The pending talk ahead

Hello blog - 

I'm starting down that unknown path again and feel scared and afraid and alone but know I must do this.  Maybe I'm being over dramatic but I have been lying awake at night thinking about the future and what it may mean for me.  

I know I need to back up and add some context to help describe my state of mind here so here it goes.

As I have chronicled in the blog here through the years, I spent many many years not understanding what being trans meant not understanding these feelings inside me that I had been reliougly taught were wrong and sinful.  While I can wish I had some of that time back with the knowledge I have today, that is all time in the past that can only be reflected upon in the present.

Eventually, I continued to research and explore and try to figure things out.  This led me to coming out to my partner which was an epic failure and then was followed by years of therapy, soul searching, denying and self-hating that again I want to leave in the pile of the past.

This past year has gotten me back into the discovery phase of what I am and debating whether or not I am trans or what the hell I may be classified into.  Still not 100% certain on this, but feel like trans is the best definition I have to go on.  I have been trying to confront some of the traumas of my childhood through talk and K therapy and this has not been an easy summer with all those emotions coming up to the surface that I suppressed a long, long time ago.

Now, where this leads me is to present and what direction to point my ship towards for the future.  I feel like I owe my spouse a good honest talking as this subject we both have been thinking about and both have been avoiding talking about.  Its so funny how you both can know there is a problem and pretend that if you don't talk about it then it really doesn't exist even though neither of you believe that.  I love my partner and she has been with me through so much and I never want to lose her.

But...

I also struggle each day getting up and putting on this false charade and pretending.  I am thinking that I need to be that caterpiller busting out of their cocoon and start to look at the world that I want to be.  If I will continue to be a caterpiller or a butterfly or something in-between I do not know.  That is the truth.

What I do know is that we need to talk about these things.  We need to talk about how my heart aches and wants to go out into the world more often as Jaclyn and experience the community and life without pretending to be what I think others want me to be.  I think about wanting to have my own private space for my collections and to escape and dress in whenever I need that part of me to be alive.  I think about how my mind is a storm everyday and how micro-dosing or other treatments may help bring some calmness to the storm within.  I think about mostly what all of this means.

That brings me up to this week at least in a quick summary of my thoughts.  This week with the help of my therapist, my partner and I are planning to have that talk.  We promised each other that we need to finally speak even though both of us are scared shitless on what that means.  The anxiety and fear that she will toss me out into the street or that I will fold and waffle again is a 100 on a 1 to 10 point scale.

I am so scared.  

I admit that.  I just don't know how this will all go and wish it was at the beginning of the week instead of having to wait out the entire week to have time for this.   But especially, I am anxious as of this time next week how I will be feeling about myself - will I feel like I have taken a tiny step forward or will I feel the crushing disappointment that I withdrew and denied my true self once again.   How will I deal with pain, disappointment or any emotion that my spouse feels and not feel selfish at the same time.  What will be my next step from there?

There is alot of still unanswered and unknown questions here and trying to take it one small one at a time.  I need to stay in the present since I cannot control the past or future but saying and doing are two different things. 

I just am glad I have this refuge to use when I feel so alone like I do right now.

Hugs,
Jaclyn

Poking my head outside my shell

 Hello blog,

Wanted to do some catch-up journaling since while there has been alot of thoughts in my head lately I have had some trouble getting the words down in type here.

To start with, I feel alot more alive today then I have been for awhile.  Last week I had a successful day that I set aside for myself, to pamper and dress and spend some time in the mall being out and about.  I did meet up with my therapist, which while it was an artifical construct we tended to talk more like girl friends rather than like patient-therapist.  That was so nice to and feeling of freedom even though it took me some time to relax and stop focusing on every little step or passerby glance.

This is leading up to a business trip this week where I am going to plan to take a few nights to go out again after the day is done.  I haven't felt like looking forward to something like this for a long time so I can't wait to go.

Where that leaves me at is something that I have been avoidant at.  I need to start the discussion again with my wife about expressing myself.  I am worried about this outcome going two different ways.  First, if she rejects and demands that I don't go out as before, I feel this is going to trigger shame, anger, and lead to another depressive episode.  I feel that I live so close to going down under that I can see that ending up if this conversation bombs.

On the other hand, if this conversation goes well and we come up with some agreement for Jaclyn time, I am worried what that may lead to.  Even as I am excited to go out this week, I am also feeling sad that after this week it may be some time again when I can arrange a night out.  For me, it feels like a compulsion to get dressed and go out even when putting the clothes and wigs and makeup away is gut-wretching and distressing to me.  So, if this conversation goes well and I do start to explore more then I guess what I am saying is that I am scared what that may lead to afterwards.  

I know that I must be a pessmist that I can only see negative outcomes regardless of which way things go. I am telling myself to relax, to breathe and to just enjoy the present week ahead for now.

I will keep journalling here as I need this outlet to work through all of my thoughts.  Until next time.

Hugs,

~Jaclyn

Anxious thoughts

 Hello blog - 

I have been in a funk kinda of lately so I have been away from writing and sharing my thoughts outside of my tiny brain here.   It seems like things go well for awhile then all of a sudden one of these funks come along and wallop me and send me back again.  

