I Have a Problem

I have a problem. The first step is admitting it, right? That is what they say on TV. So I am going to put on my big boy pants and fess up… I’m addicted to pills. Sleep aids, cough medicine, herbal supplements, antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, anything! Let’s put it this way, if I am taking a walk and see a blister pack on the ground with one mystery pill inside, I have to restrain myself from picking it up. I’ve stolen medication. I’ve taken handfuls of it. I’ve lied to get it. I just can’t seem to stop. But it’s only because I a so damn miserable and… empty.
I’ve been medicated since I was a pre-teen. Ritalin and Paxil first. Zoloft for awhile. Seroquel, Prozac, Risperdal, Abilify, Topamax, Neurontin are just a few of the medications the doctors have tried on me. I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression w/ delusions, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, gender identity disorder, and one intrepid lunatic even went so far as to say I had dissociative identity disorder. All these diagnoses came from different folk, none of them in agreement, and all of them wanted me to try a new wonder drug. And now, nearly 30 years old, I find myself completely enslaved by those pesky pharmaceuticals.
You might think someone with so many labels under their belt and a need to be so often medicated is a danger to society, themselves, or, at the very least, is a creepy awkward person. I promise I am not. Hate them (and love them) as I may, the medications that I don’t abuse DO work… mostly. I function in society. I work. I can pretend to love and have real-pretend relationships. The thing is though, and what brings me here is, I am completely empty. Dead inside. Through act or drug or nature, I am the living dead. My waking hours are spent staring at the walls. I rarely go outside or see friends. I find sex and human contact abhorrent. I derive no pleasure from things that make the normals happy. I don’t have any hobbies but for reading erotic gay fiction which, I swear to gods, sometimes is my soul reason to exist. I hate living so much that I escape reality at every chance through nap or maladaptive daydreaming. I live through the hundreds of characters in my head and when I am woken from my fantasy and the crushing weight of reality rains down, I reach for the pills. I just have to alter my state of mind. Desperately. My lucid thoughts hum to the constant tune of “I’d rather be dead.”
Is it chemical? Is my brain just an unhappy place? Is it all the drugs? Is it situational? I would be on a quest to find out could I summon the gumption to do anything but snuggle in bed with a plate of pizza rolls. I am positive there are many contributing factors. The cocktail assaulting my mind and liver daily is bound to have its effect as we know there are always side-effects to medicating. My diet doesn’t help. My sordid past, which should remain in the past but comes out to bite me now and then.  Lack of money. Loneliness. But there are other things too that are harder to talk about. There are two black clouds that rule my everyday. The secret I cannot share and the one that I packed away.
I cannot tell you the most important, painful, and unfortunate piece of information about me. I can’t tell anyone. It is a secret that will go with me to the grave, I hope. But I can tell you the second most vital thing I keep classified. My identity. My TRUE identity. Batman!  No, just kidding.
(I hesitate to write this because someone is going to have a problem with it. Alas.)I am transgender. Though I use the term loosely, as I am not transitioning currently. I won’t go all cliche and say I feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body but I will say… Okay that is exactly how I would describe it. I’ve never felt right. Never. When I was a kid, I had no idea I was a girl. Didn’t think I was male either. I simply was. As I grew older I tried very hard to be more female because people kept telling me that’s what I was and, in truth, I like(d) many things that are generally attributed to females. Dolls for example. Lets me play god! But I also enjoyed wrestling, football, being a complete show off and nekkid lady magazines. I was you average run of the mill young pervert… I mean boy. And girl. I had it all. Then puberty. Things got awkward. I tried to fit in but being both mannish and slightly insane does not endear one to peers. Girls beat me up a lot. I survived.
When I became an adult, I learned the world was much bigger than the trailer park I grew up in. I also learned a lot about myself. I traveled. I schooled. I ditched organized religion and it was the best decision of my life. I decided to be more open with myself and, at 23, came to identify as bisexual. I met someone and through her I met a transman and really started to think about my own identity. I knew I’d never been a girl. But was I a man? Maybe I fell outside the binary? It was a lot to take in but ultimately it came down to this… What was between my legs was not right, had never been right, would never be right, and disgusted me. My chest. No go. Those hours I’d spend weeping, head buried in my knees because my body was the wrong one, had to stop. I wanted to change. So I started to…  But it was futile. Soon threats were made. I was assured I would be disowned and unloved. Abandoned. Family members came out of the woodwork to rabidly reject me as soon as they caught wind of my plan. It’s one thing to act like a boy, I guess. It is another to dress like one. So as soon as it began, my quest was over.
Being mentally ill means I rely on my family a lot. I have never lived on my own but, like a doobie in a frat house, have passed through the hands of several family members. I am usually sane but when I am not it is my family that picks up the pieces. And so, I remain as I am to appease them. I live in fear of failure.
And it kills me.
Fortunately I often feel nothing though. Like I said, I am dead inside. I’ve tried to kill myself and failed. I consider it a lot but am too much of a coward to go about it. I don’t want to die because life is hard or because I am sad or because bad things have happened in my past. I forgive those who have wronged me and could almost be considered happy. If I felt feelings. But I just don’t want to continue. I am bored. There is nowhere for me to go. There is nothing to do but sleep. I am tired all the time. So tired. I think about my family and feel like I should be more considerate of them, when it comes to suicide, but I can’t muster up the emotion. I lack the emotion for just about all things. And, for the most part, I pretend not to exist. I detach myself from my body and live in my head. I sleep and eat. I read filth occasionally and that, and the existence of the characters I’ve made up for my stories, is pretty much my sole reason to go on. I am just so empty. I just so badly want a reason and a will to live. And gods do I want to stop popping every pill I see!

(If anything I have written has upset of offended you, I am sorry)