I don't actually have any belief that putting this out here will help me, but i figured i'd try to sate my curiosity. Sorry, i'm melodramatic... and one to ramble... a lot. So... It's been like this for about two years now. I'm truly sick of it, it's kind of just what I've come to believe my life is and will be for… well, forever now. Which sound dumb as sh*t but... I honestly can't picture my life going anywhere but just... this... I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with me… if it’s even anything at all… ... My gender is f*cking me up. Dysphoria is a b*tch. I'm in an environment, much like most, that forces me to choose between the binary... when i don't want to choose at all. Sure, i'd rather be treated 'like a boy', I relate to the typical image of 'masculinity', and i feel uncomfortable in my own 'female' skin... So I want to pick the 'male' side, if any at all. But my parents wouldn't want that. Even if they acted supportive, i wouldn't trust them to think of it as anything more than a phase. Basically, I feel like I’m left with not much of another option than to just be a... 'girl'. And, what if it IS just some kind of phase? What if i'm just being a whiny brat, feeling sorry for myself just for the sake of it when others REALLY deserve the right to feel sorry for themselves SO much more than me? A bloody fake. With no option but to stay a 'girl' anyway... ... Same with my sexuality. I've always loved femininity; it's always attracted me. Ive always found it easier to find attraction in women than men, I’ve always had girl crushes, whether they were a person I knew, a character, an actor’s role in a certain movie… I know i'm like this… I know I’m attracted to women... And yet i still tell myself i'm a 'fraud'. Like it's just a phase. ...Again, i'm in a position, much like most, that requires me to choose one or the other, males or females, even when i'd rather just not decide. I don't want to label myself. But i have to choose, and, if i try to choose, i'll always choose female. I AM attracted to women. But that's not really an option. My parents wouldn't want that. Again, even if they act supportive, i'd hate myself. I'd likely see myself as more fake than my parents would, they’d think it’s a phase. Again, no options. I can only sit here and wait, doing nothing about my feelings. ... I'm home-schooled. I don't have any friends. I'm admittedly not very good at talking to my parents either. I'm not very good at talking nowadays. People intimidate me, i don't trust them, they just seem to lie, my voice just shakes when i try to speak, i can't say 'hello' or 'thank you' or give a response to 'How are you?' let alone return the question. I just can't. And it just makes me feel guilty when i have these encounters. And i have them every day. I've tried to help it, I've looked at a lot of social anxiety sh*t, but i DON'T have an anxiety. I CAN'T have anxiety of any kind. I just don't, there are people out there who DO, people that REALLY deserve help and support, who CAN feel sorry for themselves because they are ACTUALLY GOING THROUGH SOMETHING. I'm not that. I can't let myself believe that i have ANYTHING. I'm just trying to be different. 'special'. Because if this is anything real then i'm screwed… ... I don't tell anyone anything really. I have my sister. She tells me everything. All her problems, worries, and i enjoy helping her with them. I know she loves me, i know we are very close. But, even when she tells me that she will listen and that, if i need to vent or just talk, then i can to her, I just can't trust that. I’d feel like I’m burdening her. Even if i did tell her, i regret it. I always regret it. So, i just don't speak. I talk to my Mother about schooling since she's my home teacher and choke on my words as i try to be polite to her. I give my Father a brief nod when we all gather at dinner. My brother says hi when he gets home from work. My sister is often working, but i guess she is the only one i really say more than a couple shy sentences to when i can. I'd only hate myself if i told people things. I'd be burdening and disappointing them. Mum and Dad are busy with my sister's constant complaining about homework, they don't want to deal with more complaining, this time about possibly nothing, from their youngest child too. And my brother never complains. He's perfect. He's going to University and making our parents happy and proud. I can only burden them by sharing my feelings or keep quiet and give them the 'bliss of ignorance' or whatever. ... There is one problem i've never been able to hide though. Sleep. I can't sleep. I've never been able to sleep. Never well. And now it's at its worst. It's not insomnia. I won't let myself believe it's insomnia. I don't trust myself to make those decisions. I never sleep well though. I'm writing this as i lie in bed, wide awake at 8am, right now, because i can't sleep. Every night is a choice of either waiting until around the time i can see the sun through my curtains until i can fall into a constantly disturbed sleep, or try to go to bed earlier and end up waking up at around 5am, unable to get back to sleep, making me look half dead for the rest of the day. I tend to stick to the former. But then i tend to take hours to wake up when told to, from just being generally uninspired to live for anything but also extremely tired. Then i get scolded or mocked for my 'laziness' and because i'm 'such a typical teen'. Then i try to get through the rest of the day without passing out or vomiting... I'm stuck in this situation too. No other options to help myself with. I already tried getting help for this one, from my parents. My whole life practically, i've told them 'i can't sleep', but, even after giving a multitude of symptoms and reasons, they just won't listen. I've really given up trying nowadays. They still know it's a problem, they just don't help me. Quite often my throat or something seems to lose up when i try to sleep making me unable to breathe, so, i can't sleep. Or sometimes i'll think i see or hear something in my room (I'm not hallucinating. I probably just see things…? I don’t know), scaring me from sleeping. But, guaranteed, every night, with no cause, i just can't sleep. I can't. And they KNOW about this one. They’ve done NOTHING TO HELP ME. What's not to say that they won't do the same if i tell them any of my problems? Even if i ask for help with how i'm feeling every day, they won't listen, they won't believe me, and they most certainly won't DO anything about it to help me, so there is no point in asking for help. AGAIN, i have no choice here. I can only really keep quiet. ... Then, to continue what seems like just a big list of my problems, here's how i feel as a whole, i guess. I feel pointless. I don't have any choice in where i'm going, i'm just being pushed along where i have to. And, honestly, i much