The Suicide Journal's History

     So I started this diary to fully examine and express my deepest of inner thoughts, from my desires and needs to those thoughts that are hard to understand or scary to put out there. I believe I've come a long long since I first started writing in a notebook and I feel the need to do two things right now:

1. Reflect.

   When I first started this, I didn't understand so much about my thoughts or why I felt the way I did. I had suicidal thoughts that just overtook my mind daily, sometimes without even provocation. It made sense when I lost my uncle to feel sad and possibly think about dying but to think about killing myself for no reason was beyond alarming.

I had times where I contemplated ending myself when things weren't very bad, like if I pictured how things would play out if I jumped in front of a car and the thought became so strong that I had to convince myself not to...hard.

It's always been obvious that it hurt seeing good families and knowing I never had that but writing out all of my unfiltered and deepest thoughts has really helped me break down other things I didn't understand til I read it on paper.

July 25th 2012 was the first time I wrote down in a journal and the things I wrote down were just the worst things; so much worse than any horror film or scary story.
I talked about how I didn't understand why I thought I wanted to end myself and what was going on in my mind. Here are a few pictures of the original Suicide Journal pages.

2. Now?

     In the past few years, I've gone through some very serious changes and arcs that have shaped me for the worse and (hopefully) for the better nowadays.

-5 years ago, I lost my Uncle to suicide, something that forever changed who and how I am. A piece of me died that can't come back anymore than Uncle Mike can and I hurt in a way that can't be fixed at all. This was a giant arc for the worse, just like anyone else who has lost  a loved one knows. I'm different than I was the day before I got the call about him, that phone call made me a worse person and added bitterness that I still can't just walk away from.

-About 2 years ago, I asked one of my best friends to meet up with me. He's usually pretty busy and it was very very important that I talked to him, not on a friend level exactly. When I met up with him, I confessed (for a lack of a better word) that I've been living a lie. I explained what I am and that my plan was to end myself if I didn't come clean about being trans. He listened and while he has not even said he supports my decision, he was as loving and caring as a best friend could be. I expected that conversation to end in a friendship being over but instead I left knowing that he and his family are more Christ like than I even thought (and I lived with that family for years so I would know more than most the character of all of them).

From then on, I've been telling more and more friends and strangers about the real me and have been slowly becoming a better person who doesn't hate myself the way I have my whole life.  Not that I'm fixed now but that definitely started a change that needed to happen, a change which is leading to a mission and goals that I'm embracing more and more to this day.

My goal is to reach out to trans people and show them that God isn't the evil, hateful thing that a lot of them think He is. The real God that leads my friends is the God who loves all of us and knows what we're going through. There's a verse that says we are 'fearfully and wonderfully made' and being transgendered is not outside of that. God can use us and I believe He is using me more and more in a way that I've always felt completely useless.

I used to recite the lines to a Green Day song, "Are you feeling like a social tool without a use..." and that's how I felt for a very long time, like any positive talent or thing I did was essentially useless to anyone. Like I would try to help friends but I couldn't do or help in the way they needed; for example:

     I can take great pictures and can draw fairly well but I can't cut grass without my eyes swelling shut and can you guess what would help my friends a lot more than taking a photo?? I'll give you 8 guesses. Nope, not that...yeah, they needed their grass cut. And then another summer when my allergies were not so bad, they needed help working on their car or they needed money or something that I could just never offer. This kind of situation often left me feeling beyond worthless on a regular basis. Now I am not trying to ignore the times I was able to help, I did for the most part what I could when I could. This isn't about 'woe is me' this is about the feeling I was left with during those times I couldn't help.

When I started being more open about being who I truly am, something changed in me and I've been feeling more and more useful to those who feel desperately left out. I'm not trying to sound like anything better than I am, just that I don't feel useless. That is an amazing feeling!
To be continued

Now vs. Then

   
Yesterday signifies something really big for me, something I've been waiting for for a very long time:
    I have officially started HRT! I went through a lot of scary scenarios in the last 2 months and thought I might not have been able to but after a cardiologist visit and many tests I am started on estrogen FINALLY!

     It's funny because people who I've told about myself have known for about 2 years, maybe a little more but for me it's been like 31 years that I've been dealing with this and waiting for this. I understand some people thinking I'm making an impulsive decision or that I am not thinking this through thoroughly but I can remember being 7 years old, watching little girls in class or passing me in a mall or wherever and just wishing so hard that I could live the life she had.

