Relax? What's that?

     So you asked me about relaxation? Since you insist, I'll tell you what I do to relax. Actually I'll take a picture of my list of ways I relax.

Sounds about right Yeah, being refreshed or relaxing doesn't exist to me really. When I was a kid, I used to escape into hockey to get away from my immediate abusive and scary life. Hockey, while intense and mostly non relaxing, was a ton better than watching your family slowly kill themselves and realizing that your life is awful in just about every way. So for years, watching the Flyers, Avalanche, Ducks or any other team that wasn't Pittsburgh was my main source of relaxing.

     The only problem is...as I'm sure you said to yourself...that is NOT a form of relaxation. 

An escape? Yeah, definitely. 

A form of letting out rage or frustration? Of course. Who doesn't feel better after hitting a ball or puck as hard as they can for a few hours and beating up on anyone opposing you? Right, no one.

BUT...every aspect of my life outside of that was stressful to the highest degree and I had absolutely no way of ever feeling that refreshed life feeling. And not only did I have no 'relax' in my life but I was lying to myself about it. I convinced myself that I was okay for a long time and that stress wasn't too much for me. That was one of many lies I told myself as a kid that were slowly hurting me from the inside out. 

     So looking now at my life and I still have no way to relax, no way to calm down. Once in a while I look on eBay for some pill that fills all my relaxation needs or some DIY mixture of relaxation

1 cup Honey

1 1/4 cup vinegar

1/2 cup stress free gluten free peanut butter

2 cups water

Mix till stress dissolves and rub on eyeballs twice a day for 14 days.

I'm sure anyone reading this is shocked to find out two things: 1. that the mix I just posted is NOT good for the eyeballs and 2. nothing on eBay or any DIY site remedies stress, at least not the way I'm trying to look for. 

     I'd love to finish this with some way I've found to make things better but that's where it ends currently. I take days when I have no obligations and do absolutely nothing or very very little but that only pauses my stress levels, doesn't actually relieve any of it. 

To be continued... 

Deconstructing Vincent Joseph

     I've been a Christian since 2001 June 27th to be exact) and since then I've tried to surround myself with people who I want to be like and keep away from all that I shouldn't have in my life...well I've tried and tried and tried.

     My friends and the people I associate with has been very important because of the bad apple theory, one bad apple can ruin all the good ones around it, and I've carried that in my social media life and I've tried to be both a "good apple" to those who need to see one around me and in the barrel with good apples. 

     The good things about that theory have been evident: I have successfully learned what being a drunk or a drug addict is before falling for any of that, my social media life has been respectful and always at a higher standard, I've at times learned how to keep up with certain things that I couldn't learn with people who are even at my level and I accepted God in my life at a time when  I could have accepted any amount of terrible things. All that was because I got rid of toxic people and influences from my life and tried my best to stick by the people and things that were better than...well, me.

     Then there is the part that is a big ol' pile of...confusion.  There's the paradox that this creates. So being around people who are better than me has had enormous positive side effects on me BUT at a point that started becoming toxic too in a way. I'm not successful, I haven't ever, in my entire life, even known how to try to be successful yet most of my friends have been born and bred to be a success story, they are all inspirationally great in at least a few ways. 

So I become the bad apple to them, which is evident to them when things come up like we go out to eat or they invite me somewhere that requires ID and I do my normal thing and lose mine while they are outside waiting, leaving me to have to walk out and sadly tell them to go without me because I lost the one thing I need at the moment. Situations like that come up on the regular with me and it's not that I don't get to do things necessarily or that I have to do more to keep up with anyone else; it's the part where I have to walk the long lonely walk to go and tell them that I can't go. That walk becomes harder each and every time I have to walk it. 

