2/26/2022 0 Comments My Life As Of LateIt's been a few months since I have posted anything. I'm sorry about that, I truly am. I wanted to write earlier. That said, it's been an insane last few months. I ended up having to go back living with my parents. It was that or living on the streets...in the middle of a midwest winter. So, I have been adjusting to living with my parents again. It's not been easy or what I wanted, but, it was better than living on the streets. So far they have treated me far better than they used to, which is a huge relief. Unfortunately, still don't have a job. Absolutely no one is calling me back. I even follow up with jobs and still no one bothers calling back. It's beyond frustrating to the point I'm not applying to too many jobs anymore. My mental health has been pretty awful, absolutely everything sets me off into a rage now. Small little things such as dropping something makes my temper flare up. It's not healthy, and I'm trying to keep it under control, but it's hard. My body image issues have been terrorizing me again. It's all I can do to not think about my body, otherwise I feel disgusting. Am I overweight? Yes. Am I fat? By no means. Do I see myself as fat? Absolutely. That's not good. So, there have been days where I starved myself just to try to get my weight down, or at least try. I'm not sleeping well. Not at all. Most nights I get several bad dreams and keep waking up. Some nights I have no dreams but barely sleep. So, I am perpetually exhausted. It's not fun. Having struggles with the Post Office, learning to live with others again and stop being so independent. It's rough, really rough. There's a lot of days I just want to break down and cry, but the tears never come. Many days though I have panic attacks. I have harmed myself a few times admittedly and have seriously contemplated suicide, but as you can see, have not gone through with it. Frankly, I cannot bring myself to do it knowing that it will be a family member who discovers my body, and not only that, I have a dear friend from Oklahoma who needs me alive. So, I cannot do it, no matter how much I want. There have been times when I have angrily cried to God: "why do you curse me like this, giving me reasons to live? Life isn't worth the pain, let me die." I know it's wrong. I know it's wrong to say that, but I do. It's how I often feel. It's been a real struggle. Honestly, I feel myself going even further into my shell, distrusting others even more than I already did. I find myself being honest with others on how I am doing even less. It's harder to get away with offline though because I have absolutely no poker face (which is why I absolutely hate card games) so I cannot get away with telling people, "I'm fine" because my face immediately gives away the fact that no, I am not. Online though, I don't have that problem. I can get away with lying when I want. I try to be honest, and most of the time I'm mostly honest, but not always. There have been times when I was suicidal and someone would message me and I would pretend that everything was fine. Frankly, I'm just beyond depressed and anxious. To make it even better, my anger management issues are only getting worse. It's been rough. It's been very rough for years now and only ever seems to get worse. I'm trying to hold on, doing everything I can, but it's never enough. Frankly, I just don't have the energy anymore. I just don't have the energy to do anything more than just live, barely. To be honest, I don't really pray much anymore. If I do pray, it's for others and not myself. I don't touch my Bible anymore. I just don't trust God anymore. Frankly, I don't really trust anyone, even those I know I can trust. I have let relationships die because I don't trust them enough to keep up with them. But, I hold on, and will keeping holding on to life because I have to. I don't have the choice of dying. I cannot traumatize my family. I cannot let my friends down. I must keep on.
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12/22/2021 0 Comments Dealing With Holiday TraumaIt's the most wonderful time of the year! Or, so the song goes. For many, the Christmas season is a good time of the year. Sure, work may be more stressful if you work retail or a factory job. Sure, getting all the correct presents and making travel plans can be a hassle. But, for many, the time with family and friends is what makes it all worth it. For some though, like me, it's not. This is a time of great trauma. I was in conversion therapy from fall 2014 - fall 2016. Christmas week 2016 is the first thing I remember after conversion therapy because I blocked those two years from my memory. I hit rock bottom. For the most part I couldn't feel anything. I was emotionally numb. If I did feel anything, then it was anger. I was praying to God to kill me. I had literally no hope. I just wanted death. My mental health was non-existent. So, every year since Christmas has been a rough season. I get quite depressed and often, quite suicidal at this time. That said, I have been working on my trauma. One of the steps I have taken this year is accept that this is a rough time for me. I have felt bad for a few years now about not enjoying Christmas, feeling that