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:
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
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