Up until I hit middle school, I like to think I was a normal kid. A little shy, but I had friends and liked myself. I didn’t know it was possible to dislike yourself.
My middle and high school years have their own stories to them, but I’ll share them another time. Basically, wearing glasses, having acne, and I guess just something about my personality in general marked me as a target in middle school. My high school years were spent avoiding any sort of attention, even though I looked a lot different and likely wouldn’t have been made fun of anymore. I was terrified of doing something wrong and being laughed at. My self-confidence was nonexistent. I tried to kill myself my senior year, by carbon monoxide poisoning in my garage. By my own stupidity I survived, because I forgot to open the windows in my car. By the time I realized this, there were cops pounding on the front door and trying to open the garage door. I hated myself for this mistake. I forgot to open a window. This would all be different now if I had thought to open a fucking window.
When I was 18 I met this girl, I’ll call her Mae. She was beautiful. She played guitar, a few other instruments, and had a voice that I fell in love with on our first date. We were perfect for each other, spent every day together. A few months into our relationship, I started the process of enlisting in the Navy, a goal I’d made in high school and never shut up about. A high ASVAB score wasn’t able to help me when I was immediately disqualified for having a suicide attempt on record. Crushed. I was catatonic for a week, but Mae was there. As time passed, I fell more in love with her. We moved in together with some friends in a new city a few hours from home. Eventually I was glad I didn’t enlist because I would have had to leave her. Because of her, I was happy the window was closed.
I lived in that apartment for six months, and I still consider them the best of my life. Mae found me. The real me, not the one on the outside that was afraid of everyone’s thoughts. I was more outgoing, confident, and motivated. She helped me see myself as the best boy I could be. A boy that began to love himself as he loved the most beautiful part of his life. I wouldn’t have killed myself if she’d asked me to. But I did, and by the time she left me it was too late to take back.
You see, I am a transguy, meaning for the first 18 years of my life I lived as a girl. I met Mae then. I guess I looked like a typical “dykey” chick – short hair and masculine clothing. I remember she was madly in love with me, calling me her Dream Girl. I still had severe confidence issues at the start of our relationship, despite how wonderful she was to me. Something was still not right. I didn’t feel right calling myself a girl, and androgynous didn’t cut it either. I actually fought myself on the possibility of being transgender due to my fear of negative attention (because now I’d really be something to talk about). The opportunity to move to a new city meant a chance to start over, a place where no one knew me as a girl. So I started hormone replacement therapy almost immediately after settling in to the area. Mae had been incredibly supportive, she was so happy for me, saw my smile grow wider looking in the mirror every morning. During this time we went from being teenagers chain smoking in parking lots to adults with bills to pay and groceries to buy. We worked full time and went to community college. I loved my life with her. Don’t think I’ve ever been happier.
She couldn’t say the same. When she broke up with me I felt the ground crumple under my feet. She said she loved me, that we connected on a level she’d never reached with another, and that she was sure if soul mates were real, she’d found hers. But she wasn’t in love with me anymore. She said she missed A—. She loved the girl I hated, and hated the boy I loved. There was no way to fix it.
I was drunk for a month straight after the break up, pretty much any time I wasn’t at work. I’d dealt with depression for a while, due to family issues (abuse that I won’t get into today), but this was different; worse. I dropped out and moved back to my hometown. Before I left, we agreed that we did have a strong connection, and that we would take time apart to heal before starting over as friends. It’s been about months since we’ve spoken, and I don’t know how much longer it will be. Ironically, I can’t wait to be 100% over her so that I can see her again.
Thing is, I don’t know how I really feel. I’ve been prescribed a cocktail of drugs to help with depression and anxiety that have left me in a neutral state. This has helped me function, at least, as I got a great job and have a plan laid out for my future. But I don’t feel, I don’t think I can anymore. Any bit of emotion I have is incomplete or mixed up. For example, I’ll get that all too familiar lump in my throat normally followed by tears, but they never come. I want so badly to cry, but I can’t force it, I’m left with the uncomfortable lump. Rather than being angry at something, I tremble uncontrollably. It is frustrating. I don’t even know if I want to kill myself or not. I feel like a sociopath, but I keep taking the meds, worried a breakdown might happen if I stop them.
I want to kill myself because I hate myself. I think. I don’t want to kill myself because I’m doing okay. I think. I don’t get better or worse. Every day is the same. I’m in some kind of emotional limbo that I don’t want to leave because I’m afraid of which side I’ll come out on.
At one point in my transition to male (before the breakup), I’d thought to myself, “I spent the first 18 years of my life wanting to kill myself. And in a way, I did.”
I don’t know if it was a mistake or not. I don’t know much about anything these days.
If you took the time to read this, thanks. I found this site while at work and before I knew it I’d registered and started typing. I am a little worried that my story doesn’t belong here, and if so please let me know. I don’t want to annoy anyone with something that only slightly hits the topic. I guess I just had to get all that out.
4 comments
That’s such a sad story. I’m so sorry you had to lose the person you love to be yourself. I wish I knew the answers, I wish you didn’t have to go through it… all break ups are hard but you’re so strong to go through that and get this far. How long is it since you spoke?
Thank you so much. It definitely helps to stick with “out of sight, out of mind. ” almost three months, I had already moved but went back for the Fourth of July to visit. She had started dating and I was out of the loop. I wanted to be okay with it so we could stay friends but there was no way around the meltdown that followed. I woke up in the morning still angry, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I left without saying goodbye. That night she texted me “are we ok?” And I was hesitant because I felt like I hated her, but knew i don’t. I said “we’re ok” and that was the last time i spoke to or saw her. It’s changed though, I’m trying to be happy for her. Trying to be a good friend ya know?
Maybe you just need more time before you can be friends. It doesn’t sound very long to get over something like that, especially when the person you’re not over is dating and things are changing so fast. I hope you do manage to be friends eventually, it sounds like she still cares about you a lot and those kinds of people are great to have around. But it’s probably good that you’re not forcing yourself to be over her and talk to her all the time… You’ll hopefully feel better after a bit of time away. 🙂
That’s so sad. Sorry that it didn’t work out. Did it hurt when she called you Dream Girl? Hang in there. You are brave. No need to blame her either. No one belongs to anybody. But sounds like she still care about you, just not in the kind of relationship you wanted.