I should absolutely love this season, I mean, you're supposed to, right? The thing is though, trying to force myself to enjoy the Christmas season is unhealthy. I am not ready for that yet. Maybe someday I will have dealt with the trauma and the Christmas season won't be rough for me. Maybe. When that happens, if that happens, then I can re-discover the magic of the season. In the meantime though, I am learning to accept that this is one holiday I cannot love. Similarly, learning to accept that this trauma happened and is very real. I have spent years trying to just avoid what happened. That's not healthy. So, I have been working to just accept what happened and allow myself to mourn the horrors of conversion therapy and the tatters it left me in. Allow myself to mourn how it destroyed my mental and emotional health and the person I could have been if I hadn't been through that torture. Allow myself to mourn the fact that my parents rejected me and cared so little that they decided to have me mentally and emotionally tortured just so they wouldn't have to deal with a child who's different. It's rough healing from trauma, especially when it's tied to a certain time of year. But, this year I'm making a genuine effort to handle it all in a more healthy way than in past years. Maybe someday it truly can be the most wonderful time of the year, but, not this year. Note to those who don’t like sarcasm: the article gets less sarcastic as it goes on. So, if you can get past the first few paragraphs, I promise you, the sarcasm goes away. It’s been a year since I escaped my abusive parents, ended up homeless, and started living openly as a woman (as of September 4th, that is). There’s been a lot I’ve been reflecting upon about it. One of the things I think about is how nothing pains me more now than listening to anti-homeless propaganda. I would rather listen to someone angrily rant about how trans women are pedophile predators and that we need to toss trans people into gas chambers for the betterment of society than listen to standard Fox News talking points about why homeless people are bad. Being homeless is a whole lot harder than being trans, and believe me, being trans is hard, and not only that, is degrading. Being trans isn’t degrading. The way society treats trans people is degrading, but being trans in and of itself isn’t. Being homeless in and of itself is degrading. Society’s treatment of homeless people makes it unbearable. Because of my experience being homeless I am now a supporter of universal housing and larger social safety nets in general. No one should ever have to experience homelessness. It is truly an evil of society that could easily be fixed but our government lacks any sort of moral spine, instead, constantly bending the knee and kissing the asses of private business owners who don’t want the problem fixed, just criminalized, and home owners who want the same thing because those two groups are void of empathy for others, only caring about themselves, because, you know “muh property value,” which you know is the most important thing in the world. Even more important than human lives and dignity. I have not lived with my parents for a year. That is incredible. It is also incredibly hard. My parents raised me to be completely dependent on them. They even made me skip over consumer math in high school just so I would have to rely on them, because, well, they couldn’t have the world know they had “failed as parents” by raising a tranny. I mean, just imagine what others will think of them, because we all know that at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the parents, not the kids. Kids are just robots. They don’t think or feel anything. They exist for parents to live vicariously through and to use as slaves and to sculpt into mini versions of themselves. Everything revolves around the parent. They can do no wrong, the kid is always a little monster though. Yes, I know I’m being extremely sarcastic right now, but I don’t care. I think I’ve earned the right after the shit I’ve been forced to go through in my life. Fact is, I was not even remotely prepared for life on my own apart from them which has made it harder. But, even more than that, they were abusive. They treated me absolutely horrifically growing up. I never heard them say anything good about me to me. I heard them say a lot of good things about me to other people, but to me personally? All I heard was about how much I sucked. How lazy I was. How I was going to grow up good for nothing. How I was a drain upon the family, how I was the biggest problem upon the family. How much of a disappointment I was. How I didn’t care about their (mom and dad’s) feelings enough. How I never did enough for the family. Even when I did a good job on something or accomplished something awesome, it didn’t matter. They didn’t care. They didn’t care if I was doing well. They only cared when they could attack and shame me. So, I stopped caring. I stopped caring about doing well. I stopped caring about taking care of myself. I stopped caring about school. I stopped caring about everything. I mean, why should I care when all I can I seem capable of is fucking up, and when I do well, they never take notice? I