(CW: mental health issues, gender dysphoria, disassociation, suicidal thoughts (and actual suicides), and maybe more)
I've been thinking about putting up my story for Pride Month. I started typing in this whole thing in someone else's post, but I didn't want to hijack it. (Although it was talking about some of the stuff I am putting here.)
Some background:
I was a military brat growing up. That means that I moved around a lot. That means that I didn't have the same groups of people around me, except for my parents and sister. Therefore, nobody could recognize my issues since most people thought it was just the way I was.
I am on the autism spectrum. That means (for this stuff at least) that I don't really do self-reflection well. Add that to the above point and... yeah.
Because I wasn't diagnosed with autism, my parents thought I was weird, weak, and an idiot. Oh they didn't say anything like that, but you could tell that's what they thought. I heard "You're old enough to know better" so many times. But I never caused major issues, so they thought that I would always do what they said.
When I was in single digits (1970s), every time I took a bath I would spend time trying to shove my p*nis back into my body. It didn't belong. So I was already experiencing gender dysphoria even back then.
I was miserable and without a reason I could recognize (not having heard of trans people). "Fortunately" while still in single digits, I found a character on a TV show that knew how to handle negative emotions. The show was "Star Trek", the character was Mr. Spock, and the method was repression.
So I was okay for a while.
In 10th grade, repression turned into (undiagnosed) depression, something else that nobody (including me) recognized. I thought it was perfectly normal to think about suicide when I had homework to do.
(I even remember the assignment that was the last straw. It was to write a romantic scene for English class. I wrote a note on it, telling the teacher I never wanted to see it again. She thought it was about how bad it was. I didn't tell her that it triggered me.)
After high school, I joined the military. It wasn't because I wanted to or anything like that. My parents wanted me to join and, with my depression, I really didn't care what I did.
After serving 4 years, I went to college. I was struggling a bit, so I went to get tested for ADHD at the student health center. (I had read up on it, including how a lot of people with ADHD were mistakenly diagnosed with depression. Ironic, really, because...)
I was diagnosed with disthymia, a chronic, low-grade depression. I got medication (Zoloft) and tried therapy. Since I was repressing and didn't realize it, I got nothing out of therapy, but the Zoloft worked enough for me to function.
Imagine, if you will, a wooden boat with a figurehead (me) on the bow. (Is that the right word? If not, deal with it.) Before the Zoloft, the boat builders put the figurehead almost completely underwater. I would come up for air, but it was difficult. After the Zoloft, it was like the workers moved the figurehead right at the waterline. I would have good and bad times, but they were all still under a cloud of depression.
Speaking of imagining things, do you remember the tiny alien controlling/riding in the robot in the movie "Men In Black"? Another thing that I did (and since I don't know when I started, so I'm just gonna put it here) was I pictured something similar like that for me. Except instead of picturing myself as an alien, I pictured myself as a small piece of dimmed light "no bigger than a flake of dandruff". (And I put those words in quotes because that is the exact wording I used.)
That, BTW, is called disassociation.
I the 2000s I got married to a woman that my parents hated. My parents disowned me because I wouldn't divorce her, thinking it would shock me enough to do what they wanted. Instead I disowned them right back by changing my last name and didn't attempt to contact them again.
My dad died in 2010. I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. It wasn't until years later that I found out that he probably killed himself due to having early onset dementia.
After that, my mom got into more regular contact with me. She lived until her suicide in 2016. (She had bipolar disorder and I learned later that she had attempted suicide earlier. And that both of my parents cheated on each other during their marriage.) My ex-wife (yes, we did divorce but not because of my parents; she was hooked on opiods and had Borderline Personality Disorder) died the same year.
(I tried to get her (ex-wife) help, but she didn't want to change. After being left at work since she had the car AND finding her passed out on the toilet with drugs she got less than 2 hours before she was supposed to come get me, I had had enough.)
