Labeling

 Good morning blog,

I've been feeling the urge to write again lately as part of my self-discovery so I wanted to leave a few words here today.   Recently upon reaching a really low point, I've decided to give things a try again at rediscovery and trying to figure sh#t out.  Specifically, I feel today that I need to take some time and been truly honest with myself and understand what I am.

I've started up with a new therapist with gender experience and hope that I will be able to trust and make some progress here.  In order to do so, I feel like I have to work with her to find a honest and true label for myself.

In the past, I have despised the idea of labeling and look at all the negative impacts that has.  I guess when I hate that the world is gender binary, I feel like for those of us that don't feel like we are in either of the 2 boxes that society wants to create a label to put us in a tidy little third box and tuck us away from view.  I also feel that if you have a label like transgender or cross-dresser or whatever then expectations of what you are and what you should do soon come with that.  

I don't think I have any idea of what I should do or what I should be for people's expectations which is the main reason I have been fighting labels.

But part of my struggle and zig-zagging journey is due to not being able to look at things another way so I am going to take the time to do that now.  I started by thinking that having a label would be helpful in describing my feelings and thoughts when trying to connect with my new therapist.  Hoping that she would say something like 'hey you seem to be a classic xyz type person, so you should do this'.

Really wouldn't that be so fucking nice.

But in reality, I know that is about as far-fetched as my fantasy of blowing out my next birthday candles and then waking up as a beautiful cis-gender woman. 

What I really think (and so very hope for!) is that going through this labeling exercise will help me because of the process and not of the outcome.  I feel because of my past experiences, I have really gone further underground and further hidden due to the pain from trying to come out before.  Yes, I'm ashamed of how I have reacted and want to come clean and honest with myself.  I've felt so lost in who I am and what I want and need something to shine a light on point me out. I'm scared, I'm alone, and I'm unconfident that I will get anywhere besides flailing in the dark again but this seems like something to try. 

This all probably sounds comical or ridiculous to most people and I know the common reaction would be to hit me over the head and say hey dummy, its so obvious that what you are.   I dunno, I guess I feel like a dummy that needs to do this anyway.   I started today and listed out around a dozen different thoughts and behaviors that I thought cold give some clue to me on what I am this morning, and the next step will be for me to address and be honest to myself about each of these.  That will probably lead to alot of writing over the next period here and I hope I can feel brave enough to share.

Until then, I am going to continue in my confused, hidden and lonely little world here.  ~ Jaclyn

Trapped inside my head

 

Trapped inside my head

I’m trapped inside my head,

In this strange world I’m alone,

Sometimes I wish I were dead,

Sometimes I wish I belonged,

 

In the safety of this place I seek,

Somewhere to run away,

Here my masks I can discard,

Here only briefly can I stay,

 

Alone, confused, screaming at the world,

Alone, in shame, rolling in the waves of pain,

I suffer endlessly.

 

There are lots of words I hear,

Advice on paths to take,

I just want to disappear,

I feel I am a mistake,

 

I don’t know what they all do mean,

When they say I can be free,

By just accepting myself,

When I don’t know what that means,

 

I’m a fake, a fraud, trapped in this prison forever,

I’m weak, pathetic, a victimizer to me,

My penance is to be here to stay.

  

The relentless moon rises on another night,

I lie awake in the quiet solitude again,

Travelling back through this miserable world,

I go off in search of a friend,

 

To fantasize of what cannot be,

To entertain an alternative reality,

To imagine what it is like to be free,

In a world that doesn’t penalize me,

 

For me, I’m lost, I’m trapped inside my head,

For me, I’m gone, not alive but mostly dead,

This is all I’ll ever be.

More questions, less answers

 Good morning blog,

I just spent a long night of thinking (brooding) and needed to write some of these feelings out to try and work myself through them.  Since this blog is for me I do not want to apologize for any ignorance that I have wrote here, but I do realize being in a possible public space this may offend some people. Please realize that I have plenty of psychiatric history to not classify myself as a sane person, and I do know that I have a severely distorted sense of the world from what I am told.  I am just trying to relay a little bit of my truth here and if I do spout some garbage here that bothers you, feel free to stop reading and know that I apologize in advance.  The very last thing I ever want to do is to hurt anyone else in this world, but I do feel I owe myself to work through my truth. 

Lately I've been trying to understand what it means to me to say that I am trans.  I know all the formal DSM definitions of this, but really trying to put this all into my words to help me understand myself.