Anywho, today may or may not be a big day for me and my partner and addressing my gender feelings.   My therapist has arranged some time for us to try and approach this discussion once again and I am hoping to have the strength and courage for it.  I am completely unsure how things will go and have sinking feelings about another disaster or else we will briefly talk and then pretend again that it doesn't exist.

I'm really anxious today and hope things go well.  I'm not sure what outcome I want so that is maddening and has me on edge.

Fingers crossed.

Jaclyn

Continuing to play a charade

Good morning blog,

This week I have been really struggling with living dual gender lives.   That is, while I spend the majority of my time playing the role of a normal, socially acceptable cis male in appearance and actions, inside I feel much differently and hate myself for this facade that I wear.  

It really is wearing down on me just keeping quiet and doing what is expected of me instead of what I want. While that may sound like something simple to fix, there are lots of things holding me back here with probably the biggest one my courage to actually do anything about it.

The fact is that I need some help, need some support, need something to kick me in the ass here.  I can trade emails and messages with other similar trans-questioning and trans-knowing folks but I feel so inferior around them.  I am my worst enemy of sorts and resolve each day to change this but come up short.

I sometimes feel like a caterpillar that refuse to spin herself a cocoon.  Idk, maybe I am being too much of a drama queen again, I just feel tired from this all.

Hugs,

Jaclyn

Looking for intimacy

 Hello blog,

I have been doing more thinking and pondering about intimacy, or more appropriately my current lack of being able to share intimacy with others.

For my thoughts on this subject right now, I am not talking about the physical sex act(s) but instead the broader concept of intimacy which is about being able to be vulnerable and trusting with others enough to share one's deepest feelings, emotions and connections.

I know this all sounds like therapist speak and the discussion of trust (or my lack of it) did come up in many sessions recently.   Where my current scattered mind is this week is around how I feel lacking in the intimacy currently in my life and how I prevent this.

Probably writting this blog is the closest I really come to intimacy and yet since it is anonymous and not shared outside of a few random people that may stumble across, I would consider this an one-way form which I am only using for a safe place to dump my thoughts without having to actually confort anyone (aka the chickenshit escape of intimacy).

Here's the thing, I know what intimacy is, I have shared some of my deep feelings and emotions with others before.  I have cried and connected and felt that human connection that I cannot express in simple terms but believe that it was there and I have found this to be more rewarding and gratifying than any physcial pleasure (from any physcial manifestion of intimacy).

But today I feel part of the reason that I am stuck is that I have trouble or run away from any form of sharing intimate thoughts and feelings with anyone I love or feel close to.  I can logically go back to some times when I tried to be vulnerable and was rejected and say that now I am hiding from this as it feels safer than taking a chance again.  I feel like I have forgiven the person that inflicted this pain and we have discussed and gotten past this, but still I feel too shy to get back up on that proverbal horse and share and be intimate with them again.

I wish I had a solution here like all of my other rambling musings I am just able to observe and not seeming to do anything about it at the moment.

