NEWS: Ohio Kidnapper Ariel Castro Found Dead

Ohio man who held 3 women captive commits suicide.

 

Read the AP story here. 

http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-man-held-3-women-captive-commits-suicide-043500304.html

In This Place

 

In This Place

By Kira A. Moore

 

 

Dance with me,

Here,

At the edge

Of the Abyss.

 

Where the Darkness

Is a living Thing,

Hunger

And Desire.

 

In this place

Where the winds

Of chaos,

Call my name.

 

The War Within

I realize I should have named this blog “The War Within” for all too often that is what being transgender really boils down to. It is a battle between your heart and a world which takes no prisoners.

From the moment you are born your whole life is planned out based on a word from a doctor… even before you realize what has happened. From there it will be your family, friends, enemies, teachers, employers, students, coworkers… everyone and anyone you pass on the street who will pass judgment on you based on nothing more then if you meet their opinion of who and what you should be.

And God help you if you fail the test.

It is the same no matter where you turn. Even those who try and be accepting are still judging you in in one way or another, after all, you are a stranger, a walking talking abnormality in their lives. Then again, you also judge yourself. Feel the weight of being different from everyone you know, who you see on television, in the movies, hear on the radio, those you meet online…

It is a lonely, heartbreaking place to be.

To know there are so many who will and do turn their backs, who whisper when they think you cannot hear… and sometimes when they know you can. There are those all over the world who for whatever reasons have decided to view you with hatred, with disdain, with pity… who wish you were dead or better yet, had never been born…

To know those who you have looked to for support and understanding can’t even speak your name….

And you have to ask yourself… is it worth it? Really worth the pain and the loneliness, and the sadness and the heartbreak… Even when you have done everything possible to be the person they expect, when you have struggled so hard for so long to be what you see in their eyes… to be everything to them all even at the cost of your own soul…

This is when writing on this blog is so difficult… when it feels as if my soul has been crushed and the thought of one more breath, one more heartbeat is more than I can bear… Sitting here I wonder how many times I have almost given up, almost quit writing here… almost gave up everything… Those days when the thought of one more day is almost too much… when only my sense of responsibility to my children is the only tiny thread which holds me to this world…

Not really a feel better sort of thing to think is it?

This is a time when it would have been so much easier to say nothing. To find something to reblog or maybe toss out a little piece of poetry to fill the space, but I have tried to be open with what I am feeling even when it painful to do so because I think you deserve to see the darkness as well as the light. The good days and the bad… even the terrible ones like this where I wish something in my mind would simply break so I could just float away and loose myself in madness because it would be easier I think.

The idea of wanting to write about myself, to share what it means to be who I am, being transgender… I think people need to know… they need to understand even when they don’t want to… yet they need to see the whole story, not just some sugar coated narrative that makes things as so much roses and cotton candy… because it isn’t. It is hard as hell. It is ups and down, highs and lows. It is wanting desperately to live and begging to die.

To anyone who thinks someone would undertake this life willingly is a fool.

I would give anything not to be as I am, to just be another face in the crowd who has never had to think or worry about all the things which play though my mind every day.

Remembering To Count To Ten…

It turned out to be  a good thing I decided to wait to post anything. I have had a chance to clam down, and though I am still upset, I am able to think a little more clearly.

I saw my doctor today and it went about as well as I feared it would. He is willing to treat me for depression on the recommendation of my therapist and has started me on a low dose antidepressant which I will have filled tomorrow. As for the other issues… well, it didn’t go well at all. At least he was honest enough in telling me he isn’t willing to participate because he has no experience working with hormones in a transgender patient and he has no idea of what to do or what the effects might be. I told him I have information I can share if he wants it. He was politely dismissive. He would “take a look” but it was clear from his tone he really doesn’t want to. He also said he didn’t even know any doctors who might do “this sort of thing” and didn’t know where to start.

Another issue which made me want to scream was his insistence on getting my T levels, as taking care of that and starting the antidepressants might “alleviate my other issues.”

Really?

No. Really?

This was after I explained the whole “transgender” thing more than once, but I swear, it went in one ear and out the other.

