Triggering content, suicide, anger, hatred of others towards transgender people, self doubt, self worth, etc.
I’m writing this mostly for those who have concerns about my mental health when I change my social media profile picture to just a black image. I do this when what I am feeling becomes overwhelming. When I have similar feelings that led me to an attempted suicide. When I feel like the battle may not be worth fighting. Most times these thoughts and feelings are fleeting. They are easily escaped by focusing on the joys and happiness I am now able to feel.
Sometimes escape is brought by blocking people who spew the hatred. I recently chose to block some of my cousins & an uncle. Yes, this brought a great deal of pain and sorrow to me. I love my family, even those who hate me for who I am. Knowing I must remove myself from their hate so I may continue to progress is painful. It is however, a short lived pain.
Many times I will post about the political and religious climate, especially when trans human rights are threatened. I try not to focus on the hatred these sources bring. This is very difficult when the false or incomplete information is used to hurt others like me. These bring even more pain and sorrow. The length of which extends far past the time the laws enacted are in effect. Hopefully it will also be temporary.
The above are two large sources of suffering which have brought many including myself to attempt suicide. I want you all to know if those thoughts ever persist for me again I will seek out a great deal of assistance. The above are what I struggle with daily and what I have thought of in one way or another my entire life.
The one thing I constantly focus on is a fear. My fear that I will never meet the image I have of myself.
You see at a very young age I developed my self image. I was certain I would eventually physically develop into a girl and eventually into a woman. My self image was not that of a transgender woman but of a cisgender woman. Yes I can take hormones, remove facial hair, and undergo surgeries to approximate the physical characteristics of most cisgender women. I am currently doing and preparing to do these things.
Seventeen days from today I will have my first gender-affirming surgery consult. I have chosen to undergo breast augmentation. Hormones have been wonderful and have given me the opportunity to grow my breasts to a full A-cup size. Many may say that I should be happy with this or that many women don’t even have that. I fear that if I don’t undergo augmentation and reach at least the C-cup size, (This size is what I hold as part of my self-image.) I will never feel complete as a person. I fear that I will slip back into my dark thoughts and perhaps remove myself from existence. I simply can not and will not allow myself to live out this fear.
I harbor fears about my eventual vaginoplasty also. They are also based on my need to meet my self image. Medical technology can construct a vagina out of my donor tissue (penis and possibly a few other parts). This vagina can replicate very closely what many cisgender women have. Including the capability to self lubricate to an extent. The lubrication can not increase with physical excitement. I fear that the smallest of differences in what medical technology can provide me versus my self image will open the door to my darkest of feelings. I have been to that place before and I do not want to go back.
There are other physical organs I feel I should have had which medical technology can not currently provide a solution. I so desperately need ovaries, fallopian tubes, a cervix, and a uterus. This need is something I can attempt to explain but many will not understand. The easiest way for me to explain this need is so I can feel complete as a person. I fully understand that the technology to provide a trans woman with these things may never exist in my lifetime. So you see I will be forced to live out a portion of my fear.
It is this realization that I will never feel complete, that I will never be able to live as the full person (both mentally and physically) I see myself as which drives my depression and anxieties.
I want you to know that I see your attempts to help me feel better. They are very much appreciated. I love you all dearly. I sometimes just need to time and space to process that I will never be able to live up to my own expectations of who I should have had the natural ability to become.