Ramblings of a Transgirl

This is a small update, but I figured I'd toss it on here rather than try chaining things on twitter endlessly. :)

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I just attended my local OFA (organizing for action) group, chaired by the head of the local democratic club. 3x city council members were there, as were a couple folks from the board of education. Three awesome speakers too, talking about a nearby republican district, running a campaign, and mental health.

So... This should hopefully be a bit lighter than some of my journals as of late, though it's still pretty heavy and emotional.  In a way, I'm writing this to kind of confess something that I've always known, but have had absolutely no idea how to deal with. (Bonus points: It is one of the chief causes of my anxiety.)

I have problems with emotional connection.

I don't have a problem *making* connections. I have a problem with *not* making them. There's a whole ton of ways I think about it, from having too much love (an introject response), to just not knowing how to maintain boundaries. (Even the second one doesn't ring completely true, though, because I can set up and maintain them for certain things, and they can be ultra-strong at times. I just don't have the mental energy to maintain them over the long term... or maybe, I'm fooling myself and don't really have them in the first place. (Hint: It's the latter.))

So let's talk about the "too much love" angle. Clearly, there's no such thing, despite what my brain might tell me. However, this thing (I don't know what the hell to call it) has some ramifications. The first how I make emotional connections, and the second is how deep those go.

I have a really funny(?) (I think/hope?) (from an outside perspective) way of making friends. I kind of run into someone I like, and then just start treating them as a friend, usually resulting in them going "Huh, this person is a little bit odd. I guess it's not hurting anything though." (Hands up if I've done this to you!) Usually that's accompanied by the other person acknowledging me as an acquaintance and shrugging it off. Over time, though, a friendship just kind of happens, often surprising the other person quite a bit. The simple act of treating someone as a friend causes a friendship to grow, even if it doesn't have a label. The thing that throws people for a hell of a loop is that I don't actually have a goal in this. Nothing is ever expected from my side. It's simply a "I'm going to treat you as a friend unless you give me a reason not to." If you never feel the same way, I will probably be slightly sad, but I'm just kind of like that.

Those same friendships can deepen over time, though typically they won't without acknowledgement and acceptance from the other person involved. A lack of serious bond response from the other person might mean some slight heart-ache, depending, but if there is a response, that bond grows incredibly quickly. I suppose I should try to describe how this makes sense to me, but it might be slightly mind-boggling or incomprehensible, depending on how you form bonds...

Here's the truth.

I love *everyone*. I see the beauty in everyone's heart, as well as the potential that that beauty brings to the world. I even see it when people can't see it themselves (a discordance that is honestly one of the worst feelings in the world). When I look at you, I see you, the person, not the skin, not the gender... the whole. Each and every one of you is beautiful and amazing beyond your wildest dreams... and I see all of it.

As a result of this, the only way for me to maintain a level of emotional separation is distance. Physical separation keeps those bonds from growing too deep, too quickly, and (so my introject would have me believe) causing all kinds of havoc. If you've seen me flit close and then disappear, it's because of this, not because of anything you have done... especially since I've been afraid. I buried this deep, because my emotional core didn't fit with how the world said I should be. That said... I don't want to be afraid anymore, but I fear this will be my hardest lesson. I don't even know what the lesson to be learned is, but I fear it all the same. :S

On a scale of emotional connection from 0-10, I have zero through two, and then eleven. I could spend an afternoon with you and we could fall in love for a lifetime. I have done *exactly* that, and it scared me so deeply I had panic attacks for weeks, thinking I had destroyed an existing relationship in the process. (Luckily, I'm dating one of the most forgiving and generous-with-her-heart dragons on the planet, else things would have gone really badly. >.<)

In summary... I don't know where I'm going with this either. I am really sick of being afraid of my own heart, my own nature, my own music, but I am terrified to let it loose. The only boundary I've ever really held is not letting that fear go, but there's a big damned crack in that armor now. Part of me finally knows it isn't a bad thing. Here's the thing... Boundaries just kind of dissolve around me. Just like in the friendships above, the fact that they're weakening is not noticed until they're suddenly gone. And... this one is trying to, even as I write this.

My heart, my magic, my music, doesn't know how to say no, and maybe it shouldn't have to. It's wild, it's free, and it's caged. >.<

This is not going to be a happy post.  If it's not already obvious from some of my other journals, I have a pretty strange mental space, even when I'm ostensibly at peace.  I've come to terms with much of that, but sometimes I can't find that peace.  Tonight is one of those nights.

I'm an atheist.  I don't believe in much spiritually, and though I do respect the actual power those beliefs are given by those who hold them, that does have a significant impact on my world view.  It causes me to reflect on a wide variety of things, up to and including what I'd like to accomplish in my short time here.  (Early mid-life crisis triggered a few years ago.  :P)  That's a tough question to answer, especially when the goal-posts move as you try to chase them.  For now, though, I've settled on a short list.

