Social Learning

     So I've been thinking about how I react to confrontation, specifically confrontation that comes from leadership or someone trying to intimidate me. Right or wrong kinds of intimidation doesn't really matter in this context, we all have had times where someone tried to scare us with their authority but how I react is what I want to focus on.

I've had multiple times within the last few years where a boss has stood in front of me and point blank tried to intimidate me and my reaction has been one of an inability to back down or cower. I do not disrespect those bosses, I don't mean anything like that; I've learned along the way to assess the situation and choose how to not back down from a situation.

     One thing I am very good at is remembering embarrassing times or times I regret something, (I know, I know, I know everyone remembers embarrassing moments but just hear me out) I have a habit of taking a not-ideal time and applying it to future moments. You want an example? Alright.

I had the chance to meet one of my celebrity crushes, Emily Kinney, and while I didn't expect her to drop everything and marry me or anything I did want to leave a better impression than I did.

     The scene is set: I'm in line to meet Emily Kinney, I'm nervous, fifty people ahead of me, I'm thinking "what do I say?", forty people, I should give her some cheesy pickup line or have some fact about her that most wouldn't, thirty people, fifteen people, I'm trying not to look like I want to throw up, I get my camera ready and beg the guy behind me to take pictures for me, three people in front of me, I see her talking to other fans and cannot get over the fact that I'm about to meet a woman I have been obsessed on my 2nd favorite TV show and then...I'm next...I take a second and look at her with absolutely no words coming out of me. She smiles at me and I elegantly say the most poignant thing she's heard all day...is what I wish happened. Nope, that's not what happened. I look at her, take a deep nervous breath and blurt out...wait for it..."I'm a big fan. huh huh huh." She took a picture with me and THE ONLY THING that redeemed that moment was this, just as she was about to move on to the next 'big fan' I stopped and said, "Wait! Can I get a hug, please?" She smiled and gave me a hug.

     It was a cool memory, one that I'll look back on fondly...but it's also something I'll look back on and laugh at myself. How could I say, "Uh...I'm a big fan." Like, DUH. Of course I'm a big fan, I just stood in line for hours to take a picture with her!?

The thing I learned there was that I'm not good on the spot when I'm nervous and I learned to have a phrase that I can say to celebrities at Monster Mania so that I don't say dumb things. A few years later, I met another celebrity crush, Kristy Swanson, and I was probably more nervous then. She was so cool and I said, "How do you like this event?" and she told me she'd been to a few cons and that opened up a conversation.

I started saying that or something close to that every time I met a celebrity and that started a conversation, it helped me keep calm and not fangirl out. And that made me think about how I can best use that information in my daily life; If I plan out some little go-to things or phrases, I can reduce some of my anxieties.

     Now to bring the story back from the rabbit hole, I learned from one situation and applied it in the future. I'm trying to learn now how to take situations where I'm confronted and figure out how to handle them correctly in the moment instead of doing the wrong thing THEN doing the right thing the next time.

I know it's not some deep super meaningful nugget of knowledge, sometimes growing isn't all explosions and bursts of greatness all at once. This is something I've been thinking about for a few days and something I want to get better at, mainly learning when to be forceful and sound confident (I say 'sound' because I'm very very not irl) and when to be quiet and when to be loud...etc.

     Quick life update:

*I got my second dose of estradiol which means I've taken just about 3 months worth so far and I see emotional changes but vey very little physical...still. I have been really happy with how things have been with everyone at work and almost everyone I've shared this part of my life with, I love when people call me Layla; I'm making plans to legally change my name as soon as I can.

*I'm working on organizing my life, small steps at a time. So if you talk to me, I am always looking for how others organize their life in just about any way.

*I have been adding makeup to my daily life little by little and that's interesting. I want to murder babies when I get mascara in my eye but othe rthan that, I love it. It's amazing finally letting out the girlie side of me that I'v ebeen locking away for so long.

*This A.D.D. thing has gotten out of hand, while writing this diary entry, I did about 95 distracting things and thought about...oooh butterfly --->

*One final question: If I made videos detailing my thought and journey, would you watch them? Would you rather read or watch? Comment and let me know.