     So i walk that walk and the part about me is sad and my friends go on...and I go back somewhere alone...feeling like a full failure. And nothing else. It washes over me, it replays over and over, often I create how much I think they're better off without me. They're having more fun because they're good people and they got rid of the bad apple...so I must be the bad apple, right? Right?! And it only gets worse from there. Now this exact situation only happened once but similar things have occurred many times where I had to back out in order for everyone to have a better time or to actually enjoy themselves. 

     And since I have a literal mind that refuses to change that way of thinking, I look at the math of life: if I am the one that they have to wait for, and I am the one that friends have to pay for and I'm the one that usually doesn't understand things common to them and I am CONSTANTLY the one who doesn't have ANYTHING that they all have (families, lives, the importance of others) I do that math and the answer is I'm the problem. 

     So if I'm the problem, then I should take myself out of their equation to make their lives better and I sit alone and beat myself up over and over and over...and over and over. And it was just pointed out to me that when my friends come to spend time with me or try to cheer me up, while they've been in the real world and have been just doing what they do, I have been mentally destroying myself for so long that I don't even think of myself as human anymore.

So they are like, "Hey, haven't seen you i a while. You okay?" all cheerful and calm. And my response looks like I've been in a Taken movie standing opposite Liam Neeson's character. From my point of view, I'm coming out of a terrorizing situation and trying to calm down (slowly because I have trouble changing moods even when it's proven to me that I should) but to the friend, nothing is actually wrong and I bring them down in my slow reaction to their positivity. That in turn makes them not want to be around me or not really be able to handle my intense sadness/negativity...and when they leave or step back, I repeat the mental beating with more vigor than before. 

     This has grown from a small issue that I can let go of to a painful bitter ball in the pit of my stomach to this intense evil hatred that lives inside me. I know I need to change this, I know I need to accept that things are not the way I see them usually and I know that some of the damage that I saw and currently see as irreversibly broken are i fact possible to be repaired...somehow. Somehow...somehow...somehow; that words seems so far away and almost a fantasy of a dream. Someday (another far away word) I hope to understand how to use this deconstruction to fix some of this stuff.

     My goal with this and with my videos on YouTube and with my art and my prayers and my bible reading and my future therapy and my transitioning and everything else i try to do is all to find a way to be okay. I thank anyone who reads this and I hope it encourages you in any way at all. Let me know if it does, I could truly use that if it's true.

The Good and The Not So Good

     How's your day, you ask? How's life, you question? What's going on, you...inquisite? I know that's not a word but you asked, you shouldn't make up words.

     Ok so I will answer your questions. So here it goes: Good, good.
Well that's what I say when I don't want to say that things aren't great or tell someone my actual goings on. The truth is things are tough. I've been dealing with a lot and most of them are things that aren't going away or things that can't be wished away by saying, "I'm here for you. You got this." In fact, most of the things I'm going through, I need either a massive amount of money or people to be actually around for semi long times.

     I'm not saying that encouraging statements are wrong or that I don't appreciate them when people who can't do more or don't know what to do say them. Please don't take that for me saying I don't appreciate the thought. But the honest truth is that I'm struggling. Usually I'm struggling with internal stuff like figuring out my gender identity issues or dealing with the fact that I have such bad luck that EVERYTHING that could go the opposite of my way does. Ev. Ry. Time.

     These are usually what I am thinking about or dealing with when you ask me what's up so you now know when I say I'm good that really, I'm not exactly good. BUT...

     But there is another side, a side that I sometimes don't acknowledge because my identity gets lost in misery sometimes. I look at myself as the sad or unfortunate one, kinda lie the Toby Flenderson version of Neo. (I know you like my photoshop skillz)

   Hahaha, anyway back to my point: I do have some good things that I think about and that I have in my life:

First thing that I cannot express how great it is would be my friends. My friends are my family, I'm not going to name everyone because I would leave people out by accident but you know who you are. I have lots of people who mean lots to me, these are people who have saved my life and continue to be a support system when I need it. They also on occasion use my services whether it's babysitting or helping out in some other way, they help me feel needed even in little ways.