I know that someday I need to go back there and I need to trust and be vulnerable as intimacy is part of the human existense and connection that we as social creatures need with each other.  I want to have that feeling again, it is just so hard to find it again once it has been lost.

~~~ Jaclyn

self sabotage

 Hi blog,

I'm feeling rather depressed and disappointed at myself again lately.  I have been pushing myself towards self-acceptance only to push back even harder on me.

Last week I signed up for a virtual support group, attended it for a few minutes and then had to leave as the self-hatred and sef-disgust was welling up inside.  I do not know why I have so much self sabotage but I find the word hate being used alot by me to describe myself and my actions.

I feel like such a fraud, such a loser and incapable of letting myself get better.  Even during therapy sessions instead of trying to listen and seek solutions I spend the majority of time thinking how much I hate myself and how much I will never let myself change.

I don't know what to do at this point.  I really feel alone and want to let someone into my life but cannot seem to not push them away and feel worse about myself.

I feel the negative self talk and suicidal thoughts increasing each day more and more.  If I knew there was a light at the end of this tunnel it would be easier to handle all this pain but I don't feel I can allow myself to take even a step towards it.

I am really in alot of pain right now and feel so empty inside.

~ 😭Jaclyn

In the dark again

 Hello blog,

It has been a few weeks since my last entry as I spent some time in the depression pit of self-hate and self loathing once again.

I wish I could avoid or at least not dwell there as I seem to do.  Durig this time period I finished my first round of K sessions and they left me feeling sad and down as I was headed in that trajectory going into them.

Overall I do not know if this has helped at all even though my therapists seem to think they made some progress and I should continue.  They are a very tiring experience and I think I need a break at least until the end of the summer from them.

During this time I have also gone back to try the anti-depressant route again and trying to hold off on judgement of those.  Really what I need to do to be happy is to get out and just be Jaclyn but I am struggling being able to do that for various reasons.

The biggest reason is myself and allowing myself out without shame.  I have had some really intense self-inflicted shame episodes after going out that I now feel afraid of the after effects and cannot shut off my stupid brain and relax and just feel good.  Combine that with my negative self judgement and I seemed to be unable to overcome this.   Like how I feel unable to overcome the pits of self depression I feel like my brain is broken or at least I am certifiable crazy here.

I woke up today really wanting to go out.  It is part of my cycle I know and I wish I had someone nearby to help and encourage me on and tell me it is ok.  I feel broken and alone.   I guess that is why I write so much about this.

I dunno.  I just feel lost.

giving up hope

 Today I feel like an utter failure.  I know that I tried telling myself my daily affirmations and thought stopping but this feeling has been building the last few days and I cannot stop the landslide in my mind.

I thought I was getting better but realize that was all an illusion.  I am incapable to be well and I feel like the most pathetic, worthless being alive right now.  That being said I question that alive part and the wisdom of not just giving up at times.

My body/gender dysphoria is like constant alarm here lately and I am struggling how to explain this to others that have no idea what that is like.  But the real struggle is more mental than physical as I feel so f@ck!d up and hopeless.

I don't know why I even try.

I am not a disapointment

 Hello blog.

Today with my last day of K treatment for awhile but probably not forever.  I am planning to take a break to re-assess, re-inventory and re-evaluate myself and there is still much work to be done.

Todays big emotional quest was around one of my core misbelief that I am a disappointment to everyone.

I am writing this out to try to remove some of the power of this incorrect thought as rationalizing it out helps me accept that it is not the truth.  I know the source of this thought was taught to me over my entire childhood and that since that time I looked for any small reason to validate it with all my relationships afterwards.  I know that this truth is not something that I ever want to pass along to my child and I may over compensate by telling them over and over how proud they make me feel.

I know alot of things, yet this thought of failure and disappointment goes so deep and is so familiar to my essence that I habitual have repeated this to myself in the past.

That is what the inner peace I am wrangling with today.  In order to change this normal thought pattern, I need to find something to replace it and to unconditionally accept this new truth.

So here goes.  

I have an inner light that brings joy and happiness to others.   I enrich their lives by being part of them as they also enrich mine.  Not everything I do, not everything I say, not everyway I look or react or anything else will always be approved by them and that is ok.  That does not mean that they do not love me, that they judge me or they are disappointed in me overall but may be in an action or part of me.

I have value.  I have self worth and not everyone is going to agree or see it.  I cannot control their thoughts and actions like they cannot control mine.  The world is a better place with me in it.

I am going to probably keep working on this and refining it, but I am also going to keep telling it to myself.

I just need to take things day by day.   

Hugs,
Jaclyn

Just to be

 Hello blog,

As I am winding down my ketamine sessions, I wanted to take a moment to self-reflect here on the thoughts going through my head at this moment in time.

It has been really hard treatment sessions for me and I did not expect how much it would take out of me. Perhaps I am not a good pharmaceutical person but this treatment has not given me many highs but more a difficult struggle against as my nature is to resist giving up control.  Nevertheless, I continue to push myself to undertake while trying not to judge but to observe the feelings and emotions that get stirred up.

Perhaps the largest feelings that seem to revolve around trying to get past my all consuming self-hate and to accept the different facets of myself without judgement.  There is inner child trauma and struggle there as I need to break past the patterns I developed as a result of prior words and actions that I have absorbed. But really the biggest issue keeps coming back to loving and accepting myself as Jaclyn.