Dreaming a Little Dream

     I work as a cashier, I live in someone's apartment, I take walks with my friends, I watch hockey, I pray to God, I buy jewelry and internet window shop for clothes or makeup, I eat terribly (for now at least), I draw, I play PS2 and Nintendo and Super Nintendo, I paint my nails, I watch YouTube videos, I listen to pandora.com, I read about trans people and trans issues, I play on Facebook or Instagram and on the rare occasion I get some sleep. That about it for my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly life routines.

Then there's my unroutine stuff (I make up words, get over it)

     I question every word I use and every choice I make, I try so hard to not do certain things that I cause myself to do them, I mumble, I over emphasize words, I make sure to not bother anyone ever, I ask my friends over and over if I am annoying them or making things harder for them, I stay in my room when I feel extra introverted, I lose my voice without any reason, I look down because I feel like less than human, I break plans and let people down regularly because I feel like they'll be better off if I'm not around them, I freak out in my mind so hard that it makes me sweat and not able to think, I wish I was different...like really really hard and I shut down when stress takes over my ability to think straight.

This photo is a correct assessment of my brain a lot of the time. 

     So I had all these expectations for my life a long time ago, expectations that I felt I was able at a time to fulfill; I also included life and things that were out of my control. I expected to have to deal
with bills, things breaking down and having to work long hours or hard jobs.

I also expected to have to take care of babies and make phone calls and clean up after a bad dog...

What I didn't expect was to have a long term crippling desire/need to feel comfortable and the fight that that came with. I didn't expect to be beaten down so hard that even simple things like believing in God or believing that God would care about me seems impossible.

I didn't expect to be treated by a father so badly that I genuinely doubt anyone's love when they say or try to show it to me ever and I also didn't expect anxiety to cause nonsensical things to push me down daily.

     I must say I have learned some pretty important things through my struggles though and some of them are priceless...and some plague me almost minute by minute.

I've learned that I do not want to die.
      this is pretty big, a few years ago, I would have disagreed with this if I was being brutally honest with you. I thought for so long that I was only here because some truck didn't yet veer off the road and finish me off. I'm not saying that is fixed in me but the things I've encountered and the battles I've fought have made me stronger in some ways.

Whether some believe or not, I believe that some of the things I had to fight for and lost or the things I wasn't able to achieve were because I was destined for the journey I'm fighting for and happy to take on now.

The road from Vincent to Layla has been a scary, nearly deadly and nothing short of interesting one, one that I would not be on if any number of things had worked out over the last 20 years. If I met a woman and got married or if I had not been so discouraged in school and actually tried at all and gotten on a career path or if I had gotten into drugs and the friends that often comes with

...these are just a few things that could and would have changed how my life played out. I don't think I would be transitioning right now if I had a family (I'm not discouraging anyone in that situation from anything they think is right and to be brutally honest, I think I would not still be here rather than ruin lives by exposing my true thoughts on a wife and kids)

I've learned who my true friends are
     I explained before that being a true friend does not mean you should support anything they want to do so this is not attacking anyone that has decided to cut me out of their life, but I will say this: BROWNIE POINTS to the people who have not cut me from their life because of my decision to embrace my inner life and do what it takes to actually feel happy. This struggle is very very real and the friends who have kept in touch or have let me talk "girl talk" or the ones who are willing to listen to what I have to say are the ones that have kept me from going over the edge at times.

My life is owed to my friends, you can tell me I'm wrong for thinking that or for putting that on their shoulders but it is true. I have only succeeded in anything that I have succeeded in because I had someone else there to share my joys with or help me through the hard parts, I feel very strongly in this philosophy:

So without all of those people, I would have given up by now. And that includes the people who cannot support my decision. The ones I'm referring to have always displayed love and strength and I appreciate and respect them and will miss every one of them immensely everyday.

I've learned that needing help isn't always a weakness
     I have had to humble myself and go to hospitals, I've had to break down and tell people that I'm not okay and I've had to share my painful details with doctors and strangers at times in  the last few years. And I have learned that those times that I had to get rid of my personal expectations and I had to bruise my ego... and that was okay. That was not wrong.

