It's not easy being trans.

When I first came to the conclusion I would be better off being a dude I didn't realize what it all meant. The statement in itself is simple: I identify as male. But it has huge consequences. It impacts your life on every level. One of the things it affects, that most people don't realize, is the past. Suddenly everything you have done in the past has a different light on it. A friend of mine once told me, ages ago, that her boyfriend thought I had anorexia because I wanted to be a boy. It freaked me out because I felt caught. Back then wanting to be a boy was my deepest darkest secret. But it also pissed me off because he was wrong. Wrong in the way that I didn't have anorexia because I wanted to be a boy, but because I was trying to be like a girl. And clearly I failed at it. I started dawning on me a few days ago how much of my past has been determined by the fact that I am a transgender. I hated my body and tried very hard to destroy it. But I didn't want to die. I never wanted to die. I just wanted to pain to stop and this horrible thing that seemed to decide my life for me that I was stuck with, would go away. Looking back I'm amazed how little damage is left from that period, call it a life time. My teeth are bad but some people have that without throwing up all the time. The nerve damage is pretty much gone these days. Healthy diet helped a lot with that. And I have a bunch of scars on my arms, legs and torso that most people don't even notice anymore. Not bad for over 20 years of self-destructive coping devices. But that's just my body.


The mind is a totally different thing. So is time. I can't turn back time and undo those bad things and replace them with events I wish had happened instead. I can't erase that pain, the feeling of loss. Looking back it seems like it was a different person all together who did those things, who lived that life. It wasn't me. It was some sort of alter ego that I created to survive in this world that would judge me for what I seemed to be but was not. When I look back I see this scared little girl, hurting and lonely, and there is nothing I can do to help her, because she isn't real. She never had a chance. And now she is gone and I am here. But I am left with her pain, her trauma, her memories of blood filled nights and the cold hard floor underneath her knees in front of the toilet bowl. I can not make that go away. I thought I had put it behind me, that I had moved on and in a way I have. I just hadn't looked at it from a trans perspective yet and that makes a lot of difference. It all makes a lot more sense now. It also feels more useless. If only... But no such thing. I missed out on most of my childhood because of this, my puberty and adolescence. My early adulthood is overshadowed by my transition process. And what will happen after that? Right now I'm afraid I'll never be a real man, even though I know I already am, boobs and all. But I will never have been a boy growing up, I will not have a past as a man. I will have to start from scratch from here on, as if I was a foreigner moving to a different country. The Land of Man. And I can try to fit in as much as I want but I will always be different. I will always be castrated, no matter what.


So right now I am trying to deal with this. I am mourning. Mourning for my past self who never had a chance at all, and for my future self, for I will never be truly whole.



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A survey on selfharm. Children need our help.

A friend of mine is doing a survey to determine how well students are being helped at school when they struggle with automutilation, also knows as selfharm (SH). I find it very important that she is doing this. The results will serve as a guide to write a protocol for schools on how to act when they find a student in such a situation. Right now there are no guidelines what so ever for this. As a result precious time is lost in helping these children. Depression in teens is much more common then we would like to admit and a very serious problem. Selfharm is not about getting attention. It's about survival. It's a way to deal with the struggles and pain that otherwise become too great to handle. Most of the time parents don't have a clue or are part of the problem. When parents fail to protect their children it's time for the community to step in and take action. Since most children spend most of their time at school it makes sense for teachers to notice the signs and respond to them. Most teachers don't know what they should be looking for though. And if they do notice something is wrong, they don't know how to respond. So they leave the kid alone and hope it's just a phase and it will pass. For some it does pass. For others it ends in suicide. But the majority is left to struggle on for years and years, perhaps the rest of their lives. The sooner they can get help, the sooner things will get better and the greater the odds are they will be able to be happy some day. So if you have struggled with self harm during school and live in the Netherlands, please fill out the survey. If you know someone who did, pass it on. A lot of children out there need our help.

http://www.thesistools.com/web/?id=304850


I filled out the survey as well. I started selfharming when I was about 12 I think. I'm not entirely sure. It was a strange time. No one noticed. I would cut my upper arms at first. I would wear a short sleeved shirt at gym class so I'm pretty sure someone saw. But nobody said anything. Not in school, not at home, not anywhere. My sister once asked if I could stop banging my head against the wall in the middle of the night because it would wake her up. But that's all.  My eating disorder grew worse and worse. So did my drinking, which I started when I was 8, believe it or not. And when I was 15 I started doing drugs. Just weed at first, but that's where we all start, isn't it?

I finally managed to quite when I was 29. The cutting, the drinking, everything. And now I am healthy and fit. But I still feel sad a lot of the time. I still feel lonely, unloved and unlovable like I did growing up. I still have days when I get the urge to get out a knife and rip myself to pieces. I don't think that will ever completely go away. But I keep on fighting. I keep on going. I keep on surviving. And I'm still here.

I don't know what would have happened if someone would have noticed what was really going on sooner. My parents did send me to a psychiatrist at some point and told me I could stop going there if my grades improved. My grades did improve and I could stop going. But I only felt worse. It's not just about grades and how things look on the surface. If they had spend a bit more time noticing me, maybe they would have seen what was happening. Maybe I would not feel so lonely today.



https://www.facebook.com/TylerFokker