Looming Doubts of Presence

I’ve made several attempts in just two years. None of it worked.

Everytime I would disappear or just fade away from my friends and they wouldn’t even notice. I’m not saying anything different here from what other people here have been through. I’ve always been the friend that took notice of others. I always go out of my way to notice everyone else, because no one would ever do the same to me. I always felt that it was a horrible place to be in my shoes.

I’ve lived like this for so long, I knew how painful it was to not have anyone notice when we’re down. But lately, even after many times where I’ve felt like I’d given up on my own life, I feel like I just want to give up on caring for anyone.

Only two people in my personal life know that I was abused by the one parent I truly loved and cared about. I was six years old or something, I had a problem trying to learn how to count. She was preparing me for preschool, and I was doing really badly at math since I couldn’t even figure out how to count with my fingers (or with my head even). The best solution she had? Locking me in the bathroom at night, with all the lights turned off. As if the darkness wasn’t the only thing to help push me into this idea that a burst of adrenaline would solve all my problems, at some point later that night I remember having my head dipped into a bucket of water by my mother. I still can’t learn how to count to this day. I’m absolutely dependent on a calculator to do anything. And the worst part of it all is that I absolutely have to trust the cashier at any store that they aren’t ripping me off. I can’t count. It’s one of the many things I’m crippled at doing. It’s the reason why even after realizing what I went through was basically clear cut abuse, I still have to depend on my mother. She’s the only person that’s willing to teach me anything about life, about problem solving, almost anything I can think of.

I remember months back, I brought this up with her just for curiosity’s sake. I wonder if she forgot about it, or if she regretted it. She still remembered it, apparently. So I thought to myself “so she must have felt a lot of guilt doing what she did to me”. I knew my own mother was a victim of life long childhood abuse. It didn’t help that after dedicating her life to escaping her abusive father, she ended up marrying my father who also ended up being an abusive entrapping devil of a man. I spent my whole life empathizing with her situation. And I found out that she justified the abuse she inflicted unto me. She said I was doing it on purpose, not wanting to count. So clearly, if a child has difficulty learning, they’re clearly asking for it. I was surprised by her mindset about this, but I’m not even disappointed.

I lost any shred of love I had for my mother the moment I came out to her as a transgender. She told me I was being silly. That it was “too hard to bear” as it is from YEARS AGO that I came out to her as someone who had a different sexual orientation. Me coming out as a woman to her? Apparently it’s like a slap in the face to her. That I was desecrating what god had given me. And that no matter how hard my life is, I’ll never know or truly experience just how difficult it is to ACTUALLY be a woman. Nevermind the fact I was almost raped when I was 13, or the fact I can’t go anywhere alone without having a bunch of men pulling wolf whistles at me. But hey, I’m not a real woman I guess. Several minutes into that confession, she recommended that I go seek some religious figure or something. Apparently she heard of a man who used to be queer, but after dedicating his entire life to praying and getting into connection with god despite his inner desire to be more effeminate, he’s finally overcome that “temptation”. I laughed at this, not just because she assumed I hadn’t spent my entire life hoping and praying to be normal like everyone else around me, but because I spent my whole life depressed and trying to overcome crippling social anxiety by myself without any professional help offered my way. I never could afford professional help. And it was never even offered to me no matter how many times I’ve had slight freakouts to downright attempts on myself. But my biggest mistake was apparently offending her just by laughing. She slapped me right then and there. I couldn’t stand it, I got up and packed up my stuff so I could finally move out. But she stopped me right there. Getting in the way of me packing. So I couldn’t bring along anything with me, fine. I’ll just walk out of the house and see where life takes me from there. But no, she literally dragged me by my hand. Telling me she desperately needed me at home, because there was no one else in our lives. It got to a point where she was pulling so hard onto my sleeve, while I was begging her to let go of me. I was so desperate to run, I finally did something that I could never have done to the one person I used to care about; I pushed her back so hard that she landed on her head and hit a sharp end of a furniture.