1. I want to be comfortable being myself, and exploring what that means.
2. I want to grow and love and share my life with others, including one special one in particular.
3. I want to have the world I leave be a little more beautiful and a little less afraid than the one I entered.
4. At least part of #3, includes writing.  I'm an engineer, but I really want to write and inspire.

For a long time, I hadn't made progress on any of these, just kind of drifting along the paths set out for me by others.  I had tremendous opportunities, for certain, but when I finished the college track (for now) and emerged into the wider world, I started to realize that I hadn't really understood what living as on my own as a free member of society meant.  It turns out that, financial concerns aside for the moment, that's a pretty scary thing.  Following a nice, well-worn path and then finding yourself in the middle of an unknown field, still moving quite quickly, is a jarring experience.  Still, I can say with confidence that numbers one and two are in progress, and seem to be headed in a positive direction.

Number three?  That's the subject I really want to touch on tonight.  I've mentioned the extreme empathy thing before, and I'm not kidding.  I'm pretty severely off-balance tonight, because sometimes, I just can't handle the chaos and pain I see around me.  I don't quite shut down, but I feel paralyzed and frustrated, unable to do anything to help.  It doesn't matter the country, the location, or the reason, suffering anywhere really hits, and hits hard.

Recently, two things in particular have weighed on me particularly heavily, both of which have all sorts of complicated political ramifications.  The two issues are systemic economic insecurity/inequality and political repression/surveillance.  I realize these are topics that engender more than a few strong opinions, but I'm not looking for a debate just now.  This is more of a random thought-spew with a little brain-storming on the side.

I'm going to start with #1, economic insecurity/inequality...  I'm going to start off by saying that I have a pretty decent job myself, and barring my own stupid financial decisions, I'm more or less okay.  However...  I know a lot of folks, both in and out of the fandom, who struggle to get by on a day-to-day basis.  The ones lucky enough to have them work shit jobs, or multiple part-time jobs just to be able to live, and extreme hours leave them too drained to be able to actually do anything in their free hours.  This is insane, as far as I can tell, systemic, and I have no idea how to go about sanely fixing it.

Number 2 is an interesting animal as well.  I'm not going to touch on specifics of what's being done, why it's claimed to be necessary, or anything else.  What I want to touch on is the mindset of those making the decision, both here in the US, and those in other countries around the globe.  Re #1, there are a lot of very unhappy people around, and governments (our own included) seem to have gotten it into their heads that they can somehow learn about and control chaotic events.  In reality, the control they seek is not only imaginary but impossible.  People are inherently unpredictable, and no net, however vast, will catch everything and everyone.  It isn't impossible to seek out that control, however, or hurt a vast amount of people in the attempt.  Control is fundamentally something created by force, and one only has to look at repressive regimes, or chaotic ones like Iraq and Egypt, to see where that road leads.

I guess what I'm saying is this.  Problems, economic and otherwise, are causing chaos that we're (as a species, not the US in particular) attempting to deal with through surveillance and control.  That just doesn't work, so we need to find some way to build up support networks and trust in them.  We have to start being able to trust each other and recognize that our well-being is affected by not just ourselves!  How do we do that?  I don't know yet, but if you bother to read the news and know people who are hurting, you know it can't really wait very long.

Comments are welcome, but I do reserve the right to hide them if stuff gets nasty.  This isn't a discussion of whether these *are* problems.  I believe they are, and if you want to touch on that aspect, the rest of the Internet is open to you.  This place is for suggested solutions.

Apparently I'm writing another one!  Not sure exactly where this one's going, but since these help me put two and two together (equaling negative Pi, of course) I figured I'd go ahead and try.  There's a good chance that this post in particular may vacillate between happy-go-lucky and really serious, but that's only because that's sort of been my mental state as of late.

This time, we'll start with a link to a short video.  This one means a lot to me, and if you're interested in reading further, I'd suggest starting with it.  A good friend of mine, :icondakotawolf:, shared it with me a few days ago, and although it didn't start this train of thought, it definitely helped me go ahead and write this next one.  Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSR4xuU07sc

Good stuff first...  I'm healing.  I know I keep saying that, but damn if it isn't true.  This has been a very difficult year for me, for every imaginable reason...  I was going to try and write a sentence here, but it's pretty much impossible, so I'm going to toss out a list and then touch on them one-by-one below.  Not all of them are bad, and most are at least somewhat resolved at this point, but it's been absolutely brutal both mentally and physically this year.  One common thread they do have is that I'm actually responsible for getting myself into these messes in the first place.  (No, there's no self-blame or anything like that.  They just happened, and I'm learning to deal with them, one at a time.)