     And there's another thing that makes me crazy happy that is a part of who I am. It's big and cold and has blue and red lines and it contains some of the coolest people and...it has...rubber...on it... Ok, I'm out, it's an ice rink. It's also hockey. I love it so much, I think I was born with skates, the Dr just hid them when I skated out...hmm...maybe I should curb my imagination. Nah, deal with it.
   
     Hockey has been my saving grace from summer every year since I became a fan, anyone on my FB knows of my countdowns from the first day of summer till the first preseason nhl game of the season...that's right. I can't even wait till just regular season, I go crazy for the first preseason. And as a Flyers fan, that usually means a game I can't go to but still keep up with the score as if it's a pivitol playoff game. Hockey was the thing God used to bring me into church in a way and it has been one of the biggest uses for me to socialize with society. One of my favorite memories was when the Flyers won game 7 vs Boston in 2010: we went to the Wells Fargo Center to watch the game being played in Boston. There were 20,000 fans there and we all enjoyed the win. Afterwards, as we exited the parking lot (which took us over an hour to just get out of the not that big parking lot) fans were high fiving each other, going around to random cars and talking about the game and sharing drinks and stories. The comradery of the sport is much fun.

     And art. Oh art, you make me swoon. Photography, drawing, painting, music, creating videos and short films...there's so much to talk about in this...this writing. This is another one of the best "goods" that keeps me sane and helps me on a regular basis. I don't acknowledge it because that's vain or something but I love knowing that I'm good at something and for it to be photography or drawing, that means a lot to me. It's so therapeutic to put what's in my head on paper or into a YouTube video is immeasurable.

     So although I, at times, don't see it I have some awesome 'good' and some terrible 'not so good' that is always on my mind. Sometimes I need to remind my face about the good stuff. That's kinda hat this letter to myself is all about.

Have a wonderful day

Too much: The Full Truth

     I don't know how to deal with everything and the more that happens, the more I shut down. Stress adds up, pushes me down and the more I shut down, the more stressful things keep adding on to my already not good life.

 
          So I want to look into why I think this:

   I was born into a terrible "family", one that at times tried overall to be good people, one that was filled with a bunch of people who weren't ready for all that they got into and it resulted in two dying mainly because of alcoholism, one committing suicide and another not far from that among other various horrible situations.

   I was never allowed to be myself and never able to grow up at the same rate as kids are supposed to and I definitely didn't get or feel the love that ids are supposed to get and feel. My biological father was (to explain in the nicest term I'm able to muster) scum...in every way. My mother tried but was overwhelmed by a lot and I saw that throughout my life near her.

   As a child, I was always alone and always felt left out, even when I was a kid and visited my childhood best friend, I remember going to his house and watching him play with his new best friend and walk away from me because there was no more place for me. A girl that I went through a few years with meant the world to me and I found out later that I barely meant anything to her other than she knew me way back when we were kids. I always wanted someone (friend or romantically) to bond with me, so badly that I created that with people who didn't create it with me. I looked for pretty much any kind of bond everywhere. And each time I found out it wasn't real, it hurt me a little more and I became a little less able to trust.

   I was forced to live with a man who hated me and while he used his money on me in his life, he made it clear that I was never anything to him, especially the day he told me he was doing drugs. So there came a time when he and mom were moving, she came to me and asked what I was expecting to do and I told her I'm not living with him anymore, that wasn't happening. Then she asked if I was going to live with my "dad" (he never was and never will be my dad, he was nothing more than a sperm donor, just to be clear) and I told her there's no way I'm going to live with him.

   That left me out again, and my Uncle stepped in and took me in his home without even thinking about his situation (at least not that I know of, he may have weighed what it would mean to his life but in the end, he took me in and gave me his room instantly) While that was a great option for me at the moment and it made me feel kinda happy for a time, there were new problems that I faced.