Today the biggest thing that I wish I could feel is the freedom to be out and to just be.  Probably sounds really simple to be walking down the street or at the mall or wherever and to be myself without any thoughts/worries that others may judge me or view me as a freak or some other misguided thought I assume others think when they see Jaclyn.

I just want to be alive and just to be.   There are so many implications, complications, questions and negotiations with my family around this simple sentence and I am not going to delude myself to think that it will be simple and that others will agree with everything.  

What I think though is that I need to start this conversation over again - perhaps slowly only a bit at a time - but I do need to stop pretending it is not something I want and to face the music so to say.

In a way, it feels like coming out once again.  12 years ago I attempted this and planned everything out down to the words that I would say and still it was a large disaster.

I am not sure what will happen this time, but I am not going to plan and not going to try to avalanche my family all at once but rather try to take a more deliberate (albeit a painfully slow one to me) approach to come out again.  In my mind I really wish I could transition tomorrow into a 24/7 woman but I am going to approach this without trying to plan or look ahead and to see where I land after a bit.

I hope that this makes sense.  I tend to doubt myself and chicken out and hope I can have the strength to better my life.  In some ways, I feel like my life depends on it (maybe I am a drama queen lol).

Until then, trying to take things day by day here.

Hugs,
Jaclyn

  

Forgiving myself

Hello blog,

This weekend marks the 12th anniversary of one of the main reasons that I started writing down my inner thoughts and ideas.  Specifically, this past Friday was the 12th anniversary of my first coming out to anyone in my family or friend cycle.  

Thinking back on that time, I started writing a few years earlier as I was coming to understand myself, my inner feelings towards gender and then using it to work out what I would do with this knowledge in the outside real world.

That particular day 12 years ago went so disastrously wrong and so differently that what I was hoping for.  I have spent uncountable number of hours since reliving and contemplating this day, feeling so much sadness, pain, hate, confusion and doubting myself and what I was really expecting.

I know realize that it was really not realistic for the thoughts and feelings that took me almost 30 years to figure out to be shared and understood in one short afternoon.  I was so hurt from the initial reactions from "your therapist must be filing you with these incorrect ideas" to "are you gay, does that make me gay" to "you are wrong" to some other name calling that I don't want to enumerate.   My partner from that day has since asked for forgiveness of her reaction in our limited conversations since then.

While I have been thinking that I am struggling at not being able to forgive her, in the past few weeks I have started to realize is that the real reason is that I have not forgiven myself.

I have not forgiven myself for the perceived pain I caused her and myself on that day since I was not at the point of true self acceptance.  I have not forgiven myself for the struggles during these past 12 years that at times have results in mental health so bad that I have alarmed others to act on my behalf.  I have not forgiven myself and tried to cut and eliminate this part of my life while being totally obsessed with it at other times.

I have not forgiven myself for having Jaclyn as part of my life.  Not my only part or the shameful part or the hidden part.  Jaclyn is a part of my life at all times like my male part is regardless of the appearance I put on.

I realize that now and I am working on daily affirmations to reassure myself this - " I am not a failure.  I am valuable.  The world is better with me in it".

The question is really what do I do from here to go forward.

I feel like I have in some ways taken a really really long way to get back to the same place I was 12 years ago.  Maybe not, I have many of other experiences and actually I think I am at a better place with my self-assurance and knowledge of what I want.  

All that is left to do is to have the conversation again but this time with strength and self assurance.  I have thought about this and have chickened out so many times - the day after my coming out 12 years ago, after my hospital stays, after talking with others in the community, after so many hours of self contemplation, after .....

Like how much I felt before I need to have that conversation again.  But with compassion and listening to my partner, to not deter my feelings if responses are not what I was hoping for, and with forgiveness for myself for taking so long to get to this point and all the failures before now.

I need to come out again, not as Jaclyn but as myself with many different facets that I don't need to hide or feel ashamed about.  I can't control others reactions or predict what the results will be, but to be true and honest to others and more importantly to myself.

I forgive myself and love myself for who I am.

Push to reach the summit of mount acceptance

 Hello Blog,

This week I am coming up on a date on a calendar that has caused me great angst in the past.  It will be date that I mark the anniversary of my coming out - that is the date that I shared the feelings I had hidden deep inside me about my gender with my family for the first time.

This will be my 12th anniversary of this date, and looking back brings alot of emotions to the surface.  Most of them not very good as my first attempt at coming out was a crash and burn disaster as I have detailed and pined about many many times in this blog.

I remember the reason I started this blog was to try and get an outlet to share my thoughts and build up for that date I would eventually come out.  That was one of those things which in hindsight seems really short sighted and I have used this outlet from time to time for so much more.  Mostly to have a safe place to explore, to scream out the thoughts that I hid deep inside from others, and a place to keep my sanity.

I am preparing for my next treatment session which will occur right before this anniversary, and I am preparing for a specific purpose of this session.  While it is an artificial environment, I am intending to try to force myself to be open and vulnerable and to face the fearsome prospect of accepting myself.  I know that I have been my biggest critic, my biggest foe and destructor trying to protect myself while inflicting so much self harm.  I need to face myself and wage the battle inside my head and finally reach that point of self acceptance that I has been the holy grail I have been searching for.

If I can achieve that, then the next part is to go forward with others.  That is another scary mountain to climb but I can't even start that path until I summit the fear inside of accepting myself and that this is good.