mean, might as well be what they already think I am. That is, if I’m going to do the time, might as well do the crime. So, I did the crime. But, for a year now, I have had no reason to do the crime anymore. I am out. While I may not be in a toxic environment, I still have so many toxic behaviors embedded in me. It might be my biggest insecurity to be completely honest. I have barely begun to stop acting in a toxic way. I have such a long journey ahead of me. That, and I am still completely emotionally dependent on my parents. Even after a year, and even having cut them off for several months completely, I am still emotionally dependent on my parents. I want to stop being emotionally dependent on them, but I can’t stop. No matter how hard I try. Maybe I’m not doing it right, I don’t know. On September 4th, I had almost no experience being out in public as a woman. I had been at work a few times presenting as a woman, but that was it. My shifts were 4 hours, 3 times a week. I had only done it for maybe two weeks at that point. Maybe. So, to go from that, to immediately having to live as a woman 24/7 was quite a leap. It was a large jump. One I was not ready for, but had no choice but to take. It was frightening. It was scary. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I was now in a women’s homeless shelter expected to fit in with the other women. It was awkward. People could tell I was not cis. Not because of my face, which I always had covered with a mask when outside of my room, and even when I was eating, I always ate at an angle where no one else could see my face. The reason they could tell I wasn’t cis was because I didn’t act much like a woman, didn’t take social cues well, etc. But, I learned. By the time I left the shelter three and a half months later (felt like three and a half years) I was going about the shelter passing as a woman in how I acted. I was walking like a woman, talking in a way that didn’t get me clocked, etc. Really, one of the biggest problems I still have is doing the head nod. I still do the head nod. I know I need to stop, I try, but it is so subconscious at this point to just head nod to people as I pass by or they pass by. There are other things though. I still suck at taking care of my hair. I don’t wash it enough. I rarely comb it. I don’t put up my hair, mainly because I don’t know how. Don’t get me wrong, I try. I try to put it up in a ponytail, but it never works. I genuinely seem incapable of doing it. No matter what I do, I can’t do it right. So, I just put a headband in my hair. My body hasn’t been changing much, as in, hasn’t done much feminizing this past year due to how little food I have been eating. Been dropping weight, which is terrible when you’re trying to feminize your body, because you need body fat. The body fat needs to redistribute. So, that’s sucked completely. My breasts haven’t grown, my face hasn’t changed, and a lot more things haven’t changed. But, my hips have started swaying while walking. So, at least this year hasn’t been completely void of changes. Getting to wear women’s clothing, finally, outside of my bedroom has been beyond affirming. I actually feel some comfort in my body now. Not only that, I actually like the clothing I’m wearing for once. I’m actually wearing stuff that feels like me. Still kinda scared of wearing dresses out in public though, to be completely honest. I’ve done it twice. Both times were scary, and each time has been many months apart. I like doing it though. It’s a literal dream come true. All of this is. I remember as a toddler inside of Kohl’s looking up at a female mannequin and thinking to myself “I can’t wait to grow up to be a woman.” I could only ever live life as a woman. That has NEVER been in question. So, when I learned I wasn’t going to grow up to be a woman, literally all my desire for life died. I had absolutely no interest in life and saw life as nothing but an exercise in misery. I never thought that I could be a woman. Now, I am. It still doesn’t feel real. I still wonder how on earth I survived those years living as a guy. I could never go back to being a guy. I would literally rather die. Anyway, another highlight was getting to do nail polish for the first time. It was beyond awesome and something I will always remember. I haven’t messed around with any other makeup type thingy. I know nothing about makeup really. When you say things like “concealer” or “mascara,” I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no idea what they do, and I don’t care enough to look them up. I really don’t have an interest in makeup to be honest. I know I should learn it to conceal facial hair, but I have decided to just wear a mask in public for the rest of my life, literally. Not joking. So, no need for that now. Apparently, eyebrows for men and women are different, I guess. I don’t really know, I just see other trans women talking about it and how they shape theirs. I don’t really care. I don’t notice them like, ever. I forget they’re even a thing 99% of the time. I know I should probably look into it more if I want to pass easier, but I don’t care enough. I’ve already resigned myself to forever being known as “sir” without a mask on (and even with a mask on I still