   I had no curfew, no restrictions, no one wondering or caring where I was and I lived with a drug addict and a constant drunk. The police were at that house more than I was, screaming became the family motto and I closed myself off more and more. I rarely slept more than 3-54 hours a night, my grandmother (the constant drunk) liked to drink and bang on my door at 3 am when I had to be at school i the morning, which made me a happy camper. I can name more than 10 occasions that I had to dodge someone swinging something at me (on purpose or by accident) an I even had to go to court twice because I had to call the police on one of them (My grandmother once and my uncle George once). Not exactly and ideal situation for a kid who needed love and care more than most already.

   Now, add in to that mix my gender dysphoria, as a very small child I wanted to be a girl and that was on my mind at all times, even the times I was having fun or busy. At around 12 or 13, I started to discover my sexual side and the only thing that excited me was thinking about being forced to be a girl. For a few years I thought it was a sexual thing until I was about 16, then I realized I wanted to and felt like a girl overall. I wanted to run away and have a sex change and start a new life. That never went away.

   Now let's add in how I feel about God. This is not easy to say and I don't want to discourage anyone else from obeying or caring about God, you're not me so He cares about you.

This is how I feel:

              God has never cared for me, I snuck into His group of believers and He was forced (so to speak) to accept me...sort of. People say that God never leaves His people, never forsakes them, right? Well, I was saved on June 27th 2001. I accepted and put my faith in God's word and really thought I was safe from a lot of the emotional things that crippled me through my life. People say He would not put people in situations they can't handle and that He always gives His people what they need. Both of these are hard for me to believe, about me only, because I can think of a few times when I truly needed something and was just emptied out of any trust when I not only didn't get those things but I was embarrassed and hurt even more after I didn't get whatever it was I needed.
   Yeah, I did get some things that I wanted or needed at times but when it came to my faith or those moments where I could have totally seen something that put my faith on a solid rock...I was humiliated and emotionally destroyed. There were times where all it took was some little thing, not like a girl to like me or to get a house and a car given to me, just some little things that would have made me actually feel the love that I had heard about and seen in friends' lives. Those times were the ones that broke my faith in a way that may not be able to be fixed.

   And then there's my societal problems, I have been trying to keep up with society, with my friends and with my own expectations for as long as I can remember. I never had the chance to grow up and learn things from parents who cared and took the time to teach me things so I'm behind society because of that and whenever I get a chance to get ahead, I find that any choice that I make is the wrong one. I just always make the wrong choice, it's not even like "should I steal or buy something?" it's like, "Should I go to work when someone else calls out?" If I take the shift, I get there and everything goes wrong from me not being able to do something to I get hurt or make clumsy mistakes and cause more trouble for bosses than it was worth having me come in. And if I don;t come in, I miss out on a little bit more money and I end up not doing things I plan on doing for whatever reason.    Recently...within the last 5 years, I've gained anxiety that has been stopping me from doing so much. I have anxiety over crowds of people, even friends, which makes me NEED to leave whenever I find myself trying to tackle that and I end up stuck somewhere far from my place or I find myself being made gun of by the whole group I'm with. I can't seem to make a phone call without a long time psyching myself up for longer than I should take.

   And the final thing that has deeply affected me over the last 10 years is concussions. I have a lot of trouble remembering things and speaking and getting migraines. These things have been overtaking my life since about 1999, when I got my first concussion and I've gotten a few more since then. Three of them were bad enough to leave me unable to do things on my own. Once I went to the hospital and the other two times, I had to stay at a friend's house for the night. All three left me with memory issues, in fact I remember things that I know for a fact didn't happen.
   Once in a while, I have issues that resemble dyslexia where I can't speak the words I want to and I forget words that are common. An example would be: If I'm trying to tell someone that I want to go to the bathroom, I'd forget the words bathroom and the sentence would become difficult to put on the right order. SO I'd say,

 and in the moment, I have no idea how to make that sound sane to whoever I'm speaking to. Most bosses or people in any kind of authority don't even care what's going on, they think I'm mentally handicapped or stupid. And when I'm busy at a job or speaking to a customer, this causes major problems. It's more than just an annoyance too, it hurts and I have lost jobs because of this in the past.

