Ramblings of a Transgirl

CW: Pain, Anxiety, Suicide.

This is going to be a really really hard one to read, just as I suspect that it's going to be a really hard one to write on my end. Be careful that you're in a safe space before you do it.

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I really, genuinely, want to stop existing. I want to stop hurting all the goddamn time, no matter why or how or what. I know this probably disappoints some of you, and scares the hell out of even more, but I don't just want to hurt forever. I want to do what I can - specifically what I think I can do to make the world a better place, and then I want to go. And I want to go in love and safety and knowing I've done my absolute best until I stop.

It's just absolute exhaustion, and sometimes you really do need to sleep. I don't honestly see that as a bad thing, and I don't think there's something special where we have to fight to the last moment and last breath life gives us before we can have our end. I think it's just... okay to die, and I don't honestly see a problem with that.

In a lot of little ways that no one will ever understand, I've been the strong one. I've had to be to take care of the people in my life, and to take care of things I cared about, like projects at work and other, far sillier things. I know others have it worse, but I don't care. It's my life I'm talking about, and they get to make their own choices too. Maybe by following my example, they'll find peace too? I don't know.

I've been thinking about this a very long time, and I'm laughing and crying both as I type this, thinking of all the moments I've had before when I knew myself, and knew my heart and her pain-throb. I don't know why I've lasted this long, or why I'm still feeling alive at this moment, but inertia plays a large role for sure.

I'm not sure why they cut so deep... the writers had to know what they would do to people, but I'm crying now, weeping for the words I wish were mine.

"It's okay, Zeta."

"You can rest now."

"We'll be alright."

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Written on 08/19/2019, while in the air headed to Dublin for work yet again. And if those words sound familiar, that movie ripped me apart. >.<

I wrote this sort of accidentally, but my heart spoke, and I will always listen.

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My name... is Zeta.

I haven't been taking care of myself again, and now I'm paying the price. Been missing my meds here and there, letting other things like work become more important than self-care. (Note: not a lot of misses, but more than I should have.)

And so I'm pretty messed up.

The damned thing is that I usually can't tell immediately, or even quickly, when I've gone off the rails. It takes a while for my brain to clue in that something is wrong. And something is wrong today. Something was wrong yesterday, too, which is why I've forced myself to stop today when I'm supposed to be working. And stopping is really, really hard. The last two days, I've spent, respectively, ~14 and ~10 hours working, way too many hours in too short a period of time. I've been hyper-focused on it, and even now my brain is chewing on what I was working on in the background, refusing to stop. I justified that time, saying that I wanted to learn what I was working on, but it was still far too much.

When my brain gets like this, stopping is really, really hard. I could literally kick my VM back on, or boot up my work laptop and work until I literally self-destruct, much like I did around June, 2015. If I gave in, I'd work until I cried and shook and shattered, crying into my pillow for my terrible shattered mind.

And so, I'm trying not to get there. I'm trying, as hard as I can, to stop that cycle.

I already took a couple of steps today to take care of myself, but I'm not quite sure how not to shake right now. I'm trying to sit here in Starbucks until I can relax, but it almost seems like I need to go take melatonin and crash out to sleep. (I'm trying not to do that, too, since messing up my sleep schedule will make things even worse.)

And so, I sit here, hurting. >.<

All my life, I have feared the power of words, the emotions and actions they can induce. I have feared my words, what I might do if I ever got the chance to bloom and live as I desired, what secret hate could twist what I would write. I am terrified that somewhere within my heart lies violence, unchecked, an anger that would burn all it touches.

I bring this up, not to distract from the topic at hand, but to acknowledge the force that has kept, and sometimes still keeps, me from writing. I bring it up because it is necessary to speak about, to confront, and to heal, something I do not yet know how to do. And I bring it up because mercy begs me to do it, as words have power far beyond our own.

I had a pretty bad week this week, between the anxiety and crushing sadness that felt like a ten-ton weight upon my chest. Yes, I accomplished much in spite of that, but it all felt hollow, and nothing against what is coming. And so I spoke with my therapist about my pain on Thursday night, trying to understand how to cope and yet move on. This is the story of that discussion, and so much more.

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I don't remember all the details of what we spoke of, of exactly how I felt that night. I do feel the echoes of hollowness even now, though, and I feel a need to stand in my defense. (Editors note: Not against you, but against the depression and sadness that would crush me to death.)

One of the topics we talked about was my poetry, and levels of discomfort. Zoe suggested that a 6 on a scale of 10 was about right for maximum discomfort while being kicked into action, and that too much more would reduce that effectiveness too much. (I figure I'm sitting around a 7 as I write this.) Her going in position was that too much emotional intensity, too much pain, would just cause complete collapse, and I have to admit she's right. The line between being informed and being able to function is a difficult one to walk, and I'm usually on the wrong side of that line. Empathy is *so* *important*, but it's destroying me, and I have to find a way to push it down so I can help.