rather just stop 'going' all together. I'd rather i didn't exist. Everything's so bland now. I can't tell if these feelings have been caused by my problems or if my problems are symptoms of how i'm feeling overall…? I used to be inspired. I used to enjoy drawing, writing, animating, watch anime, playing video games, just chilling with my sister, just having fun. I'm not interested in those things anymore... It's sad. Life is boring me. I miss fun. I don't even want to try to make things better now, i just try to pretend that i don't exist... That's all i want after all, to have never existed. To have never been born. I came so close to just... not existing. I'm the youngest child. I only just made it into this household. And that frustrates me... so much. I never realised, before i started feeling like this, how much of a burden having life is... Because, if i live, i feel sad and bored and empty and tired and sick... but, if i die, then i make others feel guilty. I don't want either of those results. So, what do i do? Well, that's it. Don't choose. Because ONCE-A-F*CKING-GAIN... i don't have a choice. I have to live. I can pretend i don't exist but, in the end, i'm still sad. But there is nothing else i can do. I'm a coward who can't commit for sh*t anyway, an would only make other's lives just that tiny bit worse if i killed myself. I don't even know how i'd go about it. Pills? A knife, maybe?! HOW. I'm stuck here rotting. Cutting myself, unable to satisfy the urge to cut deeper and deeper because i'm a bloody coward. Scratching into the wooden surface of my desk with a metal hair clip, ruining my parent’s furniture. Sitting here snipping at strips of paper until the bag of jagged pieces i keep under my desk is full for hours on end just to pass the seemingly endless amounts of time in each bloody day. All coping mechanisms. ... But then there's my worst method of coping and killing time... Fantasising. Just lying down, for hour and hour, every f*cking day, fantasising of some 'make-believe' friends, with a 'make-believe' girlfriend, a make-believe house, town, word, universe, where everything is nothing but my nothing is every bloody thing i want. A world where i've transitioned, come out, somehow managed to look and act and BE exactly the way i want to be but never will. I DO know, all too well, that the life i've made up will never be my own, but, in order to just give myself a reason to get through these slow days and to have something to cling onto and give me a reason to keep waiting for just SOMETHING on the other end of this waste of time... I've been telling myself that all this happiness is possible. That that fantasy is at least somewhat similar to what i'll have... when i'm an adult. When i'm nineteen specifically, according to… me... I guess? That's how i stay bloody sane. Lying to myself that, yes, there is something at the end of this optionless wait through my childhood. When, in reality, no, there's not. And i'm both extremely scared and extremely excited for what i'll do when i hit disappointing old ‘one-nine’... Once that time has passed I might not have my coping mechanism. I’d realise there’s no hope of it’s reality. I won't have a means to live. Once that fantasy is gone, i'm gone. I don't know what I’ll do when I lose my main and only real coping mechanism. I might put down my cowardice towards suicide is what I’m thinking... Or... maybe I’m getting excited/scared for nothing... Maybe my doomed-to-be-disappointing adulthood won't lose me my coping mechanism, maybe everything will just stay the same. I might just continue fantasising, just with less belief in the possibility of its reality... Still waiting. Still cutting. Waiting for something. Anything better. But there never will be anything. There is nothing… ... I can't keep up with this... I'll have to but i just don't want this.... I hate this. I hate that i can predict exactly what tomorrow will be. And the next day, and the next day, and the next.... I've only felt myself getting progressively worse overtime. This feeling of emptiness and hopelessness has been hanging over me for what, at least, feels like so long. Occasionally, i find a distraction, but that's been getting harder to do recently. It's always still there, even if my mind isn't entirely focused on it, the boredom with life and emptiness towards everything is still there. ... I always try to google it. Search for a name to how i'm feeling, but it only comes up with things like depression and anxiety... I always do this. I find videos or articles on depression, relating to a good deal of symptoms listed there, feeling genuine about it for once as I start to tear up, but... then they say things at the bottom of the page or end of the video like 'if you feel like this, talk to a therapist'... But i can't. I can't get a therapist. I can't even get my parents. But that's always the only option for recovery that's given. Again, only one option. ...Am i just not ever going to have the chance to... 'get better'? I know that probably sounds stupid... but i genuinely worry about this. I feel like i'm stuck like this for the rest of my life. Like it's just my personality or something. I don't want to be... I want to live the way people claim is possible. I just don't believe that i can live happily this way. In fact, i just can't. I won’t. Right now, i'm just wasting my childhood by simply waiting for it to end, which i know i'll regret if i do ever recover... But i don't think i will honestly. I won't even come close to living that fantasy... If I’m dealing with something i need help to recover from... i'm screwed. ... That's why i must just be being a spoiled brat. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I DON'T have depression. I don't have anything. I'm just acting sad. I'm telling myself i'm sad to cope...? I have such nice things, how could i be sad... I'm lucky... I don't deserve to feel sorry for myself like others do. I can't be genuinely sad. I don't want to be… ... Crying makes me feel validated. I feel good when i'm crying. It means that i might be genuine about thinking there’s something wrong with me... that I’m not just doing it to be ‘special’… That my sadness has a face. And possibly a name. But it also makes me scared. Because, if it has a name, then... i can't get a therapist for it... So i'm screwed. I'm stuck like this. But, in the end, i have a lot of problems trusting myself. And that's getting me stuck. I want help, i just don't feel i need it. I guess i don't think that i deserve it. I don't. ... I'm sad. And i need help. I don't trust myself with diagnosis... definitely not... i don't know anymore... But if anyone reading this too long, boring, tangent can possibly help... then go for it... Sorry for... Being so whiny. Honestly quite scared to post this. ... Ugh, just going to post it, doubt anyone will read this far anyway...