The worst part? A part of me regretted it. That was the worst part. Not because I should feel bad about what I did to her. But because I wished she had actually died in that moment. I was so sick of being taken for granted my whole life. Gaslighting abuse every second as a kid. Being told my father was the only repulsive person. And true, he is. But while my father was a repulsive man both to my mother and society in general, he never abused me nor took advantage of me in the way that she has been all along. She may be the victim and him her captor, but I am her victim.

I don’t have any friends that were willing to care for me, and neither does she. We both have no friends nor other family members to turn to. That’s how alone we are. We used to be alone, together. Nowadays, I’m giving her the illusion that we’re still alone together. I have to be by her beck and call still.

All this however, is an old story from months back.

I’m not the same person anymore.

The only thing remaining of me to this day, is my crippling inability to be independent. I work, but I never could make enough money on my own to leave and start my own life. And even if I could, I have no idea how to survive. I have no friends. I have no idea how to even work around electronics. I have no idea how to cook properly. I have no idea how to count or to figure out tax cuts in my salary. I’ve always just depended on my bosses and HR amongst other things. I just can’t figure out anything. I feel like I may be autistic or something, but I can’t even afford to get an official diagnosis. And I’m terribly scared of going to see a doctor on my own.

I live in a very transphobic, homophobic country. Making friends is difficult for me. I even tried reaching out to a local trans ally group on Facebook, I got a number from a nice and sweet transgirl. I thought I could finally make a friend, maybe I might even start working there. Got her number, I made a stupid mistake of messaging her while on working hours. So she told me she was busy, and I should call back in a couple hours. Hours passed, I texted her instead and told her that I wasn’t sure if I should text or call, since she said call but I was scared and hated my own voice and I preferred typing, but I didn’t tell her that. Regardless, I waited two weeks for an answer for that question. She didn’t text me back asking if I was still OK or not.

It didn’t help the only friends I felt like I had were ignoring me. I always paid attention them whenever I could. I indulged in their hobbies sometimes. I indulged in their opinions. Even though I don’t always agree or have much in common. They were into comic books, manga, anime, superhero movies. But I wasn’t really much into any of it. All I could relate to was… my affinity for movies so naturally I can sort of get along with the whole superhero movie geeking out thing. And because of this, I feel like no matter how much I hang around them, I’m never their first choice. They’re always doing things together, and only sometimes do they openly invite others to join on group chats. And that’s where I come in. I tried so hard not to get too bothered or not to feel to left out. But I know I’m too weird for them. I don’t dress like a man, that in itself alienates me not just from them, but from any potential friendship I could make from people off the streets. Sometimes when I’m walking out and about with them, no one ever walks alongside me. There was one time, I tried wearing high heels, it was so painful I couldn’t bear to walk much but they were walking everywhere and I was still new to it, that I wasn’t prepared to walk all night in those shoes, let alone the fact I didn’t know most women bring spare shoes for that sort of thing. So I ended up not only just walking around alone, I was far behind them. And then they decided they couldn’t go to a certain spot they were headed to, so they went around me to go back some place else so I just… walked all the way for nothing… only to walk back.

Among one of them however, lies someone else I truly cared about. Someone I thought and felt like as though he cared for me. I was never close with him to begin with, we didn’t really care for eachothers company when we first met. We only talked to eachother once or twice, and that was it. Two years later, when we all got together again, I saw just how much everyone loved and adored him and how much he felt the same way around them. And in that very moment too, I got to know him a little better, and it immediately hit me. This man I’m talking to, probably has depression. It felt like sometimes he was shielding his opinions away for no reason, and it felt familiar as I always end up doing that sometimes. So I got a little worried for him. But I tried not to get into him too much because, I know he’s surrounded by a lot of our friends. He has roommates with whom he deeply connects with a lot and spends so much time with them. I really envied him, I knew a part of him felt alone, but I just wished I had what he has.

