I have experienced depression and thoughts of suicide and death the vast majority of my life, sometimes for hours a day. I am male assigned at birth, but I would like to be able to present as female, engage in feminine hobbies, and behave in a more feminine matter. I don't know if I count as trans or genderqueer or just a feminine guy, but I do have some social dysphoria and slight body dysphoria. Because of the male gender role, I've become extremely isolated and cannot be myself around anyone or express who I really am to anyone. That being said, I don't have it in me to transition or know if I would even want that. In a perfect world, or if our culture had a socially accepted 3rd gender like some other cultures, I would dress and behave how I want. But the world is not perfect, and I am stuck as I am. I don't have the courage to be myself: my body is definitively masculine, and I live in an area of the U.S. where they still teach that being gay is just a choice in public high school. Given that, should I just try to forget about coming out? I've only told one person so far. My life is and will continue to be miserable, but I don't see what else I can do. I'm not trans enough and don't really belong in that category, but these feelings are still so painful. I feel like my life is ruined.
I'm sorry you're suffering like this. Do you ever envision yourself living somewhere else? A "happy place"? Do you have a job or career in mind that would allow you to relocate? I know it would be tough but you might want to weigh the pros and cons and then set yourself a mission to enable yourself to be in a situation, at least financially, where you'd be free to decide such a thing. As for coming out, you could try to find more "free spirited"/open-minded people to hang around with. Volunteer at a theatre? Take an art class? Search out a local LGBT resource centre, if there us such a thing. Take care.
living a double life internal you spilling over into the person everyone else sees does not work! I shitcanned acting, pretending for family and long friends to be John, and only allow people in my life who accept me June which is 90% of people, I am just myself no more acting looking like a freak. it got easy once the initial shock set in to those around me. then I made since to them! June
I don't know where a happy place would be. In any case, I have screwed myself over when it comes to career since I went into debt and earned a worthless degree. I was more concerned with understanding the world and myself than making myself valuable to the business world, and I regret it every day. Those are good ideas. I didn't think to check for a lgbt resource center, but there is one and some satellite organizations not too far from here. I don't know if I would be up to meeting people in any of those settings though, but I'm considering trying now. Reading your post made me realize that I just don't accept myself at all.
Oh no. I haven't made things worse for you, I hope. Can I ask what your degree is in? Mine is a liberal arts degree, which you would think is quite useless but added to the technical degree I took later, it gave me an edge when getting hired. Give the LGBT organizations a try. Start by checking out their websites, see if they have any drop in activities or events. Something where you don't have to sign up so you're free to come and go as you please. Maybe they offer call in or email support given by trained counselors.