misgendered, but nowhere close to as much, so that’s why I like masks. At least the majority of the time I get gendered correctly), so who cares? Shaving legs? Not fun. But, actually showing my legs for once is weird. Never did that as a guy once puberty hit, It felt too dysphoric to show my legs so I always just wore long jeans all year, even in 100 degree weather. At this very moment when I’m writing this, I’m wearing jean shorts. It’s nice to expose my legs to the sun finally and not feel super dysphoric about them. Getting used to being subjected to “the male gaze” is an adjustment. Not exactly used to having people so intently stare at my body parts. Especially my butt and breasts. Definitely very, very uncomfortable. Having people hit on me for the first time in my life is also been extremely uncomfortable. I don’t like it. Please stop. I’m a woman, not your sex doll. Anyway, it’s been nice to hear people call me by my name for once. Not my old name. To be honest, I kinda hate the term “dead name” because it’s not how I view my old name, I just use that term because it’s the one widely used in the trans community. I don’t view “Nicholas” as my dead name, it’s just my old name. It’s who I used to be. It’s a part of my story. Don’t get me wrong, I NEVER want to be called that again, but I’m not going to pretend it’s not a part of my story. That’s why I am so open about my old name. You can’t understand me, without knowing who I was. That said, thank god people call me Anna now. So much more fitting. So much more affirming. It’s a name that actually fits. Names are very important to me, and the trans community in general. One of the things I picked up on early on is how differently cis and trans people view the importance of names. I often try to use the person’s name of whom I am talking to as much as possible in a conversation to affirm their name. For me, using their name is a sign of respect and affirmation. Cis people don’t do that. When I talk with them, they literally almost never say my name. But, when I talk with other trans people, we often use each others names when talking to each other. Just interesting how cis and trans people have such different views and priorities. Anyway, Anna Marie Hudak. I almost never bring up my last name being Marie, or hear anyone else do so. I often even forget I have a middle name now to be honest. Huge upgrade from “Nicholas Earl Hudak.” Anna Marie just has a ring to it, you know? In addition to hearing people call me “Anna” hearing people refer to me as she/her. I notice it every single time. Sometimes it still doesn’t quite register with me that people are referring to me when they use those pronouns. Still weird. One of the most affirming things that ever happened was listening to a friend tell her three year old daughter that I’m “Miss Anna.” That, and hearing employees at restaurants and stores as “honey” and “darling.” It’s charming. I love it. I feel so much more whole. More whole than I could ever imagine. Still not completely whole due to how much trauma I live with, but I actually do feel somewhat whole, as in, I don’t feel completely empty anymore. I never thought that was possible. I thought I was doomed to a life of empty meaninglessness. Now I’m not. It’s so freeing. Everytime someone calls me “Anna” I feel free. I feel so much more alive. I for the first time have a sense of who I am. I’m actually discovering myself finally. Being a woman has given me a life I never dreamed possible. I’m thankful God saw fit to make me a woman. While being trans has been extremely hard, I could never give up being a woman. If I were given the choice to be a cis man or a trans woman, I would still pick being a trans woman. Being a woman is who I am. It fits like a glove. I know myself for once. I’m a trans woman who wishes she had the ability to get pregnant. Ever since I was little, being a mother was one of my biggest wishes. So, finding out that I was unable to be one completely ruined me. Between that, and my life seemingly doomed to be lived out as a man, I had literally no hope for the future. Today, I pretty much just have to force myself to not even think of it unless I get extremely depressed. What makes it even worse is the fact that there isn’t a place in society for trans women like me who wish we could have our own children. We are demonized by transphobes, considered to be the most abhorrent of “deviants” and accused of having a perverted fetish for wanting to have our own kids. Even in the trans community we cannot find a place to vent our frustrations and try to heal. Too many times in trans spaces have I seen where a trans woman admits that she’s heart-broken that she’s unable to have kids, and all the responses end up being: “get over it.” “It’s not that big of a deal.” “Yeah, but, hey, at least you don’t have to deal with periods!” Our desires are completely disrespected even in the trans community, which has taught me two things: the trans community is too reactionary. We are so scared of how transphobes see us that we’ll throw under the bus anyone that we think the transphobes might target. The most important thing I learned is that no one, not even other trans women actually view ourselves or other trans