"Just snap out of it"
"Smile and think positive"
So many time have I heard these words often spoken with will meant intentions, but anyone who believes this is good advice does not understand depression and has not suffered from its crippling effects.
In my view, depression is such an insidious illness because it creeps up on us so stealthily. I thought I was able to handle problems and situations that I was being confronted with. They were similar problems that I had faced before and had successfully overcome. Suddenly a wave of setbacks knocks me down. Normally this would be only temporary and in the past I would have dragged myself back up and kept on going. This time, the termites of other problems in my life erode the platform of my self-confidence that falls away as I grasp to hold onto sanity. I look to the lifeguards I trust to help rescue me but it seems my trust was misplaced as they look at me and decide to leave their posts and head to the pub instead. My fingers claw at the railing as I try to pull myself up. So many times have I been here and dragged myself back up, battered and bruised but victorious. Today, maybe it was the alignment of the stars and the moon, maybe it was because everything had aligned so perfectly, I could not hold on and I plunged into the deep dark depths of depression.
Telling someone with depression to snap out of it is like telling someone who is drowning at the bottom of a 100m ocean to take a breath of air. Actually, since depression is an illness, it's like telling a paraplegic to just get up and walk. It's not realistic advice and it isn't considerate. Recovery from depression is a hard process that requires effort from the sufferer and, unfortunately for the friends and family, if someone is not willing to be helped, it is difficult for others to help.
In the darkest, deepest depths of depression, it is difficult to do anything. Everything seems so worthless and pointless, even the thought of moving an inch after realising, with great disappointment, that I had woken up again in the morning. (Ironically, I spent many teenage years praying to wake up as a female and after that I spent many years praying that I didn't wake up at all.) When I was able to pull myself out of bed, the mind still refused to work. Where I once was able to spend hours or entire days absorbed in work or hobbies, now I couldn't focus on anything for more than a few minutes. I still retained my ability to act though, so I could pretend I was concentrating or listening to someone while a drifted in and out and tried to piece together what I missed before I drifted out again. My memory became non existent to the point where I would look at the calendar to find out the date and then when I looked back at the form I was filling in, I would have forgotten the date already. My eyes would dart back from the calendar to the form before I threw the pen down in disgust and went back to bed. Depression is insidious because it is situations like this that my self confidence was eroded even further and I would slide deeper into its clutches.
to be continued...
The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you. - Elbert Hubbard
I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the anxiety rising and my throat drying out. My mind raced and ran through the words I had prepared earlier but they now seemed so inadequate, so out of place, so.... wrong. Warmth from the glowing camp fire radiated onto my already burning cheeks but I was glad for the semi-anonymity of the night setting. I tried to slow my speech down as I braced myself for the reaction after I told my friends that I was suffering from gender dysphoria and soon they would know me as a girl. I tried to prepare myself for the possibility that they might, at that very point, walk out of my life and never return.
So many times I repeated variations of the above scenario and each time I was fortunate enough to have been met with a polite response or, in one case, an enthusiastic response. Yet, most of my days are filled with an abject loneliness and the number of friends that I have remaining can be counted on just one hand. I deeply value the friends I have left and the time I able to share with them, but they have their own lives, families and other friends to be with and so I spend much of my time on my own.
Social and support groups are helpful in making me feel that there are other people that I can be friends with and that I'm not totally isolated in this world. Immediate friendships can be struck , but deeper friendships always take time to develop and in the meantime there are emotional holes aren't being filled.
It was difficult to open myself up and share my secret with my friends and, for those that left, it hurts that they felt they could not remain my friend after knowing that much more about me. They are who they are and they are entitled to pick who they befriend, so I try not to judge them or bear any grudge. There is much to know about me and much to not like and so it leads me to be cautious in what I reveal. So maybe I'm now harming my ability to make any more friends but I do really love those that know all about me and still choose to like me.
There are many barriers or hurdles faced by trans-people that can hamper or prevent a successful transition. I thought I would write about a few the issues I face since it might shed some lights on the worries that are always in the back of my mind. It might also help explain the elation and sorrow that I write about in some of my frolics or other posts.
I imagine that most, if not all, people want acceptance, which is the first barrier I shall be writing about. It may be acceptance of their work, acceptance of their friendship or acceptance by others of themselves as the unique individual that they are. It may be acceptance of their role in society as a hard worker, as a decent child or as a good parent. So the concept and struggle with acceptance isn't different to what I face. In fact, the struggle is similar to anyone who faces discrimination or prejudice on a daily basis.
Most people are able to go about their lives in a comforting inconspicuousness, safe in the knowledge that the people they pass or the people they interact with will see them as just another person going about their daily life. Imagine if that were not the case. Going on a simple shopping trip, the heads of all the pedestrians turn and focus their attention on you the moment you step out of your car. Looks of scorn and disgust are plain on some peoples faces as they stare at you while others show bemusement or intrigue. Each step you take is an effort as you feel the glares drilling into your self confidence and you fight the desire to run back home where you can hide from everyone else. You hear the muted discussions and overhear the occasional sentence confirming their thoughts about you or maybe an insensitive bigot yells out his thoughts leaving nothing uncertain. Imagine hovering at the entrance to stores for a split second, unsure of whether the sales assistant will show a disapproving frown or ask you to come back at a time when the other customers aren't there or maybe they'll greet all the other customers and totally ignore you. So image the total bliss you feel should someone greet you with a smile and address you correctly.
Welcome to my world.
Or at least it was for a while. Once I was able to make myself look like any other female I could once again immerse myself in comforting inconspicuousness. In the ts world, this is known as passing whilst should other people be able to tell from your appearance that you are transsexual, that is known as being read or being clocked. But in the end, all I want is to be accepted as another person going about my daily life.
