Ramblings of a Transgirl

Failure, Abandonment, Vice and Blood
I cannot explain the should.
I cannot explain the pain of past.
I cannot see 'yond that last.

I cannot gather the threads of time.
I cannot savor the evening's chime.
I cannot see my mirth at home.
I cannot see the worth of tomes.

I cannot see 'yond darkness deep.
I cannot see beyond my sleep.
I cannot see past mist and sand.
I cannot find my hoped-for land.

I do not know what knots I'll find.
I do ont know 'neath fear and rhyme.
I do not know my blood's sweet birth,
the bloody rivers, the crimson earth.

Content Warning: Police response, unintentional self-swatting. (No serious injuries or deaths, just a /hysterical/ amount of poor decisions and a few traumatized kids that legitimately could, and probably /should/, have died.)

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Personal disclaimer: This story appears to involve sensitive information, but actually does not, as you can find everything but the story itself on the company's website.

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So this story comes to me from a co-worker a number of years ago, and took place a year before I started at this job.

At the time, my coworker was (and later I would be) working at $defense_contractor, a defense contractor in the city of Tucson. Said contractor handles a lot of intelligence work, which is extremely highly classified! Now, if you've ever watched a movie involving a contractor out in the desert (Terminator, other random sci-fi or action movies), you've probably noticed that these places all usually have /significant/ private security contingents. There is a reason why, and that reason is that if you have a security incident at your facility, you (legally and obviously practically) need to have a serious response very very quickly, scaling with the type of incident and type of information you have at the facility. Keep in mind that intelligence information is basically protected by the highest classification that US government has, again for obvious reasons (losing a war, troops and sources being killed etc).

So, with that background, our story begins.

It is approximately 10:30PM on a Saturday night, and my coworker is coming down the stairs of $defense_contractor's office building, about to head home after some significant overtime. He pops his head out into the lobby, and sees a bunch of people running around with assault rifles with ski masks on! Freaking out completely, he slams the door, runs upstairs, and puts the entire facility into lock-down, calling 911 and everyone under the sun to come help with whatever is about to happen!

Cue one third of the police force of Tucson showing up outside the building within 15 minutes!

What my co-worker does not know at this point is that those rifles aren't actually real, nor is anyone trying to kill anyone or break in, despite the cameras showing them trying to tamper with locks. What's actually happening is that $defense_contractor only rents 4 of the 6 floors in the office building (having built out their areas to the appropriate specifications - SCIF), and there are multiple other businesses in the building, including an insurance company. Said company has a guy working for it who has a kid in highschool, and he and his friends are trying to make an action movie for class, including some filming in a commercial space. Dad has the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas, and tells his kids that they can absolutely do it in the lobby late on Saturday night when no one is around, which brings us back to current events.

Eventually, the SWAT team throws flash-bangs in, storms the lobby, and tackles everyone to the ground, scaring the everliving shit out of all of these people. Lasting trauma ensues for absolutely no good reason, especially since these fine individuals had both /removed the orange tips from their airsoft rifles/ and /were actively hunched over a lock looking like they were trying to break in for the purposes of the movie/. In what is frankly a miracle, no one was shot or otherwise injured in a serious way, though I'm sure quite a few people learned what tile floors tasted like without meaning to.

Everything immediately de-escalates, but everyone is /absolutely/ going to jail, as taking the orange tips off your fake rifles is a crime in most states, including Arizona. (Can't imagine why that would be important. Perhaps it would help prevent a situation like this?) Unfortunately, though, the incident lasts basically the entire day, since they have to clear the building room by room and everyone has to be debriefed and sign NDAs for any classified material they may have been exposed to. Utter, fucking, disaster.

Shockingly, no one was killed, but even if this guy contacted building management, and they had contacted $defense_contractor, and $defense_contractor had sent an email out, and even /if/ they had had orange tips on their rifles, this was a /shockingly bad idea/. The sheer amount of stupidity that somehow resulted in no one dying actually makes me quite unreasonably angry, as I have no idea how one makes decisions this stupid. Even if it had been a normal commercial space, this would have been a /terrible/ idea, but with $defense_contractor there, this was just horrific beyond description.