     Looking at all of this, I can't see a way I can live a life that is any more than existing. I often think about ending things and these are all prevalent in that thought. It just makes me think, What do you do when you need to run full speed and you just don't have anything in the tank? What do you do when you need to drive as fast as you can and all you have is a skateboard and you're missing a shoe? What do you do when you need $30,000 and you have less than a dollar when you get your next check? I don't have faith that anything is going to get any better, I don't have the strength to make jokes and pretend things will get better...I don't have even that much fear or sadness at the thought of my journey ending sometime soon.

     I'm scared that I'm numb and less scared...

Where do I go from here??

     So here I am. I Seemingly made up of molecules, awkwardness and contradiction. I was saved in 2001, I accepted Jesus in my heart and still fully believe that I cannot save myself. I accepted and still accept that Jesus is the only way to go to heaven. And at the same time, I have such giant conflicts in my head, things that may never change.

     Now before you say something about being born this way or that I should just not listen to anyone else's opinion, believe me I have thought about all of this. And I am not gonna say I'm perfect at this but I try to do my own things when I know they're the right things to do or when it's something I enjoy or want to do. BUT...my opinions on those two arguments are well thought out and I've played out maybe every single conversation about them possible:
     1. I do believe I was born this way just the same as some people were born gay or straight...and before any Christian friends get upset, I want to clarify that being "born that way" does not mean what you think it means. A person can be born with a a specific desire (such as my desire to eat a million Reese's Peanut Butter Cups)

     We can also be born with an innate desire to hurt people or to commit certain sins or to not like summertime. Being "born that way" is treated like some superpower by non Christians and they try to use that phrase to excuse their actions or their unwillingness to stop themselves from indulging in whatever they want. That's not always a good thing.

     And for the argument that we should not listen to anyone else and do what we want, that notion can be good at times (like when we're scared to speak up at a time that we need to) but it can also be a very selfish and immature philosophy. If you're Tom Hanks and you live completely alone on an island then you should not worry about anyone else...

...but since that's almost totally not true about anyone reading this, you probably have some friends or family that deserve to at least know what's going on in your life. If you have any relationship that yu value, thy deserve to hear something that will affect their life. And you may not want to admit it but your life changing decision WILL affect their life.

     Now I understand some people have a lot of hatred and have to fight through that to stay alive or come to terms with their own lives, I'm not necessarily talking about those cases with those two rebuttals to those arguments.

     Alright so after all that is said, I am left trying to understand my feelings and the truth and my depression and suicidal thoughts and fears and an excitement that I want and a multitude of other emotions and thoughts but not quite as many answers. I am currently trying to pray and put my faith in God and trying to lean on my friends and trying to be strong enough to make decisions and stick to them when they're right. It's not always easy and I'm not expecting to get some magical easy button answer any time soon.

     I can say some things definitively: I know who I am and what I like and what I think. I know that I am transgender and I do not believe it's against church or God to go through with transitioning for non sexual reasons (I am not interested in being with men, in fact I am not interested in being in any relationships) and I know that whether this a mental disorder or a body dis morphia  or for whatever reason that I'm going through this, it is not going to go away. I've felt this disconnect since I was at least 4 years old and have been dealing with it all through my childhood, it's gotten stronger and more relevant throughout my adult life too.

     Well, that's where I am right now and that's what's on my mind currently. A lot of that sounds more negative than positive so I want to end this with the happy stuff:

     I have been painting my nails and learning about makeup and I LOVE IT! I love the ability to express myself and be creative with nail polish! I am also blown away by the support of my friends, even the ones that disagree with my decision so far have been amazingly helpful and delicate with me and sweet. I can't thank you all enough for loving me, it means the world to me.