our own fears (Part 2)....

Yes, you read last week's post correctly. The first time was that summer, at least of knowing that I could not keep forcing myself to live life as that person. And as you can see, I never went through with it, thank goodness. Here's the story....


It was the summer of 2005. I had recently told (well about a month or so prior) my significant other of the time about how I cross dressed. First time I've ever told anyone in my entire life. No one knew, or even had the slightest idea about my secret life, so by telling her, you can see how much she meant to me/how much I trusted her. She seemed okay with it to say the least. Looking back though, maybe she really wasn't. She started to kind of drift away from me since that day. Long story short, lets fast forward to the summer. Late july, I want to say around the 20th....


So, my family had left to visit relatives over in mexico. Yes, my entire family left without me. I was somehow able to convince them to let me stay here alone. To house sit or something, I really don't remember how I did it, just that I did. So they were gone for a month. It was fun, living by myself for once, and not worrying about family and whatnot. Had friends visit sometimes, had a job, and was still with my significant other of the time. At that point, I was still trying to just live my life as much as I could bear. Then my closest friends left on a two week vacation. Almost simultaneously. Still, nothing too bad. I still had my significant other. :) We always spent time together, talked about everything, and pretty much everything you can think of that a high school couple does. After 8 months, even a little before, we had began talking about getting married after high school. Yea. Marriage....I fell for her. She kept saying all the right things, but most importantly, I finally was able to be myself around her. I could trust her with my deepest secret. Maybe she could be the one? Maybe not.


After telling her many of my secrets, and her telling me her fears and secrets as well (of course I will not exploit any of them), we were incredibly close. Then, from out of nowhere, it seemed like she started to push away a little. As if after telling her a little bit about my secret truth, it unnerved her. Or maybe it was something else. It could have been any number of reasons really. The point is, around July 20th, I figured that maybe I should tell her about my biggest secret of all. At least so I could have someone to talk to. Sadly, I never got the chance to do so, since she broke up with me.


Devastated, and alone, I had no one to turn to. On top of being heartbroken and alone, part of my deepest secret was at risk of being revealed to the entire school, when school got back in session of course. This is the first time that life felt hopeless....and that I just couldn't continue to live a lie...especially if what was ahead for me was more loneliness and heartbreak. For about four or five days, I stopped eating. All I did was start to plan different ways to commit suicide. I believe I came up with about 26 different plans or so on how to do it. Some extreme, others more subtle. It ranged from me bleeding out, to jumping from a high point, to even making it look like an accident. Only thing I really felt was that this wasn't my life, and that the body I was in was already dead. Growing up, I was quiet and depressed. This time, I felt empty. No real emotion, just empty.


So, I could not bear this life anymore. I told people different things about what happened that week, and why I seemed to have changed. I told them stories from I didn't do anything, just really depressed, to I prayed and found God in my life. Honestly, that wasn't true. That was when I wondered even more if he really was up there. So what did I do for my great suicidal escape? I tried overdosing on meds.


I don't know how or what happened, but I woke up in the middle of my living room just fine. A little dizzy, but fine nonetheless...Maybe I didn't take enough? Or maybe I threw some up. I honestly cannot remember. All I know is that I was still alive, and that I was passed out for a good day or so. Within the next few days, people started returning home, and wanting to hang out. And within the week, my family had returned as well, a little ahead of schedule. I still felt empty, but I began to think that maybe since I already feel dead inside, maybe I could survive for a while longer. I never got a chance to be alone like that again, and it was a good thing too. Since that day, my depression had gotten worse, the feeling of being empty was unbearable, and to top it all off, I eventually started getting addicted to certain pills (in college, not high school). Had to take a few every day, or at least tried to, to feel something, anything, other than emptiness.


Throughout college, I came up with a few different plans, got addicted to painkillers, and started to figure out a way to push everyone away. Having all those different plans kept me sane though. Knowing that if it became too unbearable once again, I could possibly turn to a plan. Apparently I did a pretty good job of hiding this side of me, because very few people even knew about how I felt. Maybe if I had found help earlier for not being who I really am could have helped. The only time I even felt remotely alive, and like myself was when I wore women's clothing. Eventually that even started to fade, mostly because I didn't have anywhere to do it, and well, I was afraid to come out, or of people finding out about me not wanting to be male. Anyway, after pushing family, and most friends away, by not keeping in contact, I was hoping to finally attempt suicide once again, and succeed this time. Luckily I had friends around to keep me from doing that, even if they didn't know about it. 