In fact those things were the right things to do, rather than keep trying to put band aids on my issues and move on. Breaking down is not a weakness, it can in the future be turned into a strength.


   

I want to end this with a question:

What have you learned through your struggles?

Both Sides of Misgendering

     I want to talk about misgendering and how we as trans people should deal with that.

     I have come out as trans about 2 years ago but have been trans all of my life so my experiences (while I acknowledge I have rose tinted glasses at times) are not minimal at all. I've known I was different since I was very young, maybe 3 or 4. I'll take this in parts, the positive and the negative.

     So  starting with the negative aspect of misgendering:

People often make fun of someone complaining about being misgendered, they treat it like they just made a tiny mistake and it may have only been once or they say they're only one person so get over it. Those people are right in the sense that they may have done it only once or that person is only one person but they do not understand that the person they misgendered most likely has been dealing with feeling and thinking like the opposite sex since a very young age and the grating factor of being called something they grew to hate gets to feel like torture.

While it is true that they are feelings and that act (even if it was said on purpose) is not violence, there are plenty of things that happen to us over time that become instant rage buttons. Imagine a boss who talks down to you whenever they see you; now imagine they see you only for an hour a day throughout the day and only for 5 days a week.

That's not so bad, you get through it in small doses, you focus on the people in your life that matter and deal with it...right? Yeah well, a few months of that and you start fighting back the urge to pick up a school bus and play batter up with that boss' head. Then longer than that and you have to fight back gritting your teeth when that boss talks.

THEN when that boss calls you out for not being respectful...you imagine ripping their eyes out, making boss swallow them and then shoving boss into a meat grinder slowly...amirite? If you've worked with a boss who is anything like this, you know that rage.

That is a close ans smaller idea of how it feels to be misgendered for a long time and a little look into why some people blow up even when it's a mistake. They have been dealing with it for a lot longer than you know.

     They also most likely HATE being grouped in with the gender you called them. I personally have learned how to not get angry and be gracious when complimented in a masculine way but it's not easy for anyone to just accept that over a long period of time.


     Now there is another side of this that trans people should understand and take to heart:

We are asking people to change their beliefs or lives or speech because of a choice we make (transitioning, not being trans) and that is NOT a right or something we should demand of others. If a person walks by me when I eventually transition and identify as a female, I will not expect them to call me anything specific. If they call me a man or dude, they potentially just don't know about my personal situation or they might not agree with my decision...or, and this is likely...they could just be rude/selfish.

I've met a lot of people  as a cashier that don't even notice that I'm human. And as much as I want to thunk their heads on the counter and yell that I'm a human and it's rude to be rude,  need to understand that they are in their world just like I'm in mine.

I have no idea what they're going through or how busy they are. They could have anxiety or they could just have been focusing on something so much that they forgot to form the words they mean to. I've done that so much in my life, I've thought responses and not actually said them, how can I get angry at everyone who doesn't do what I am guilty of too at times?

     Overall, our choices are not more important than other people's lives. If others choose to respect our identity the way we want to associate than they should be respected back and appreciated, the other people don't deserve violence or hatred or anything really. They don't deserve disrespect even, they deserve nothing. Ignorance is worse than hate and the best way to get back at someone who is trying to make you angry is to not be angry. That's how to win against internet trolls too, by the way. Don't let them make you angry by expecting them to say the worst and don't fall for it.

     Ok to wrap this entry up, I want everyone to understand where everyone else is and try to have respect for the other. It's always better and smarter to find a respect for someone else, even people who don't deserve it, in order to find a way to build a bridge some time in our lives.

I'm not advocating letting people abuse you but in regular situations and random little moments, we can both try a little and work together. Thank you for reading and please feel free to share my blog.

More Deconstruction: "Dad"

     I have a few things that hurt me to think about, a few things that mess with my head even on my best days. Can you guess what this entry's topic is about? No, not the fall of Rome...that's a topic for another time. The word "Dad" hurts me every time I hear it.