I am Jaclyn and Jaclyn will always be a part of me.  

hanging on by my pinkie

 Hanging on by just my pinkie.  

That's sort of where I am at this moment in time as it feels like the quietness I am portraying is hiding the storms roiling inside of me.  I have been agonizing over my cycle of my self-acceptance / rejection / depression and lately these have become really intense.  I am not sure if the ketamine treatments are intensifying this or if this is just another intense period of my gender identity questioning but either way I feel very near the edge.  I feel like I am at the point right now where I am just hanging on to my current reality by just one pinkie and dangling and barely holding on.

Today my therapist told me that it is hardest right before change and hardest right before breaking through. I don't know what I am breaking through and don't feel prepared for anything, but I think change will be coming no matter how much I fight against it.  I know that I have been fighting it and scared of the future and a mix of fear and emotions and holding on to the tiniest bit.  I just need to let go.

Being a transphobe

 Hello Blog,

I have been on a long path of self-discovery and acceptance and want to start this entry off by a single, polarizing and ugly sounding statement.  I am a transphobe.  

Now that I have admitted this fact, here are some of my supporting arguments for it.  I continue to seem to have thoughts/dreams of switching genders or taking actions like buying clothes, removing hair, researching hrt, etc. and then have feelings of immense self-hate.  I will sneak on a wig, or walk around an abandoned home in clothes and heels and then hit and cut myself afterwards in shame about these actions.  Just the moments I escape into this journal to write my private thoughts here that I don't share with the outside world fill me with tremendous guilt that I will be thinking about for awhile.  

If you tell me I am trans, I will reject this statement as that will be the worst insult I can receive.

Now I don't feel this way about anyone else - I am so supportive and overjoyed with those who are out living as they feel best for them and I also feel those who hide and cannot come out are also brave and strong in their own way.  I read stories and other blogs and admire the courage and empathy for other trans people as I can imagine it feels like the world is against you just for being different.

I just can't accept this for me without judgement and hate.  I have been talking about this lately as self-transphobia but really want to call a duck a duck here.  I am a transphobe because I hate myself for having any of these thoughts.  It is miserable, relentless shame, guilt and hate in this spiral as no matter what I do they are always there.  Like my transphobia, questions/thoughts of gender confusion seem to always be stuck inside me constantly battling with the hate and shame.  I only feel pain, despair and hopelessness as I don't see either side ever giving up.

That is what life is like for me.  I feel ugly, I feel small, I feel worthless. I am hoping that admitting that I am a transphobe is a step along this process and now I can figure out what that means for me to do from here.   

self acceptance struggle continues

Hello blog,

Just finished my second session with Ketamine as I search for some way to manage my depression and felt the need to spew some thoughts here.

After two sessions, I would have to hold my judgement still on the effectiveness of this treatment.  I know that the starting dosing are low and maybe that's why I am not seeing much, but for now I don't feel any improvement and of anything a little bit worsening. 

I think the probable is probably inside me since I am struggling with the goal that I want to get out of this. I feel in some ways I am trying to appease others that continue to convince me to pursue these actions.  Todays discussion came down to self acceptance which I feel intertwines my physical and mental personas.   I want to be with my family, I love my wife and have a comfortable life but I also have so much internal disgust in the male presentation of myself that is required for this.  Conversely, I feel freedom and happiness in my image and presence of this world as Jaclyn at the expense of my mental state.  This probably sounds like a ridiculous question for 99.999% of the world but I have no clarity, I have no answers, I have no peace.

I need to make a commitment soon if I am going to continue to try this Ketamine path to help my discovery, right now I feel 50-50 about going on or stopping.  I heard that people express benefits come after 4-5 sessions so I maybe I will just hold out hope or maybe not.

I just feel like I am in a terrible state and all alone right now.  I need somewhere to cry.

what i get from being miserable

 To someone that does not know me, it is probably very difficult for them to see and or to understand the ongoing daily depression I feel.  Truth be told, since I share very little and trust even less, most people probably have no sense that I feel this way.  I know my co-workers and parents which I interact with daily only see the false I'm fine facade that I put up for my protection and to not have to engage and go into details about how I really feel.  My wife and family know that I am sad often but I try to minimize and hide this alot of the time as well.   I know that it makes most people really uncomfortable and not knowing what to say when they ask the innocuous "How are you doing?" if I would honestly answer that I spent several minutes this morning just dreading waking up and dealing with another miserable day with no hope of things ever getting better and thinking that I should just end things.   Probably to most people just reading this and thinking about it would make them uneasy I think.

So the alternative is to just be positive, try to look on the bright side, fake it until you make it, or whatever catchphrase that we have heard to change our frame of reference.  I dunno, for me this approach is ridiculous and I don't seem to be able to pretend my way to happiness without feeling like a fraud.

Being as they would diagnose as chronically depressed, I have spent hours after hours thinking about this and being told by professionals I am stuck and challenged what benefit this has for me.  So that brings me to my point of this entry in trying to determine what I really get out of being so miserable.

If I take an outsider's perspective, I would start by thinking maybe this is a call for attention. But really I don't want to talk about how shitty I feel to anyone and I am really so introverted that any type of attention feels so uncomfortable that I don't think that's it.