Anyway, that gave me a date where I felt I could commit suicide. I would be able to live a day longer than either of my parents (who I said saw me as weak), thus proving that I am stronger than they were while still not having to deal with my depression forever.
You know what saved me? One of the posts I read here on Tumblr a while back. The original post said that like women who buy fake p*nises, men can buy fake breasts. A reply to that post said that many men who bought those turned out to be trans.
I really didn't think that I was trans. I ordered fake breasts from Amazon and tried them out. They seemed great, but they weren't an actual part of me.
I wrestled with the thought that I might be trans. I asked myself if I was a woman if I'd still want to die. (The answer, BTW, was no.)
It wasn't until 2 months later that I went to a nail salon and got my nails painted that I experienced gender euphoria. Using the figurehead imagery from above, it was like the figurehead was at the top of the bow, riding proudly on the ship. Instead of seeing myself as smaller than the flake of dandruff, I pictured myself as a gingerbread woman inside the shell of a gingerbread man (keep this in mind).
It also reminded me of the single digits me in the bathtub, miserable without the words to say why. Repression sucks.
Since I am a veteran (and since it's cheaper than health insurance), I get my healthcare from the VA. I talked it over with the psychologist (or psychiatrist - whichever one can prescribe medicine). It took a while (mainly to get me comfortable with it) to see an endocrinologist. (Well, first I had to see a therapist to answer questions to make sure I was a good fit. When I brought up the gingerbread visual, she said that many trans people use the gingerbread imagery to help describe what they're feeling.)
So in May of 2024 (last month from when I posted this), I finally started on HRT. And while my depression is starting to creep back in (HRT doesn't work overnight), I realize that I am finally on the right path for me and my happiness.
(Of course, with all of the new transphobic laws and such coming into effect, this is also a stressful path. But it's the only way for me to go.)
I do hope this helps people, whether to know they aren't alone (for people still in their egg) or to help the transphobic people out there to see that trans people are just people, trying their best to get through life as painlessly as possible.
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(via Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump Are Running a $1.2 Billion Felony Fraud Scheme that is Fully Prosecutable in New York.)
Other crypto founders are serving eight, twelve, and twenty-five years in prison for the same conduct. The only thing that separates the Trump sons from those men is their last name.
A note from the author. What you are about to read is an article that outlines the evidence of criminal conduct under New York State law, all with sources available directly in hyperlinks in the text. After the article is a script you can use to report this conduct to the officials who seem to be ignoring it. After that you’ll find over a dozen books, booklets, and model legislation to share with your representative, all for free from The Existentialist Republic.
Here’s that information:
One official can order it investigated. Governor Kathy Hochul can direct the Attorney General to open an investigation, and she accepts messages from the public through the governor’s contact form or by phone at 518-474-8390.
Ask a friend to make these calls and you just doubled the pressure, ask an entire Indivisible chapter to join in and you’re looking at a potential 100x multiplier on how much pressure these officials feel as people ask “isn’t this your job?”
While residents of any state can refer the conduct to NY officials, if you live outside New York another option opens up. The attorney general of any state can charge fraud committed against the residents of that state, so if anyone in your state bought these tokens, that is standing for a criminal fraud investigation.
Here is a message you can send or read aloud. Fill in the three bracketed parts and keep to what is documented.
“My name is [your name]. [If you live in New York, add: I am a New York resident.] I am reporting conduct I believe is a felony under New York Penal Law section 190.65, scheme to defraud in the first degree. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump founded World Liberty Financial, marketed it to the public as decentralized, and concealed a function that let insiders freeze any buyer’s tokens, while directing seventy-five percent of the revenue to their family and leaving ordinary buyers with losses of roughly eighty percent. Other cryptocurrency founders, including Braden Karony and Alexander Mashinsky, are serving prison sentences for similar conduct. I want to know why this conduct has not been investigated and charged, and I am asking for a response. You can reach me at [your email or phone].”