     It all started when I was very young, old enough to use a phone but not very old. I heard the phone ring, picked it up at the same time  as someone else and because I have always been nosey I listened.

I don't remember the exact words but the gist of the conversation was that the man (and I use that term loosely) who was supposed to be a "dad" to me said he didn't want to take me on a trip or something, he said he never wanted me at all in the first place.

I knew that sucked hearing but didn't fully understand what I had heard. Over the next few years, I grew curious and made sure to pay attention to things he said or did when I was around and it made sense later that he never wanted me to be his, he never wanted to be my "dad"

Which was a good thing for him because he never was that, at all.

     Skipping ahead to a big day trip. A trip to Collingswood, NJ where there was a fair along Cooper River. Live music, games and lots of people having a good time. Same...let's call him a man...he picked me up and brought me to the fair. We walked around for a while, it was him, his wife and me.

I was not exactly a fan of his but like most kids, I didn't express my full feelings really ever. We walked around for a while together and at one point told me I could go off on my own, we were in a relatively small area and I wasn't dumb enough to go away with anyone else or anything like that. I have always been a wanderer so I went and checked out some tents they had and talked to random people and tried to just have fun. We set up a time to meet up and a certain place, that was my only stipulation from him.

So I'm having fun and walking around and I saw that it was nearly time to meet at that certain place.

Now one thing my friends and employers 

know about me is I am obsessively early 

whenever I have to be somewhere. 

Every Flyers game I go to or day I have to work, I'm just about 

always so early it's kinda silly.

So it's just about time to meet up and I get to the spot...and I wait.
                                 
                                           ...and I wait...


                                                                       ...and I keep waiting...

     So the meeting time was 1pm and I'm waiting so long that I started to see the sun going down. And after about another hour, the fair starts packing up. And I'm still standing there waiting, as instructed. This was before cell phones so it's not like I could have just sent a text or made a call to him.

At sometime after 10pm, a person came up to me and asked if I needed help. I told him my situation and he led me to a police officer who got me in touch with the man who was supposed to be a protector to me. The man who told me to meet him at a certain tent at the fair at 1pm, the man who was home laying in bed. This was the man who invited me...and forgot me.

He forgot me. I was maybe 14 or 15 and he just left me there. Oh by the way, he lived about 45 minutes away in Bensalem, PA.

     This is what most represents the word "Dad" to me throughout my life. I have been trying to learn to be happy for people with good dads and for friends who ARE good dads, and I truly am happy for them.

I never want anyone to go through the crap I went through so if I can encourage people to do one thing, it's to be a good parent or relative or friend to those around you. You can create a dictionary of words that make someone feel good and happy instead of what I'm going through constantly, you could make someone hear a word and smile.

And that is an amazing thing.

I have absolutely no idea what to do

.    So my life right now is a mess: I have so much anxiety issues that seem to be adding more and more problems each day, I don't work enough to sustain a human life, my stress level is way too high even before much happens and I quickly get to a point where I'm not able to handle even normal things, I have gender dysphoria, every day my confidence goes down and the little failures hurt more and more, I'm growing bitter in ways in can't seem to stop, I have literally the worst luck with anything that involves luck of any kind, bad things just happen to follow me around no matter what I do, I'm loved by friends and very cared about but I often feel I have no one in my corner in the way that most people in my life don't even know what it's like to not have and I think about death and suicide much more than I ever should.


     Anxiety and stress.

So I wake in the morning and if there is absolutely nothing going on and I have nothing to worry about, I'm fine and there's no stress. The problem is I don't recall ever having a day like that, ever. Going to work is stressful in itself and even on a really slow day, my stress levels are at a breaking point. Then a second day in a row multiplies that plus whatever things that don't work out our get stressful that day and buy the end I feel like I barely make it. Then a third day in a row of working or doing anything stressful literally leaves me shaking and unable to think straight enough to make normal decisions or follow through with everyday functionary actions. I sometimes feel like crying over things like having long lines as a cashier or dropping things 3 or 4 times in a row. And that's when I start just messing up everything I touch, as if I turn into a giant clutz.


