I'm big struggling, besties. This is basically a diary entry so just skip it
I feel horrible almost all the time. I think I've been trying to muscle my way through it by being overly social, friendly, and trying to be funny both at work and with friends. I was all smiles and making jokes with dayshift when they came in this morning but I was crying in my car when I pulled up to my apartment.
Therapy is extremely difficult. I am instantly self-judgmental of anything I say. I then feel like I'm going to panic and I want to just walk out. I shut down and couldn't talk anymore last session. I think my therapist suspects that I have some kind of gender issues (which I do) but I literally cannot get myself to say it out loud. I'm nonbinary - I've talked about it here before. I never felt like a boy/man for my entire life. But I don't 100% feel like a girl/woman either. When I was a teenager I briefly and privately started to think of myself as a girl and it didn't feel right at all. I felt horribly depressed because I couldn't find out what I was. I didn't learn about different gender identities until I was in college. Thinking of myself as nonbinary felt like a massive weight being lifted off of me. I didn't have to judge and punish myself by how well I fit into male or female - I could just be the way that I genuinely was. Thinking of myself as nonbinary frees me mentally. I've experimented with things like nail polish and more gender neutral clothing at events like ren faires and felt euphoric in that I'm not punishing myself for not being "manly" enough.
I don't have dysphoria from my physical body but being put in traditional male social situations makes me feel very out of place and miserable. I have difficulty maintaining conversation with male peers who aren't also LGBTQ. I don't think I'm ever going to be a father. I need to surround myself with people who can see and love me as I am.