I think for me, I view this world mostly in the binary two genders as that is the reality I have been existing in.  There is a men's world and a women's world and there are conscious and unconscious bias by society and by me.   The $1B Barbie movie is just a recent example to me of this point, the main story talked about from the movie that I have seen is how the doll portrays how women are viewed as second class to men, rather than do we really need to have a Barbie and Ken world separate at all.  I didn't see any butch Barbie's or Ken's in a dress on screen, perhaps again my pre-biases missed the point of the story again.

In my world all I can see is there are men and there are women and we can say they are separate and equal but that is a load of BS.   For those of us that don't fall into our biological assigned group (see Mr. Desantis if you need formal definitions of this),  the overwhelming majority of people that we will interact with us will be tolerate and respectful but also conscious or unconsciously place us into some group.

For those who consciously react, that is pretty simple - they need us to go into the right restroom, to interact and talk to us with the right pronouns or emotions, to have the right presentation and keep everyone on their correct side like how the boys and girl used to separate in my time in a junior high dance or at church.

The harder differences to me are the unconscious reactions - the way someone approaches and interacts with another person after determining their gender, the differences in conversation and tone people have when talking within their own gender vs. conversing across genders, the way emotions are accepted and expressed by men and women.  I have been out shopping for clothes (presenting as either male and female) and have observed the "looks" from someone that has an unconscious bias to know this exists.  I could go down a rabbit hole here in countless many more ways, but I will suffice in stating that in my view society at least today feels the need to classify most things into a binary world.   

Really the concept that I keep coming back to here is segregation.   I know that concept usually correlates with racial injustices and is so more eloquently and correctly addressed by those who have fought and continue to fight the racial injustices of society and I humbly appreciate their struggle and contributions.  But I do feel in my view that really we exist in a world today that is segregated by gender and this causes me so much pain.

I guess for me, it has always meant that I need to get up and exist in a man's world because that is the appearance everyone sees on the outside.  It means dressing in limited range of clothes, being expected to act and react in a certain manner around others, carry myself in a certain way, talk and express emotions to not make others uncomfortable, etc. etc.   I have believed (you can blame it on being what I have been taught and trained into thinking) that my biological makeup has determined how I need to present and be in the world and I shouldn't really question this.  Maybe I'm too stupid to understand this basic fact, but to me it almost feels like their is a men's and women's club and I should feel ashamed and disgusted in myself for ever wanting to reject my preassigned one and wanting to be in the other.

I know that I am flaying badly here, but I am working up to trying to get to my point here.  I guess in my core, I don't feel like I want to be into either group.  I hate so much being a man and just getting up each day and playing that role deadens another little part of me.  I have done that so long that I really don't feel much of anything anymore, my crying about it has stopped and trying to hurt myself doesn't even register any pain.   I thought for a really long time that I wanted to be part of the women's world - to be able to join in conversations and share thoughts on fashions, emotional feelings, etc. I don't even know what that world would really be but I have accepted that I would not fit into that one either.

So what the hell do I want? I guess the world that I want is one without binary divisions, without segregation, without any expectations of someone based on appearance or gender roles, one in which I could just exist as I want to be and people would treat and not feel uncomfortable or ashamed or whatever if they saw me outside of the way I am supposed to appear to them.

I know that one of my biggest defects is that I have a really hard time understanding what other people are thinking and that I assume 99.9% of the time wrongly about them.  But I don't have the personality to just say fuck the world and that I am going to be what I want to be and its their problem if they don't like it.  I cannot just set fire to my own house and I will never ever get to point that I can do that.  The pain and anguish and loneliness is to debilitating to me to even go into that exercise in my imagination. For everyone else that has bared this pain and suffering, you have my highest respect and I cannot imagine how strong you must be.

To me, being trans is that I am trapped inside without a club to belong to.  I have thoughts, feelings, emotions that will never be accepted by those who I love in this world.  I have hoped that they may come around but that is like waiting for the entire society to change and the term not in my lifetime comes to the top of my mind.    Being trans to me means to suffer, it is the old verse that having a dream inside that doesn't come true is something truly worse.  This is the source of my depression and this is reason I will never be cured of that.  On my good days, I can ignore this point for most of the time but it is impossible to completely bury it away.  On my bad days, this is an like a bad song that plays over and over until I think I need to shut off the record permanently.  I can't really remember too many good days in a long time.

I don't really know where to go from here, I am trying to treat the depression by approaching it from different angles but I don't hold out much hope with having the same reflection of the world around me.  I am trying to be strong to support my loved ones but I am feel so weak at times.   I just don't know as I don't have a path to go anywhere else.

Ok, well I have gone off the rails again and will try to straighten myself up and move on again.  I did have some time for self expression this past weekend so I am adding a photo here to help me remember this.  

Until next time ~ hugs