Many break downs later, including the worst one I had in my life, I finally came out and started telling people about how I really felt inside. From there, a psychologist came to play, I started reconnecting to everyone, and I finally quit lying to myself. I would like to say as well, that I ended up throwing away all those suicidal plans, which I ended up having about 43 as soon as I started to become happy. Which was around the time when I started to find my true self, and eventually, began to live full time, as the real me. :)


Until next time, with love,
~Ellie

P.S. It took me about a week to write this. It still affects me to this day, so its very difficult to talk about it. It needed to be said though. I even noticed that while writing, my brain would still try to avoid the subject, but I got through it. Talking with a professional really does help.

As we approach dawn (Part 1)....

Again, apologies for not being consistent/on time with my blog. You have no idea what kind of stress I have been putting myself through trying to jump through societies loops. Anyway, as I began to write this post, I realized that I couldn't go in the original direction that I intended. To know where I am really coming from, I had to start from an earlier point in life. So as a fore warning, this will get dark. Very dark.


We have all made mistakes in our past. Some worse than others, but they always seem to come back and bite us if we don't do something about it, whether its something good, or bad. For me....it could have been extremely bad...


Most of my life, I hid my depression from the world. I never quite fit in, but if I could pretend, maybe no one would notice it.  All I had to do is follow exactly what other people, more specifically, my gender did. I tried, and the more I forced myself to act the part, the more difficult it became. It ate away like some sort of infection. Just tearing away little by little, until nothing was left. Eventually, it just became a numbing sort of sensation. I honestly felt dead inside. Which in part, made life a tiny bit more tolerable. Eventually though, that wasn't even enough anymore.


For years I felt depressed, trying to figure out why I felt out of place. Yea, I was the smart kid, the nerd, geek in elementary and part of middle school. I had no guy friends. Yet, I did have friends who were girls, and I seemed to get along with them a lot easier than I did with some of the guys. Scratch that, most of the guys. Of course, when social norms began to divide the boys from the girls, I couldn't help but be forced with the guys. I tried to fit in to the best of my abilities.....but couldn't. Always got picked on, not just for being intelligent, but also because of hanging out with the girls/never being manly enough. Ugh....


Even when I got older, and started to figure out how to be "manly" I still could not shake off my depression. Nothing I would do seemed to fix it. The only thing that did seem to fix it, at least temporarily was me crossdressing. Just wearing female clothes seemed to help me feel....like me. Its very difficult to even try to describe what I felt, since very few people can even begin to comprehend what kind of pain one goes through when they are trapped in a body that isn't their own. Eventually, in high school, I would always seem to find something to wear, that was hidden from public, that would help me survive another day. Whether that item was a sock, or even a bracelet that I took from my sister (sorry sis!), I ended up having some sort of feminine article on my person, or in my bag. All of that did help calm me...at least for a time being.


Honestly, I did not quite understand why that would help me back then. Most of the time, I felt dead, except when I had a female article of clothing or accessory. It felt like I was connected to it, like I was meant to have it. Even now, I still have trouble even trying to describe what I felt. I always returned it, and apparently no one was ever the wiser. Eventually though....that started to fade away. Once again...I felt empty....


The earliest I remember wanting to end everything, not just wondering how life would be without me, was around my sophomore year in high school. That's when I really could not stand it anymore. Life felt dead to me, I was just going through the motions. Started losing my energy to do anything really, and even my grades started to slip a little. Of course it wasn't all of a sudden, it was more of a gradual slope. I began to have no motivation, but still tried my best to hide it. The more I tried to go through the motions, the more I thought to myself, "What's the point?" Nothing really mattered, there wasn't a real point to life, if I couldn't be happy with who I wanted to be.


From that point on, things started going from bad, to worse. By the end of my junior year, I had stopped crossdressing because it began to make me really angry that I was a male, and I would never be a girl. I was masculine, and it showed. I was no longer feminine looking. Why did life, why did God make me like this? Why was I wrong? WHY COULDN'T I BE HAPPY!!!??? Everyone else is happy, or at least seem to be living a happier life....why couldn't I just be a girl.....That summer is when I first attempted suicide....


Until next time,


~Ellie