I then think that I want to keep low expectations - nothing is ever going to get better in my world so why don't I keep the bar low so I don't keep feeling like a failure.  Or maybe my misery is a comfortable pattern that I don't want to shed - I am going to feel terrible so at least expect that and accept it and stay this way.  Is my almost daily suicidal thoughts and fantasies just some form of manipulation or revenge that I am doing inadvertently.

I could keep trying to think of reasons but the one that I seem to come to conclusion is the largest one (probably some of the others do contribute as well) is that I am scared to be lonely.  Probably this does not make sense to others how I could spend so much time hiding and avoiding people and being miserable and to do this to avoid loneliness.    

Here it is, basically in my fucked up logic if I tell anyone really how I feel or what I am I know they will reject me.  In my past I have analyzed all the reactions that I have gotten being "authentic" with people and while my family and friends say they will be accepting they will not.  If I stop pretending, I will most definitely lose my employment which providing financial support is really the only thing I provide for my family.  My wife will leave me, my daughter will be ashamed and/or disgusted and my parents will reject and/or not believe me and have no idea what to do.  

I will literally be left alone as there is no one I can count on that understands.  In my 20s, I spent the majority of that decade totally alone, friendless and without anyone. Unless you have lived a long time feeling isolated from everyone and being a spectator in the world, it is so hard to explain how afraid I am to know that will be my eventual state again.

I cannot go back to that, and I cannot see any possible way to avoid it in the scenarios I have played over and over in my broken brain.  Not looking for any argument on this, I just know in that this outcome is inevitable and cannot believe otherwise.

So instead, I am just going to put on the fake smile and say that I'm fine the next time someone asks how I am.  I am just going to keep muddling through another horrible day where I don't have anything to look forward to and I am going to find some remote corner to cry and cut and stay hidden away.  I am going to think that I should just swallow a bunch of pills or walk in front of traffic or myriad of ways that I should remove the burden that is myself from the world only to not do anything and live with shame and guilt of thinking this way.

I don't have any answers, just to accept it is my nature to be miserable and dredge on. 

  

struggling, again...

Good morning blog, at least it is morning but not so good for me right now.

Right now I am struggling alot.  I feel like the god damn GD has been really kicking in and this is fueling vicious rounds of internal transphobia. I feel lost and unable to concentrate on anything besides this wretched cycle that is going over and over in my mind.

And to the outside world I may just appear quiet, thoughtful, nondescript as I have no other outlet besides this one right now to use.

I so badly want to dress up, do my makeup, go shopping or get out of the house and I hate myself for this. More than anything I want to connect with someone who understands, not virtually but sitting across from them and having a cup of coffee or whatever and talking to another person that understands and has gone through this as well.

I know that therapists tell me that feelings are temporary and I need to breath and relax and be self compassionate and all this other BS.  I just can't seem to stop these intrusive thoughts right now no matter how hard I try and I am scratching my skin wanting it to stop (really really trying hard not to cut).  

Then the hate and disgust at myself I feel has only gotten more intense lately, I feel like every time I look at the media or news I just see more and more stories being run against trans people or how wrong being trans is in America and I can't stop but amplify my self hate with this.

I'm really not well.  I am a very sick person and I am too weak to do anything but to write about it and pretend I am fine.

Today is not a good day.

Being transphobic with gender identity issues

Hello blog,

Been doing alot of hard thinking and self-evaluation as I am preparing to try ketamine treatments as I way to get out of the unmovable rut that I am in.  It is hard for me to be honest and vulnerable IRL so I am using this platform once again to reveal parts of the hidden me.

Lately I have been returning to the trying to classify what I am and reviewing the thoughts, feelings and actions that I return to.   

What I have come up with is that I am self-transphobic with gender identity issues (I don't like the term gender identity disorder).

I don't know if this classification exists in the world or I just made things up, but it does seem clear to me in my head.

I feel like I have the gender identity each day, each moment when I look at the image of me and spend so much time to have a different body, a different sex, a different gender that the one I am forced in.

And then when I think these things, I feel ashamed. I feel guilty.  I feel so much self hate and anger at myself.

Admitting that I am transgender at any degree makes me so uncomfortable because I am transphobic.  Not towards others as I am so happy for them (although I feel jealous at times), but towards myself as having these feelings.  I doubt self-transphobia is a thing as one is probably transphobic or not, but I am giving myself permission to define it.

I am very skeptical that ketamine will be able to get me past my gender issues and/or being self-transphobic.  I doubt that it will get me to be able to address these things in real life and make much of a difference going forward.

What I am hoping, is that it may give me a bit of space to be self compassionate and to be honest and vulnerable.  I'm hoping that I can get past thinking or talking about these things without the mountain of shame and self-hatred that leads me to depression and suicidal thoughts.  I'm hoping that it will not cause more negative feelings inside of me.

So there it is and I think I am just may be making shit up but maybe I am getting somewhere. 

I don't have any clue what to do about being self-transphobic with gender identity issues which is so much more important to me that defining it.

Really I don't know much.

Considering K

 Hello blog,

I have had a lot of things on my mind lately even if it seems like there is not really much different day to day.  It is hard for me to gauge that though as living with chronic depression means that each day really feels like an endless stream of hopelessness and why bother and each day is only a checkmark on a calendar.

I literally would be hard pressed to think of anything I am looking forward to and really have been battling the constant self harm voices that seem so ever present.   Even the cutting sessions that I have seem pointless and not really make me feel any different either way.