Fuck, even telling that story gets my heart rate up. XD

Helpers and kindness and rescues of hope
our hearts can't withstand the pain
These people, this place, all are scars
on the psyche of our brains.

Instead of scars, we should now have
these tattered wings of hope
one day at a time, one breath at a time,
preventing the snap of a rope.

You wouldn't imagine these things that kill,
these tiny little knives,
but you can't see inside our our souls
inside we always die.

Being afraid, all the time,
Being afraid, forever, 
Being afraid, in your mind,
and labelled "disturbed" forever.

Being unseen, and being afraid,
and being forever lost,
We need each other; we need ourselves
to cope with darkest loss.

To hope for days with sunshine new,
we know not how to do.
We only know death's siren call
telling us what to do.

We hide our hearts
We hide our souls,
We hide our heartstrings too.
We do not know how to come forth
and share our terror too.

CW for suicidal imagery.

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I know people crying, weeping.
I know people, dying, same.
I know people with my faces.
I know people with my names.

Should I weep for silence loudly,
Should I cry for hopeless depths,
Should I die on worlds so lonely,
that I choke on my last breath.

Should I die by silence, weeping,
Should I die because of plans,
Should I die by endless bleeding,
I will die by my own hands.

I will die in brutal terror.
I will die in trauma, deep.
I will die in frantic heartbeats,
surging crimson, bloody creek.

As I weep inside for pleasure,
As I weep for blessed death,
I will weep for sex so sick and sweet,
it fin'lly gives me rest.

I will die in brutal terror.
I will die in deep despair.
I will die forever hopeless.
I will die because I care.

I will die because of hope-lost.
I will die because I dared.
I will die because I hoped and dreamed
that my mom would just care.

I die 'cause she'd never see.
I die 'cause she refused.
I die 'cause she'd not separate
her child from her views.

I die 'cause I felt worthless.
I die 'cause I felt used.
I die 'cause I felt dead inside.
I'm hung from twisted noose.

Man, it's been a year.

Early for retrospectives, I know, but *sheer sigh of exhaustion* holy moly. This hasn't been an easy one. It's been 20 months since I moved from Arizona and started this whole crazy adventure, and I'm pretty lucky to have done it when I did. I say that because I honestly don't think I have the strength to  do it again. If time reversed and I found myself back in Arizona with all the memories and knowledge I now have, but having to go back through all the hard times I've been through since, I'm pretty sure I'd kill myself. A lot of days I wonder how I never did. >.<

As much as I'm improving, and as much progress as I've made, this is still hard... every single day. Crushing pressure the likes of which not even the oceans can summon has given way to the kindling of a soul, but one who has been horribly mauled in the intervening years. Shards of self, like pieces of a broken crystal, have been slowly reassembled, but their glow still hurts to look at, the pain obvious in the broken light they cast.

I'm still here, and I'm still trying; but the body-blows have been devastating. I feel like one often does after a hard day of physical work: beaten, sore, and exhausted. Always, always tired. I know what this is, and I know I have to fight it, because I am improving, but there are days I'm still not sure if it's going to win. There are times (like now), where I would give anything to just stop hurting, to stop being afraid. All I want to do is shake myself apart, to scream and cry... but those tears still aren't coming. Some have, but there are many more to come. >.<

I didn't really mean for this journal to go in this direction, but I guess it had to be said. I'm still hurting, and I'm still hurting a lot. Maybe it's just that I can see it finally, but I'm a fucking mess at the moment and could really use some help. >.< I just want the pain to stop. >.<

(And yes, I am seeking medical help... just still feel like shit. >.<)

This was originally going to be a Twitter rant, but I thought better of it. I have too much data and too many thoughts for that format. And I know this is considered a... sensitive topic, so I'm not sure exactly how to approach it, but I'm giving it my best shot.

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Today, I want to talk about cash. Cold, hard cash. I want to talk rent, and medical expenses, and everything else. Fundamentally, I need to point out just how broken the Bay Area really is. And it's pretty broken, even if it has a lot of other things going for it (LGBT safety, among other things).