Why is it destroying me? Because this current world has pain on every side, and I've known all of them. I know what it means to feel alone and abandoned, to feel as though the world is being torn asunder. I know what it means to believe, as Mike Pence does, to an absolute and uncompromising level. I know what it feels like to propagate that discrimination, something I am deeply ashamed of. And I know what it feels like to hurt, or be hurt, by those you love.

I know the pain on every side, and it is killing me.

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How am I fighting this?

The only way I know how. I'm fighing this with words, with happiness, and butterfly wings. I learned Thursday that writing, while leaving me exhausted, actually helps me gain spoons back, and is the honest-to-goodness source of the fire that I bring into everyday life. I need to write... to live.

So let's talk about levels of discomfort, and let me ask you a question, if I may. It's the same one I asked Zoe.

On a scale of 1-10, what is the maximum emotional intensity level my writing has induced in you? And what level do you think I was at when I wrote it?

By way of explanation, I ask because I want to know where about I am. Zoe and I disagreed initially on what level is sometimes required, but I responded by referring to the actual target of my words. I seek to strike the cages around our hearts, those things that would prevent us from healing, or helping others. I seek to break them, to strike so surgically that the wound is utterly mortal. And I seek them with all the violence at my command. I seek a 10, to change the worlds of those within its resonance.

And yet, I must remember mercy.

As you might guess from the title, I've not really recovered from the last week, or even the weeks leading up to it. It still feels like a dream I don't know how to wake up from, a knife lodged deep within my heart.

I don't know how it came to this.

Intellectually, I do, but emotionally, it hurts too much to think about. To think of those we've already lost, those we will lose, and all the pain and suffering this has already caused. The price we pay for this mistake is not just in property. Not even just in lives. The price we will pay is the heart-breaking of an entire generation.

My heart is already broken. I don't know what to do. I know what I should do, what avenues there are to help comfort and fight against what is and white will be, but it hurts so much I can't even move, hurts so much I can barely get out of bed in the mornings. It is as though I have an anchor chained to a bolt embedded in my heart, and I have not the strength to remove it.

I keep trying to piece it back together,
how such a terrible thing could be,
but my heart just keeps on bleeding,
hope draining out of me.

I know I need to fight this.
I know I need to stand,
but I'm not sure if I could cry
without a helping hand.

This heart-pain is the deepest
that I have ever felt
that dark and cold and terrible
pain that will not let me rest.

This is another rough one, I'm afraid. Not sure exactly where it's going, but can just tell. Maybe the little girl crying next to me in the coffee shop as I write this is influencing me, or maybe she's just reminding me of the little one in me who's also suffering. (Poor little thing is struggling mightily with her math homework and her dad's trying his best to help.)

It's been another week, and maybe not a good one. I slept a whole lot, and did make a bunch of progress, both at work and at home, but I'm still as tired as ever. I keep hoping that'll change, and sometimes it does for brief moments, but they are far too few in between. (Yesterday was mostly okay, thankfully.)

So let's deal with the elephant in the room. Therapy was brutal this week, another deep session to try and work through some of the things that have been killing me over the last little while. As opposed to previously, where I'd made contact with some memories at the age of around four, this time I was faced with memories and emotions from around the age of six. And holy crap did they hurt. >.<

[Author's note: This one hurts. A lot.]

You see, my brother's always been a destructive force in my life, even from the time I was little. In this particular memory, though, destructive isn't quite the word, as he was too young (5 to my 6) to impact me directly. Instead, his impact was felt in the extra time and care he needed from my parents... time I never got.

Between his ADHD, school troubles, and many other issues, most of which I won't go into here, Andy always needed more. The problem is that I needed more too, and the giant hole where that love should have been ripped me apart. >.<

You see, Zoe (my therapist) says that when you're that age, the only way you can interpret that kind of thing is in terms of love. Attention, time spent, and emotional support translate directly into a child's perception of how much their parent cares for them. And she's right. At the age of six, and maybe even well after that, I had no other way to process that, even if I didn't understand how it was hurting me at the time.

A momentary aside: I know *why* my brother needed needed more help than I appeared to, and knew at least a little bit even then. I've talked in the past about being the 'golden kid' in the family, and I'm realizing more and more that I put myself in that spot in trying to take a load off my already overburdened parents. I pulled the stoic-little-kid-who'd-soldier-through routine, trying to make them proud, burying my hurt as deeply as possible, and trying to find some way to stand out in the hopes that they would see me.

I still struggle with that today. >.<

"I couldn't feel that they loved me. I still needed them... but I wasn't important."

And so I slipped away. >.<

[Author's note: There will probably be more posts in this series, but I don't have the heart to go on today. >.<]