So from here on, I will use him to treat my blood pressure and even the depression in as far as I can trust him, but anything else is a no go. I am happy to help educate someone who is willing to listen and learn, but I refuse to waste my time and breath on someone who just doesn’t want to know.

So, I am back to square one on the physical transition front. I still haven’t found one ounce of support anywhere within 200 miles. Even the nearest online support group is all but dead with only a handful of messages since Thanksgiving of last year.

Well, at least I think I have a chance to finally get the depression under control and I am thankful for that small blessing. Of course, that’s assuming this doctor isn’t going to come up with some other crack pot idea to “cure” me…. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Rememberance

 

I decided to write this after reading this post on Bluestocking Magazine.

 

In the Winter/Spring of 1988 I made a decision which, looking back, was pivotal in my life, though at the time I saw it as an ending and not a beginning. An ending to the pain and confusion and pointlessness which had seemed to define my life for as long as I could remember. 

That decision was to end my own life.

Looking back through the veils of time, I can no longer embrace the thoughts and emotions which lead to this decision, which, while a bitter sweet realization, I know to be a good thing. Indeed a wonderful thing. The small flashes of remembered pain and the never ending feelings of hopelessness still cut deeply and I can imagine what it would mean to face the full impact of those emotions today. I was fortunate, some might say blessed in that my attempt failed. I would agree.

I am a survivor.

Reading the words of remembrance, written by people who, for their own reasons, now feel or still feel the stinging emptiness of a life ended too soon, has brought back those echoes to mind. 

I cannot speak to what leads someone to take that final step. It is a path each of us, those who have taken their own lives and those of us who survived, have taken alone. I can however, tell you I have lived in that darkness. I too, stared into that abyss and in that I understand.

For those who read these words, who read the memorials of those lost to us and shake your head, not understanding, I say count your blessings. There are things you do not wish to understand. Things you do not want to know. There are places in the mind you never want to visit, even for a second. I will forever carry the scars and even though the years have taken away the sting.

I can never forget.

I am forever changed.

 

I do not offer you these words as an explanation. I do not seek to give you understanding. What I can tell you is, in making the decision they have, the friends and loved ones who did what you could never imagine, did not do so to cause you pain, but in their own way, in their own thoughts, in their hearts, they sought to bring an end to the pain they themselves suffered and which they were convinced they were bringing onto you. I do not say they were right. I do not say what they did accomplished the end they thought would come with their own, but that in the strange and inexplicable world they had come to inhabit, they were doing the only thing they thought they could with the only power they had left. 

Only through life can we honor their sacrifice, selfish as it may seem. Only through rising above the grief and anger and pain can we give their lives and deaths meaning, when it all seems so meaningless.

If I Could

 

If I could

By Kira A. Moore

 

 

Tears fall,

From eyes

That have seen,

The pain,

The loss.

 

These feet,

Have walked,

This path,

These steps.

 

My heart,

Aches.

My soul,

Weeps.

 

I cannot,

Take your place,

Nor these,

burdens.

 

I would.

If it

Were allowed,

It is true.

Will There Ever Be A Day?

This is something I have spoken to before and I will speak to again and again until there is no need, and I pray every day my voice is no longer needed.

I read a post today from someone I follow. This person is thinking of doing something. Something final.

I made a comment, though I don’t know if they will read it or if they do, if it will help. It was all I could do.

I have spoken about suicide before. I have been there. I have done that. While I cannot speak to anyone else’s pain, I understand what it like to reach this point. I understand the hopelessness. I understand not being able to see beyond the circumstance. To not being able to see tomorrow, the next hour. Sometimes the next minute.

I understand the crushing void. The cold feeling which weigh upon the heart and soul.

I understand…. God, I understand.

As I said in my comment, we cannot know the future. We cannot say things will get better, nor can we promise they won’t get worse. But this…. This is the end of the line. There is no future, no promise. Taking this step means throwing away everything. Yes, it is throwing it all away. As long as there is breath there can be hope. There can be a chance for something different.

I know this person cannot see this now. I know their eyes are locked on the abyss…

My one hope, my promise, is this person chose to write a post. They decided to speak out, to scream into the abyss and pray someone would answer. In this I see a chance, maybe it is not too late…