You see, I'm an engineer. I make a decent chunk of change, more than most folks in the US and elsewhere. Hell, I was doing really well making nearly 25% less than what I make now in Arizona... but here, nothing seems to be enough. Let's take some numbers from an apartment complex down the street, as an exemplar. These numbers are from Archstone, and are far cheaper than most areas in the Bay, especially down near Mountain View or north near San Francisco. They're modern units with washer/dryer, etc... but not really that special otherwise.

Here's some bullets with a price breakdown of what Archstone has on offer as of today. Listed are the min and max prices for each type of apartment with a basic 12 month lease (no pet rent):

• 1 Bedroom Apartment
  • $2338/mo: 768 sqft
  • $2726/mo: 1050 sqft (including loft)
• 2 Bedroom Apartment
  • $2831/mo: 1039 sqft
  • $2967/mo: 1184 sqft
• 3 Bedroom Apartment
  • $3746/mo: 1421 sqft
  • $4227/mo: 1771 sqft (Exact price unavailable at time of writing, but generated from trend line...)

This is completely fucking insane.

We took a look at Archstone when we were looking to move out here, as well as several other places (10 total, I think) during a whirlwind housing trip, and these are indeed comparable pricing to most other options in the area. We actually lucked out in some ways compared to this, as we were able to snag a ~900 sqft place nearby with no A/C and some seriously electrical problems for only $2200/mo! What a steal!?! I mean, the single pane windows and lack of any serious insulation kick the electricity bill up to a nigh on $300 spike during the winter and you absolutely melt during the summer, but what's not to love? You never wanted a place of your own, did you? Never mind that most folks wished they made $2200/mo, let alone could spend it on rent! The whole mindset is nuts!

So here's the thing. CA is great. The Bay Area is great. I've made progress I could not have made anywhere else, and it probably saved my life in the process. But there is one thing here that is ruining so many other things, a cause of anxiety that I cannot make go away. I'm utterly financially stagnant. My net income for the last 12 months is a grand total of $400. I don't have enough in the bank to pay a single month of rent, let alone living expenses, and I'm not sure how I get there. I have to chose constantly between medical care and living expenses, and basically wouldn't be able to afford the former were it not for the salary bump I got switching from my last job.

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How about those medical expenses? How can that possibly cost? What does insurance cover?

Well, here's a quick breakdown since the start of last year (2015).

• Current costs:
  • Sperm storage prior to transition: $2,078.30
  • Visits to psychiatrist: $350.00 (7x $50 copay)
  • Visits to (out of network) therapist: $7,111.00 (Insurance covered maybe $400 of that.)
  • Visits to Palo Alto Medical Center (general and allergy care, some blood-work): $447.50
  • Dental visit for three fillings (copay): $109.80
  • Prescription drug copays: ~$120.00 so far.
• Expected costs:
  • ~$1100 for start-of-HRT blood-work, since insurance is saying they won't cover anything under the Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis codes. (I'm appealing, but they're BCBS of Florida, so I may be screwed.)
  • Transvision copays: $100 + future visits
  • Future blood-work. (Hopefully cheaper.)
  • Future therapy, psychiatric visits, and medication. (Bonus points: My new insurance will pay a max of $50 for a max of one hour of therapy. It costs me $180 for 90 minutes.)
  • More dental work.

Just in already known direct medical costs, that's $11416.60. Holy fuck.

(In theory, I could even toss my "prescription" to Wicked Grounds in (Yes, my therapist actually assigned me to go journal there, and it's actually been pretty fucking vital.) for another $1188.62 while I'm at it... That'd push the total to $12605.22.)

And yeah, before anyone asks, I've been using my flexible spending accounts. I started the year with $2000 in my flexible spending account, and it was gone pretty much instantly...

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So yeah. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. This gives me horrible fucking anxiety, and I really wish it would stop. I don't know how to help it, though. >.< I fucking have to get out of this hole, though. >.<

More than anything, I wish I saw a way to do it while still living here. >.<

Bonus: And oh yeah, my car needs a paint job, which was quoted at $2400 for the two parts that are actively peeling and $6000-8000 for the whole car by the dealership. I'm seeking additional quotes. At this point the car's only worth about $4,000, so I may be in new car territory too... I need to make a call before it starts to rust, which is only a matter of time. >.<