- Releasing emotional barriers [99% there. *sigh of relief*]
- Coming to terms with being trans-gendered [resolved-ish - Will be a work in progress all my life, and I'm okay with that.]
- Family stresses (health, siblings, AND relationships with parents)
- Almost switching careers [resolved, though I'd still like to do it at some stage]
- Almost moving cities [resolved, though I'd still like to do it at some stage]
- Starting to write (and stressing about not being able to due to other stress!)
- Helping to start a convention (still have at least two years to stabilize fully)
- Financial stress [resolved]
- Personal health stresses [resolved]

Lets start with the first one, as it triggered a lot of the other ones.  This year (really, the last 18 months), I have finally managed to let down the emotional walls I'd built up around myself, finally dropping the last of them only days ago now.  I've alluded to this in prior journals, but I'm actually an incredibly emotional and, especially, and *empathic* person.  I feel the pain of others around me as though it's a knife in my own side, and even that of those I've never known in news reports thousands of miles away is sufficient to shake my mental state.  Because of that, for many years now, I'd cut myself off from my emotional center, not really allowing myself to touch that wellspring, for fear of losing control of it.  For a long time, I even feared writing, terrified that my own words would be filled with a sadness that would seem to drown the world.  Instead, I attempted, and even somewhat succeeded in building myself into a weapon that could protect those I cared about, at the expense of my own self.  In my last years of college, I became quite the militant as far as politics and current events went, and was quite angry at how cruel and cold the world seemed to be.  I was also frustrated by my inability to do anything to make it better, though I never quite despaired.

Now, that emotional empathy is not only, or even primarily, negative.  I've said a few times that "I'm happiest when other people are happy."  That statement is true, and I'd even extend that to "It's almost impossible for me to be happy (even when separated by distance) when others are not."  When they are happy, though, I share their joy, and I would not trade that loss for anything in this world.  Through that link, as it were, I've learned to appreciate the little beauty that's everywhere around us, seeing through others eyes when I couldn't find it using my own.  I've learned that life can be, and often is beautiful, despite the horrible things that are happening in some parts of the globe.  Having friends who can really help me through this is very new to me, as without letting those walls down, it was impossible for others to help previously, but I appreciate all the assistance I've been given both in letting those down, and now coming to terms with what that means.  I've used the words "I'm awake now", and other variants of, before, and I earnestly mean it.  It's like I grew up thinking I was happy and was really only seeing black and white, when the world is in fact, living color.

Back to this year.  2013 has been completely, loony-jacket, insane.  Even beyond the challenges themselves, I've been incredibly worn down and frustrated since every time I think I've made progress, I seem to find another obstacle in my path.  That has been *especially* true with the mental/emotional blocks, with my only realizing the next level once I'd passed through.  All of the other stresses have added in too, to the point where I pretty much went into shutdown on some of them for a while, as I was completely unable to deal with all of them at once.  As might be expected, the stress hit my physical health too, leading to me being out sick a total of two and a half weeks over the course of this year.  (I almost didn't have enough PPTO left to go to AFC!)

About midway through the year, I was inches from freaking out entirely.  I came to within inches of moving up to Phoenix (something I'd still like to do eventually) for a whole host of reasons both real and imaginary, and almost succeeded in making one of the largest mistakes of my life.  The timing was off, the job wasn't one I'd have been happy in, and the financial and living situations would have become untenable rather quickly on top of that.  On top of that, many of the (job-related) reasons and fears for the move turned out to be groundless, and I ended up being able to switch to a (mostly) 4/10 schedule so that I could spend more time up in Phoenix.  At the time, I had basically no friends in Tucson (didn't manage to hook up with some of the other furry groups for one, and emotional OMGWTFBBQ wasn't helping either.  I'm happy to say I have several good friends in Tucson now, and that's helped me stabilize quite a lot.  If I'd moved, it's possible that I'd never have met them, and I can't even imagine that at this point.  (Completely random tangent...  How the hell am I so lucky to know *any* of you guys?  (Phoenix included, of course!)  I sure as hell don't know, but I'm damned glad that I can call you that...)

I guess all I can do for now is conk out for the night, having vented a bit onto this poor page.  I'm doing a hell of a lot better, but holy flying flipping fuck, I could do with a sanity break in the near future.  (Still basically out of PPTO though.  >.<)

Oh, and one last thing.  I try to share books, videos, and other things that resonate with me, as stories are incredibly powerful at times.  Here's a few to give a touch of what I've been dealing with, the first of which was already linked above.  I've subtitled them with emotions / the thing they made me think about.  Maybe, just maybe, if someone else is going through some of this themselves, that can help.  I hope it does.

Links:
 - Coming Out of Your Closet (Meaning)
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSR4xuU07sc
 - Hands Held High (Sadness)
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PibXTko6VC4
 - Remember How We Forgot (Inspiration, Kindness)
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBVJuA0jr6Y
 - More Often Than Sometimes (Beauty, Love)
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX4s04wlxQA