     So this gave me a thought, throughout my life what is the now vs. then comparison in many ways. For example, when I was about 15 I moved to my Uncle's house; at that time where I was mentally and what I wanted in life and what I thought was SOO vastly different for what I am today.

     Back then: God was absolutely not a thought to me. Back then politics was something I avoided at all cost (probably because I didn't want to have to actually learn something) and back then I thought every single person in life was either a drunk or abused by a drunk, so why try to succeed.

     Now: God has been a very important aspect of my life (while I do not have the greatest relationship with Him and I have my doubts and fears, God ha played a huge part in my life in every single way), Politics have become very important to me (learning where or country is going and who is trying to gain power in the world is not only important to me but necessary) and I have successfully made it through college and have brought myself back from being homeless at times and have done what it takes to get far from that drunk mentality.

     Back then: When I was young, like 7 or 8, I did everything I could to hide any thoughts of femininity at all. I ignored and pretended to be someone I was not so hard that it affected me on a deep level. Anything I did that wasn't "typically male" was hidden from everyone no matter what and I did things and played with toys and talked about things that I internally hated just to pretend I was what I was supposed to be.

     Now: Since opening up to those close to me about my true self, I have honestly been feeling like a human. I have been slowly opening up more and more and letting myself feel comfort in my regular life that I've never been able to feel at all ever before.

It reminds me of this: clench a muscle, now hold it for an hour. Imagine at that point, the people you trust or should trust the most tell you that you're a sick monster if you unclench that muscle and you're told society knows that unclenching that muscle is just wrong and never okay ever. So hold it clenched for a day, a week and a year.


Now unclench it and feel that comfortable feeling...that's what I'm slowly feeling right now. It's almost scary even though it's been at least respected as a decision I've already made but it feels like I'm actually allowed to be relaxed in that way. Ever.

It's not just freeing, it's like having that muscle back or in my case, having that muscle for the first time.
There was an episode of House MD that displayed this philosophy, a Canadian soldier was angry and messing with House and one day House broke into his house and helped him to unclench a muscle, it was actually an arm that he lost in war; when he lost it it was clenched hard and he never lost that feeling till House showed him how to relax that phantom pain

     Back then: I walked around looking at everyone, kinda studying everyone else and wondering
why I couldn't be a normal standard male human. It made me think I was an alien or a freak or like an Xman but with no cool powers. I often held that against myself and sometimes I held it against friends and treated them badly; I tried to copy what others did but like pinterest attempts, that usually went hilariously bad...nailed it.

 I thought of myself as the one that  was meant to just be made fun of and left out and the odd man out...so to speak. No other male friends wanted so badly to wear and do makeup, no other male Friends wanted to dress and look pretty while hating...despising being considered handsome or manly. And no other male friends of mine as a kid were just so sad because they had to pretend to like GI Joe's or Transformers, they all loved it and it was clear.

     Now: In the last few months, I've been slowly working more things in my life that I truly enjoy and taking out things I don't. It's been a lot of fun growing my hair out and wearing nail polish and wearing small amounts of makeup then seeing how people do or do not notice these little changes. I think it's in the best interest for me and for the people around me that I respect that I make slow changes and kinda allow us all to accept these changes little by little. It's kinda like growth, we didn't wake up one day as full grown adults and I am kinda treating this like that. It's for myself to slowly be able to enjoy and understand what I'm doing fully as much as it is for my friends and those I consider family to take it in slowly.

I don't think it would help anyone else to see me one day just wearing a dress the day after wearing khaki pants and looking the way I regularly look; the culture shock isn't worth the ripple it would create especially when there is a way that I can do what I want and need to but do it in a way to avoid that potentially rude and harmful quick jump into femininity.

 I'm not saying that anyone else should not do that, every single case of someone coming out as gay or trans or nonbinary should be taking as a 
special and delicate situation and treated based on what's going on in THAT situation specifically. No two situations are exactly alike nor should they be handled the same just because another person's situation went a certain way.

     So today is the first day of me living the life I feel I deserve, it's not going to be easy and it's going to bring a lot of problems that I will need to deal with and learn on the fly how to handle but it's the life I know I will actually feel like it's worth living and I hope anyone who is struggling can find a way to get to the point where they're living a life worth living to them.

     To anyone who has kept up with my diary, I can't thank you enough and I want you to know that through my suicidal issues and through my depression and through my bad times, I know at the end of the day I don't want to die or be miserable; I want to be happy and be okay. And I'm trying.

Thank you.