After alot of advice, I have started to consider again ketamine therapy treatments as a possible path to move me from the stuck hole of depression I seem to wallow within.  I have been told this will help reframe my thinking and change my thoughts as this big term neuroplasticity keeps being thrown out to me.

I feel rather hopeless and skeptical of this changing anything, but feel like I don't have a choice in it.  I have researched and visited three facilities prior and think this will be last opportunity for it for me. 

I'm really scared of it but my therapist says that this is really fear of change.  I have so much self-hate and self-loathing of myself regardless of the gender and worried that this will just magnify those feelings. I have been feeling vey suicidal and thinking about those things and worry this may override any self-preservation that has been keeping me around.  Maybe that's a good thing.  Regardless, I feel that my spouse and therapists are pushing and I have no choice but to go through with it.  My thoughts and feelings are usually opposite of reality so I am going to have to give this a chance I believe.

I know I don't want to go on like this but I don't know if I want to change.   My life is all fucked up and I guess that is why I use this to escape.  I just wish I had some idea of what going forward would look like and had had any idea what to do.

I'm a fake

Hello blog.

I sitting here feeling small and sad today.  It is quiet, dark and I am all alone with just a keyboard and my tears. I have been writing and living in this virtual world for a really long time and I feel that this is all I will ever be.  I see some many other people out there in the real world that have strength and courage to follow their dreams and hopes and I am so happy for them.  

I wish it could be me, I wish I could have others encouraging me and have the strength to live and be what I feel inside but I can't.  I don't know why and can't but the explanation into words but I feel shameful and helpless and trapped.

Instead of the virtual persona that I pretend here,  I feel like a fraud a fake a pathetic person sitting alone in the dark typing. I am so miserable and so depressed and each day brings more of the same unfulfilled shitty day as the last.

I am so so sad and can't stop crying to myself. I hate myself for being me.

Being vulnerable

Hello I'm Jaclyn and I am a vulnerable person.

That may seem like a very simple and frivolous statement but there is a deeper meaning behind this for me.

This past week I have been spending time realizing how I am a scared person and have so many fears, and how all these fears are handcuffing my life.  Being someone that analyzes everything to death, I started by listing out all my fears and then organizing them into categories.

For instance, I created a group of fears related to my family which included my fear of causing them shame and embarrassment, fear of disappointing them and ultimately the huge fear of hurting them irrevocably by being selfish with any possible action I could take.

I have another group of fears that I grouped with society which include never being accepted, fear of being open/making friends with someone as I have nothing to offer, as being treated as a disgusting freak or being manipulated/lied to in order to fit social norms or someone else's agenda. 

From my past medical traumas, I have also fostered another set of fears towards people that may be wanting to help me as well.  This includes a fear towards trusting any one in the medical/therapeutic field and a fear of being told that I am hopelessly flawed and unfixable and worthless.  Yes I truly cannot trust anyone.

You probably see the point that I could keep going on listing fears including the fear that my ideas/perceptions are all wrong, fear that to trust others means that I need to give up some tiny bit of being in control and any change will be far worse than not doing anything and languishing in my fears.

As I list all of these down on a piece of paper, there is really one big hairy fear that they all tie into which is probably my ultimate fear.  This is the fear of me, the fear of trusting myself, the fear that allowing myself anything or acceptance will only lead to loss of everything and everyone and leave me completely empty and alone.

That is the fear this all leads to and the fear that drives me everyday to do or not do anything to change. I (aging myself here) harken back to The Wall by Pink Floyd as symbolic of my life.  Each day, all I do is put another brick on the layer that I use to hide away from the world and spend my time being depressed and alone in the entrapment I have built.  Whenever one of my fears comes up (queue the situation), this is my safety net that I run like hell back to isolate and cry.

I have been lying awake at night thinking why I get so traumatized by looking into a mirror or seeing myself in a photo.  My self body image is so intense that I spend several hours each day obsessing and hating myself with so much disgust that I can't capture in words.  I believe that these feelings may be manifestation of my personal fear.  It is my fear of peering over the edge of the bricks I have built around me that I thought were for protection but really have been a prison. 

I hate and I am disgusted of myself because I am afraid of myself.

That brings me back to my opening proclamation to be vulnerable.  Again it mean seem like something that comes from being self accepting or trusting others but just telling myself that I am vulnerable to others at this moment in my life is really a huge thing to me.  This means that I am giving up at least the tiniest bit of control or protection at open up to others.  It means that I have to suspend all my fears, all my self-judgements, all those voices in my head that tell me to hid and build my wall higher and higher.   To someone it may seem like a very tiny step but for me this seems like an impossible one nonetheless.

Which is why I am starting to take this step today, right now, right here in the anonymous and protected virtual world.  I still do not feel like I can transfer this vulnerability to the real world as my fears are still too strong against me.  I know that out in the world there are so many people sharing and trusting and being vulnerable and living, but I just don't feel capable of that at this moment.   All I can do is to write about this and talk to myself here and I just need to practice within my walls before I can remove the first brick.

Maybe one day I will be lying awake in the middle of the night not thinking about all my fears but feeling like I actually did something instead of run away from them.  For today, my bravery is just going to be trying to trust and open myself up in writing here and be vulnerable just in a tiny bit.  This all I can be today.

Trying to find unconditional happiness

In my quiet and isolated world of self-reflect, I have been thinking a lot about happiness lately at the challenge of trying to identify it. 