     Luck of the draw.
If it can go wrong, it will and not only does it go wrong but it will humiliate me in the worst way possible. And it's not just a thing here or there, any time I do anything that involves luck in any way I have to prepare to either get ahead of it or expect to get whatever I want to not get. Like if I only work one day in a week, but I need it to not be a Wednesday can you guess which day I'll be scheduled? Some things I can get ahead of like that, I can request off that day. But if I leave it up to chance, 10 out of 10 times it will be whatever I don't want it to be. And then there's things like card games... If I'm playing settlers if caftan, I can count on having absolutely none of the one item I need at the end of the game. I usually start strong and just hit an embarrassing block that I can never get past. These are just a few examples, another would be getting my state ID. I went 6 times before I was able to get it. 6 times. It was insane, they found rains why things I Christy didn't fit the requirements even though I brought exactly what they told me to bring. It gets maddening when everything and anything gets stopped all the time.


     Then... The worst part of me, the thing that embarrassed me and hurts all the time. Love.

I was born into a "family" of strangers, people all thrown together who regularly found themselves at each other's throats or leaving someone high and dry without care for anyone but themselves. I do not mean all of my "family" out in fact most of them when they're sober, the fact if the matter is that most of the people related to me are drunks or drug addicts or have been at one time.

The influence is strong with those ones. My biological father (who I hope reads this some day and realized just how terrible a person he is and how much he hurt at least me) was at absolute best a scumbag from the darkest depths is selfish garbage. That is me being way being nice, I try not to curse as a regular form of expression and that human doesn't deserve me breaking that personal rule.

As for my mom and her side, I've always had a huge intangible space between me and almost all of them, I don't blame most of them for things not done perfectly or even done wrong. I honestly believe my mom and her brothers and parents never or rarely did things out of hate. They weren't saints but deep down they cared about each other for the most part.

With the good stuff said, I felt very separate from everyone related by blood to me (with the exception of my Uncle Ron, Uncle George, Uncle Mike and my cousin Ryan) and I don't recall a time where I felt like we loved each other, which left me starved for love and affection.

     And with the most subtle of transitions to another post if this topic, that brings me to romance. Ah the language of love, eh?

I've had some awesome moments, like when I took a girl's hand and we danced outside a fancy restaurant while people were talking about how sweet we looked. Sounds amazing... And it was a great moment, well it would have been better with someone who deserved it. I say this not as a bitter ex or in a malicious way, but as someone who can recognize the truth about someone that I used to have tinted glasses toward...she was an idiot. There have been a few other notable moments with other not worth mentioning idiots, cheaters and psycho, but very few girls that were genuinely with any attention.

Overall I've been very sad about the lack of returned affection in that area with one caveat, I have come out transgender within the last 2 years and that could be why nothing has ever worked out. I wasn't meant to be with any of the girls I dated because my destiny could be to become a woman who can do a little too help others in the same situation. (I completely understand that I can't become a true female, so you can hold any comments about that. I get it and don't have delusional thoughts that I can. It's just easier to say it than to constantly say 'i can become the closest facsimile to that of what I see myself as in my broken mind).

If that were to work out like I hope it does, I can in the future be accepted as Layla and live my life encouraging the people around me without feeling like I'm faking or lying about who I am at all times. I honestly believe that after going through transitioning and accepting that life and leaving romance behind, I can accept that the love that I'll receive is the love from friends and will only be platonic. I actually realized while typing this why transitioning is so important to me: I hate who I am and I hate that I'm not loved romantically but I am loved very deeply by friends. If I could find a way to love myself then u can accept that love of friends for what it is as opposed to now where I feel like it's a weak consolation prize. No offense to any of those friends, I love them all back very very much. (If you're in this group, I'm pretty sure you know)

     So here I am...A mess, trying to fix as much as I can while I feel like I'm on a  quickly sinking ship. I'm afraid of failing, I'm afraid of succeeding and I'm afraid to be in the middle of those options.  So pray for me if you pay, send happy thoughts if that's what you do, donate time money or luck if you have any to spare and inspire others in my honor if you can.

Thanks for reading.

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...