Some time later, I finally got along better with him. We ended up playing online games together because I hit it off nicely with one of our mutual friends. So we ended up being gamer buddies. Then it just ended there, in two months. I ended up having nothing in common with him again, while he’s off playing games with the other friends. I tried not to mind that. But then, there was this really nice Disney movie that had come out earlier this year. We were both huge fans of it and even though I told him I wasn’t a fan of live action adaptations, I would love to see it. He’s not the kind of guy whose homophobic or shies away from emotions. So it wasn’t that. In fact, this is a guy who would openly say he loves and cares for his friends. And it was so refreshing to find a male friend that didn’t feel any “hypermasculinity” pressure. And I noticed, he invited a lot of our other friends, who were in no way interested in that movie at all, to go see it with him. Obviously, I wasn’t invited. So I felt left out. But I said nothing about it, because it was kind of clear cut there.

We usually texted eachother, and by “we” I mean I was the annoying “soccer mom” friend who’d always message first and spam annoying songs no one even likes. I still kept it going I guess, because like I said, I never liked the idea of just.. leaving someone to feel alone. So maybe, I was projecting. Maybe he doesn’t feel alone, or maybe he just hates my company already. But I just felt like I didn’t want to risk cutting off from a friend who might be suffering too. I never opened up to him about how bad my life really is, even though he eventually did to me months later. I heard him out, listened to how lonely he feels. And one time, he randomly opened up to me about some disease he was starting to have. So at that point, I began to feel like we were friends.

I even visited him when he was hospitalized. I felt like as though life was getting worse for him, a disease he could barely afford to pay for. He was bankrupt already, paying for treatment and then missing the pay for his rent too. I just tried being there whenever he could have me. But no matter how many times I spend with him, most of the conversation is always either about his interests or his problems. I once tried to bring up some of my own interests, things I actually geek about, and his only response to any of it was always the same; “oh”. It was clear he had no incentive to pay attention to my interests, so I clammed down. But it goes on and on, just hearing him talk about himself and only things that he likes. I guess he assumes that I like the things he does, but I don’t. I’ve always been a good listener for people, and I guess he’s a good talker which was why I enjoyed his company.

I know it seems like I’ve gotten off course here, starting my post about childhood abuse then going on to drone on about some guy who I thought was my best friend. But that’s basically it. To say that, all these experiences, it’s made me exhausted trying to be myself all the time. Now, I feel like I’m done being the people pleaser. I tried to reach out to him about my own problems. I gave him just a glimpse. I’ve said something along the lines of “my mother used to spill hot coffee on my dad after he punched her” as an offhanded joke. I never brought that up again. Then I made a mistake of letting him know I was depressed. On his birthday. I went to see him because I wanted to hand over some stuff I thought he’d like as gifts. The gifts ended up being crap to him, and I didn’t mind that so much because I told him in text that “if its crap you can always just give it away to someone else”. So I was prepared for that, really. I didn’t really even want to be there on his birthday, I just felt like I didn’t want to make it too clear that I was beginning to cut myself off from him (and life in general, I was already planning another attempt then). I made it clear I didn’t want to overstay that day, but I ended up doing so and I felt horrible yet.. briefly alive. He was cooking that day and I was late. I didn’t even know he was gonna cook something. And even if he did, I wasn’t expecting to have him wait for me. So I came to his house way late into the afternoon, and I saw food was served and he hadn’t eaten anything yet. So I stayed, and we talked “the usual stuff” for hours. I told him I wanted to go because I was supposed to be somewhere else. But I kept stalling myself, and he seemed to be indulging me as well.. so I ended up overstaying so much that I slept there. I just didn’t want to go back home. Every minute I spend at his place, which is the only place I can go other than work and home, I felt like I didn’t have to go back home so soon. To face my mother and father who were always at my home, waiting for me to come back and be their nice obedient caretaker of a “boy” that they needed around.