Not just the things that make me happy, but the feelings and instances where I recall some form of over-brimming happiness in my life. For a sad and depressed person like me, finding spots of happiness in my memory is a difficult task. I can think of a few recent occurrences but those are mostly what I call as conditional happiness. 

To me, conditional happiness is the type of happiness you tell yourself without fully feeling it.  To me, this involves my happiness being totally dependent on the moment/action/event causing someone near me to feel or at least appear to feel happy.  I have been trapped in this conditional happiness pattern for a long time as I have trouble valuing myself not at the bottom of everyone else and not feeling I have any right to deserve to be happy.  Call that low self-worth or depression or any other therapeutic term but I can only remember times when I smiled and pretended to be happy in my recent memory.

So, I guess what I am thinking about today is what I am going to label unconditional happiness. To me, these are the happy moments that seem to gush out of you. The moments when your head is swimming and dancing and feeling unencumbered by what anyone else says, thinks or sees. I can't give it an exact clinical definition, but I think this is a moment that you feel happiness for yourself without any guilt, shame or any other feeling of others. For someone that perhaps never grew up in an environment with unconditional love, it is not surprising that I struggle with unconditional happiness as well. To be honest with myself, the last moment that I can recall as having this unconditional moment was being Jaclyn.

That was an evening that I went out, shared and was vulnerable to a total stranger and allowed her to make me feel good about myself. We took several photos that night that I use as my profile pic - I consider those my glamour shots not only for my photo image but because of the feelings of that night that I get looking at them. I struggle with words to the feelings that I still get with those images even though these are so long now in the past and I have felt so much shame and guilt about them since. I'm sort of still chasing that high from that night and chasing those feelings but I cannot. I don't know if the reality of consequences or my fear or what the reason it is but I don't think I can get back to that point ever again. 

At the present, I am struggling with going out in the world again and feeling vulnerable and true.  I snook out in some jeggings last week for a very brief moment and that mere act was extremely difficult.

I felt ashamed and along and pathetic at this all and wonder why I spent so much energy around a very silly and brief moment.

My pattern seems to be devoid of finding unconditional happiness again.  I have crashed and burned and can't seem to reframe myself anymore. I have another opportunity to explore ketamine treatment as a suggestion to try to open up the blocked pathways in front of me.  I am so scared at this prospect and know my history of shrinking away. I have banged my head against the figurative wall so many times an outsider may use the cliché that I am scared of being happy. 

I am not in charge of my emotions and happiness is another thing I rely on from others.  At this moment, I am very doubtful that I will ever feel unconditional happiness again.  I wonder if this is something unachievable that we all chase or is there some secret to it I am yet to find. I guess I will continue wandering in the darkness alone on this one for now.

Until the moment that I can again be vulnerable, that I can again trust and be open, until the moment that I can accept myself, I don't think I will be able to accomplish this unconditional happiness I seek.  The steps for this just seem so far away for me.

re-socialization?

 Hello blog -

I am sitting alone and doing one of those things I seem to do often here - contemplate my life and thoughts and not really do much else beside write about them.  Last week I did get a brief time to spend as Jaclyn which felt good and also did not because I seem to be trapped inside by myself.

I am not sure why I feel like I cannot go out anymore, I was doing it with more frequency and going to more public places before but now I feel like I have lost the ability to be social.

I think it may have started with Covid trapping us inside around five years ago as the opportunity for me to dress went away for a long time as my family while knowing is also not accepting.   But if that was a reason I am sure it is not the only reason as I feel depressed and trapped even at home alone now.

I feel like I need something or someone or ??? to help me re-socialize.  Sounds really crazy but I I feel more scared today in going out than I did almost 15 years ago when I left home as Jaclyn for the first time. I question myself at every opportunity and feel ashamed and depressed for being me.

How does an older person meet others or make friends?  I am a severe introvert so I just can't go up to a stranger and start a conversation or relax.  I really miss having friends to talk to that understand and I can share with which is probably why I type so many lonely thoughts out in my blog here.

I want to set a goal to go out at least 1 time in the next 90 days.  If I can make a new friend that would be a bonus but right now that seems like a stretch.  I don't know if I can do it but I can't if I don't try.

Until then...

checking out

Today is the 17th of January 2025 and I am sitting here alone once again with my blog to journal out the thoughts in my head.  I have been feeling depressed all week bundled up inside while the world around me is cold and dark.  I am not sure if this is all because of the weather or that I have disengaged with the world at large.

Nothing seems to help to warm me up with this cold that seems like it comes within.

I can't remember the last time that I dressed as Jaclyn and gone out and this phase of my life seems like another miserable failing.  I still hate my body so much from any part of it I think about, but I also hate everything non-physical about myself.

I'm giving up whatever this was as I must have been deluding myself since nothing ever changes. I am not trans but really I am mentally ill and have accepted that is all I will ever be.

I've started cutting again but that doesn't give any relief anymore and really everyday looks like the same as the last day of meaningless shit. My therapist tells me that she feels happiness is possible but really I hate that false promise.  

Right now there is nothing I look forward to and dread just getting out of bed knowing that it is just a waste of motions throughout the day.  I just am a fucking idiot sitting here alone behind a keyboard documenting trivial dribble with the sick thoughts in my head.

I am not a victim or someone to pity, I am just a mistake and not worth being in this world.

Today is the 17th of January 2025 and I am checking out from here. I don't think I'll be back or at least not for a long while.