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.