Firstly I'd like to say how sorry I am that you feel like this, and how sorry I am that you feel like you have no right to feel like this. I'll try to give advice as best I can about this but I can only relate to some of this and don't have in depth knowledge. To do with your gender I must say you have the right to explore it as fully and completely as you want, trying out multiple identities before finally coming to rest (or never if you want). Even if you end up the most girly girl in creation (not that it sounds like you will) you have this right, no matter what other people think about it, or your parents. Even those cynics that seek to squash everyone with the gender binary should have no power to stop you settling somewhere in between the genders. This search is a vital part of your ending identity, please don't feel like you have to give up and give in. Please. I personally can relate to your second point. I don't know how common it is to feel like a fraud while discovering your sexuality, but I do know how awful it is. Again I must reiterate your right to figure this out in your own time. Kiss girls, kiss boys, kiss people in between. Even if you go round saying your gay or bi for years and then find out "wait I'm not", there should be no problem. No one will jump on you and go "wait you're such a fucking liar" because mainly if they're straight they'll be too frickin awkward to comment anyway. If they'r a person who god forbid thinks you're trying to copy their sexuality to be cool they do not know you well enough and you should flip them the bird. I know you're telling the truth. Believe you. You're confused and scared and guilty. You can feel like this, or you can go and utter the phrase that I hated when it was said to me, "there's no rush, find out in your own time". This is so frustrating because you want answers NOW, but I gave up trying to figure me out, stopped trying to psychoanalyse my self and found out, in the end, that the way I found when I looked at a girl was genuine for a few seconds before my automatic response of "you're lying" kicked in. Give up for a bit, and believe in your response. Even if it's "no I don't like girls" in the end or "I don't like guys" or "I don't like anybody" or "I like everybody". You don't have to rule one out. You don't have to decide. Please just let it flow. This is the bit where I get less sure. I think you do have something wrong with you, either anxiety, depression, both, something else, but I'm not a professional. I don't even suffer myself. However the symptoms seem to check out with the general ones I've heard. I would urge you to seek help with a mental health professional. I know you're in an awkward situation for this, and what I suggest may or may not help. Firstly there are LGBT centres an suchlike you don't have to be in school to get, and these will offer counselling service sometimes or at least someone to talk to. Secondly there is always someone on this sight that wants to help you. Some of the admins are even specially trained for certain situations. The list is somewhere on the site. Finally, and you may not like this, you may have to tell your parents. They should help you; you're their child. However if you don't feel safe doing this, leave it. It's better to wait. Please don't self harm or go to more extreme lengths. There are better ways to deal with the way you feel, and I know you feel cornered but please look online for aid to deal with your hurt. Finally I would seriously tell your sister. If there is any advice I can impart from this, it's a problem share is a problem halved. She'll show you she cares and it will wash away your guilt. Please do it. Ps. Someone will always read to the end here because they recognise a little part of them in your story. You're valid because I'm valid. You matter. We care. Have a hug(*hug*)
Thank you for the response... I was kind of beginning to think i wouldn't get any response from anyone. And thanks for the advice. I don't know how much of it i'll be able to follow very soon, very well, or very easily... but i appreciate it and will definitely keep what you've said in mind. It's especially comforting that someone now knows how i feel. Even if you aren't someone i know personally, it's nice to have some kind of near clarification that i really can muster up the courage to reach out to someone or something for help... I don't know whether this feeling will last long enough to make me much happier generally, but, right now, i feel pretty valid and calm thanks to you... and i haven't ever really felt that for a while. But, if that good feeling does just end again at some point, I'll likely be reading back what you've said for comfort. And i'll hopefully end up practically memorizing your advice as i do. I feel like what you've said will go a long way to help me when i'm down, even if i end up stuck in this situation longer than i need to be. So, thank you. (*hug*)
