Category: Personal

Where to?

I’m not sure where things go from here. Just one moment at a time.

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Weekend Wind Down

I know I’m not where I need to be. I would say not where I want to be but I’m not sure where that is. Right now it feels as though I have fallen back into survival mode, just trying to make it from one day to the next… well, sometimes it’s one hour or even one second to the next. 

I talked with my therapist and she said what I knew deep down, I have to start pushing back on all the negative thoughts and emotions. I have to learn to not only think I have value, I need to reach the point where I believe it. Not such an easy thing to do when you have more than five decades of accepting such things as truth. A lifetime of having every moment judged and found wanting… A lifetime of defeating yourself with nothing more than a thought. Of being convinced all of your hopes and dreams are beyond your grasp because you’re not good enough… will never be good enough. I suppose despite everything there were some lessons I learned too well. 

I need to learn to trust myself, my thoughts and emotions. To be able to follow my heart where ever it leads. 

This is important for more reasons than just transitioning. It is the core of being happy with myself regardless of any other factors, after all, even if I were to become female from my atoms outwards I would still have these issues to deal with. I was never so foolish as to think estrogen was some magic drug which would make everything better.

This really hit me today after I met some more of my partners family for the first time in over twenty years.

This became something  important to me because it has been a long time since I did anything visible to be seen as female and though it has progressively bothering more and more I have done nothing to change course. I can give you a dozen excuses as to why but that is what they would be, excuses. The truth is I’m not sure what is going on deep inside myself. I’m sure much of it has to do with the things I talked about in the beginning of this post, but I also know I don’t trust myself and I don’t respect myself enough to try and gain that trust… and yet, the thought of anyone seeing me or knowing me as anything other than Kira makes me physically ill. It drive a darkness so deep into my heart I can barely catch my breath and so I told them. I showed them pictures. I spoke a little about myself and admitted to going through a rough time at the moment and it did help a little. 

After I returned home I’ve done little but think about what happened. If this is so important to me then why can I not do what I need to do? Why does the thought of presenting correctly seem to drain me of all of my energy and will power? Why do I give up before I’ve started?

Of course this sets me off down an all too familiar path of self incrimination, self loathing, self hatred, and in the end I am left with unshed tears and no answers.

You know, I am sick to death of this but I don’t know how to break free. 

Trying To Understand

I apologize if this turns into a rambling mess. Right now I’m not sure what I am feeling or why. I just know it seems as though I’ve been drained not only of energy but of any vision of who or what I want to be when this is over.

Not so long ago I felt confident in the path I was following but lately, when I look inside all I find is a blank space. Where I could close my eyes and see myself as I have for so long, now the canvas is empty. Where I could let my mind go quiet and I could hear my voice clearly, now only silence answers me. When I cast out to understand the ways in which I experience the world, everything blends together… past and present until it seems as though who I am know has never changed from who I was for so long even though all those memories have been colored by thoughts and expectations I could never fully understand or relate to. In too many ways I feel as separated from what a part of me thought I should be as from what the world and those around me believed I should have been. As if there was an invisible wall between us.

For so long I would catch the briefest of glimpses of my deepest self or at least what I thought it was. A movement, a glance, a turn of phrase. A thought, a hope, even the fading memory of a dream. Now, all of these things leave me feeling more empty than I can fully express and dreams leave me with a lingering sadness which often carries throughout the day.

Now I sit here and try to convey this sadness to you so someone might understand…

End of the road?

Hasn’t been a good day, depression, anxiety, and headaches. I’m at the point where I have to wonder why I started writing in the first place, which is pretty sad since I’ve been doing this for 6 years. I just don’t know if there’s anything left to say.

It feels as if I’ve reached the end of the road and there’s nothing here but a cliff at my feet and a bottomless pit beyond.

Crime and Punishment: Another Memory

I’m sure there have been more children who have found themselves in trouble for using inappropriate language than those who haven’t. I am also sure the majority received some form of punishment for their indiscretion.

The question I have had for far too long is what parents considered a fair punishment for a single word, (which to be honest, was repeated after being warned… once.)

I ask this because for far too long I thought what I received was common for the mid-70s but I now realize was possibly a tad excessive…

You see, in those days our families choice of soap was one containing lye. I don’t know about my step father but I know my mother not only preferred such soaps, there was a time when she and my grandmother made their own. I mention this because she should have been well versed in how dangerous such things were since she once explained a scar on her arm which she received when some of her own soap splashed onto her arm, leaving her with a constant reminder to be more careful. This is important because my punishment for using the word “damn” (twice) was to hold a bar of soap in my mouth… for half an hour. The result was chemical burns to my lips, mouth, throat, and vocal cords.

I can’t say if this was the reason my voice never changed a great deal, I do know I never experienced my voice cracking (which I feared and was relieved when it didn’t happen). Indeed, I’m sure it changed much more as a result of smoking than it ever did during puberty.

(Oh, I forgot to mention I was about 7 at the time.)

Memories

A number of times it has been suggested I write down the events of my life. What I remember, my thoughts, dreams, hopes and aspirations. What follows is the beginning of a journey I never wanted to take, memories I felt best left to the dust of time. Yet I have never been able to free myself from them and I know they have shaped me into who I am today. I make no promises as to when I will post one of these, just the idea of putting them into words, never mind sharing them, is difficult to say the least.

 

The beginning:

What is your first memory? Mine is of hiding in a mobile home with my mother while my step father tried to force is way in with a knife. For years I told myself it was just a bad dream, yet to this day I can still see his rage filled face pressed against the window screen, the glint of the knife when the blade caught the light. I remember being terrified and not understanding why and knowing my mother was every bit as terrified as me.

Reflections pt.2

Part of reflection is comparing what is with what was. It looks simple on paper but is much more difficult in practice, especially when your past is shattered and broken to the point where you can’t find all the pieces. It is even more difficult when so many of the ones you hold in your had look identical to the ones scatter for as far as you can see.

It’s interesting when I think of how I saw myself as a shattered fortress with once strong walls reduced to rubble following one of my more serious breakdowns. All was complete destruction for as far as I could see, In that moment I didn’t recognize myself as being so much as human as an empty shell, a false face presented to fool the world when all I was doing was fooling myself. You see, I knew there were cracks in the shell, in the illusion I had created, ones which foretold my demise and yet I was certain I could repair them, becoming stronger in the process when in truth I was becoming weaker, more brittle. , not even a

It wasn’t the first time I wanted or tried to do harm to myself, to embrace the peace of oblivion and it wouldn’t be the last. It was however, the time when I lost the most of myself.

I’m not surprised to find so much slipped away without me noticing. For more years than I can remember there had been an endless storm of pure chaos blasting my mind, thoughts, and memories like a sandstorm wearing a mountain down until it was nothing.

Now I sit here wondering who I was, having no idea who I am now.

Reflections

I know it wasn’t long ago when I proclaimed I would embrace who I am now and release the past, yet as too often been the case, I have found myself falling back onto the easier path rather than fighting for what is best for me. Understanding this has lead me to ask myself some serious questions. Ones which need to be answered truthfully. Lying to myself serves no purpose and will only cause further harm.