So I stayed there for one night. At that time, it was way past clear that he had gotten over his depression already. He was always honest with me about whether he was upset or happy. The whole day and night, I kinda kept asking him to hang out with me someplace else. I just wanted to do things, with a friend. I never got a chance to do anything. Whenever I go out anywhere, I have never had friends to hang out with. I’m just always alone. Never with anyone. Walking around alone. Imagine being a transgender person, walking out day and night alone, and no one to care for you even if you did. Not even your parents who think of you as just a silly confused “boy” who loves to dress “weirdly”. I just wanted something eventful to do with a friend I cared about. And he kept telling me no, so I was disappointed. I wasn’t even disappointed that my mother was using me all these years, but I’m disappointed that I thought I was interesting enough to be his company. Sure, he turned me down and I guess he just didn’t feel like doing anything that day other than gaming with his online friends. Which I’m not a part of, nor did he ever ask me to even join. The one thing that made me feel like I truly “died” that day, was the last words we spoke to each other. That was another glimpse I gave about how I’m depressed. The last words I spoke to him in person, was “Actually, I’m not feeling very good these days”, and he just looked me right in the eyes and said “then be good”. Those were our last words in person. It didn’t help that he never texted me back after all this.

And then, a nail in the coffin a whole month or so later, in our group chat, his best friend moved back with him. They’re roommates again. And what did this guy do for his bestie when he moved in? He bought for him pizza, on the house. I have spent a lot of my own hard earned money for him before, but he never gives back anything in return to me. I felt so stupid, to think of myself I was even close to a friend for him when I was just someone he could use as a shoulder for his problems. And right there in that fucking group chat, his bestie says he’s got pizzas for him. How sweet. I didn’t get anything through listening to him for so long. I just wanted to feel like I wasn’t invisible for once. To do things with friends. To have someone be there for you. I didn’t have any of this. Just seeing that picture of the pizza box, I was out in public. Alone. As always. I was in a restaurant, buying takeouts for my clearly loving and caring folks at home. Who would never let me have the career and freedom I wanted. To even allow me to be the woman I wanted to be. I was sitting there in the restaurant. I felt like crying, but I couldn’t. I just walked all the way back home, with a blank expression. When I did arrive home, I sat down on the living room chair in the dark. It’s my “bed”, since I don’t actually have one. I sat on it, handed the dinner to my mother and let her go about her “business” with it. And I just thought about all the times in my life where people absolutely ignored my existence. I wasn’t crying but a lot of water ran down my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was sad. I just started to feel nothing, even though my eyeducts were clearly saying that I’m crying. I went from the shy quiet “boy” in school who was secretly terribly anxious to even talk to anyone, to the confident extroverted woman I was for the most part of this year. And still, I was invisible. Remembering the time in school, where I walked up to a girl, my OWN classmate, to ask her politely, nervous as I was, on the directions where to go during an event. Not only did she “not hear me”. I was standing right in front of her. Her eyes didn’t even meet my own, in fact, she didn’t even bother to look around. There was absolutely no reaction. I was literally invisible. Right in front of her. She wasn’t talking to anyone else. She was looking at her phone. I was in front of her. Asking her for a simple direction. I had never been rude for even once to her. I was invisible. I didn’t exist. And I still feel like this to this day, even if a much lesser extent than what she did.

He used to have some really disturbing things he’d say to me. They weren’t particularly disturbing, but it really made me aware of his depression and how badly he used to have it. The one that struck out for me was that he said “fake friends and fake promises can fucking die for all I care”. I didn’t think it applied to me back then, but those were words I wouldn’t even say to anyone no matter how badly they treated me. It sounded so aggressive to me, and I never once could agree with that kind of mindset. But now that I’m a different person, with some kind of dissociation perhaps, it’s exactly how I feel about anyone now. Granted, I don’t feel like I could describe anyone as fake friends, but I just feel the same way for anybody now.

Because I just don’t care anymore.

I don’t exist to him whenever he doesn’t feel like he needed an ear for his problems.

I don’t exist to even LGBT people, both offline and online. Not so shockingly, even if you’re LGBT, it doesn’t mean you have anything in common.

I don’t exist to any of my other friends, the ones who did know how fucked up my life is, they’re too busy with their own lives to be bothered to include me in anything.

I don’t exist, at all.

I’m not sure if this is my suicide note, or if its an “I will survive” thing.

Because honestly, I just don’t care.