women as women. The slogan “trans women are women and trans men are men” isn’t the actual beliefs of the trans community. Why do I say this? Imagine you’re speaking to a cis woman and she mentions that she’s barren and it breaks her heart as she really wishes she could have her own kids. Do you think that all the trans ladies telling other trans ladies to “get over it” would tell this to a barren cis woman? Certainly not. You’d have to be completely void of emotion or consideration for others to say that. Everyone knows you don’t say that to a barren cis woman. So, why is it ok to say it to trans women who wish they were able to get pregnant? Because we’re seen as men. If we were seen as women, we would be treated as women. People would recognize that us trans women have many of the same desires as cis women, because, we are women after all. Many trans women desire to have their own children, but, it’s not recognized as normal or healthy because we’re seen as men, even by other trans women. It’s really that simple and needs to stop. I’m sick and tired of having my desires and emotions tossed to the side because I was assigned male at birth, that because I wasn’t born with a uterus I don’t have the same desires of so many women. I do, and always have. No one is being benefited by pretending that trans women can’t have the same desires, wishes, and thoughts of cis women. I mean, we're all women, aren't we? 8/25/2021 0 Comments The Impact of KindnessToday, someone did something extraordinarily kind to me. They sent me $50 over Ko-Fi. I’m not used to kindness. I’m not used to someone doing something like this for me. I mean, sure, I have $52 in overdraft charges, almost out of gas, and can't pay my phone bill, but why would you do this for me? It always sticks out whenever someone does something for me (that’s not negative). Like, why? I don’t get it. I don’t see why I’m deserving of kindness to be honest. It doesn’t feel like I am, that is. Intellectually I know I do, but it’s not my experience to be treated well. My first instinct when seeing the donation was “how do I refund this back to them?” Kind acts like this just don’t happen to me, and growing up I was taught that if someone did, you refused them. I’m not joking. That actually was blatantly taught to me as a child to refuse kind acts. And to think I used to wonder why my life is without joy… But, anyway, growing up abused and trans you learn one thing quite quickly in life: “think life sucks now? Well, get ready, it only gets worse.” In my life, things only ever got harder to cope with. Harder to handle. The abuse worsened. My gender dysphoria worsened. My trauma got harder to cope with. Heck, it’s to the point I genuinely cannot remember much of my life. I’m not joking when I say I probably cannot remember 99% of my life because my brain is so used to being forced to block everything out because of how much trauma I have endured. That said, most of my memories are of traumatic things that happened to me. I remember as a child wishing to die young. I remember praying to God for me to be dead by age 25. I knew I could never live as a man. Life would never be worth it if I was forced to live as a man. As I got older, that and abuse made me want to die young. Nothing good ever seemed to happen, especially once my family moved to Indiana and I was completely separated from society to such an extreme that at one point I didn’t even leave my family’s property for about 4 months (not of choice, mind you). I didn’t even know anyone who really showed kindness to me. I remember the very first time someone actually showed kindness, and it was at my first job. I will never forget that person. They’re near and dear to my heart for that reason. I remember the people who accepted me when I came out as trans to them. I never expected acceptance, at all. I fully expected to kill myself. I only ever came out to people in spring 2019 because if I didn’t, well, I would kill myself. That said, I expected them to not accept me, so I would just kill myself because of that. I didn’t foresee a scenario where I would be accepted. I literally did not know a single person who was openly LGBT accepting. I NEVER knew a person who was. Thankfully, pretty much everyone I came out to really early on was accepting. Then, people started taking me out on shopping trips to find women’s clothing. One person drove me to the informed consent clinic to start HRT. I didn’t know, and still don’t really know how to accept these acts of kindness. People being kind to me, is well, new to me. It’s hard to accept gifts from others. It’s hard to accept that they do accept me. This is so radically different from what I knew my first 20 years of life. When someone does something kind to me, I don’t forget it. While the majority of my memories are of trauma, there is a slowly growing number of memories of acts of kindness done towards me. Just know, to everyone who has shown kindness towards me, I remember it, and you don’t know just how much your act no matter how small it seemed to you, truly impacted me. I am finally starting to see that maybe, just maybe, life isn’t just darkness that only gets darker. Maybe, there is some light. I'm emotionally attached to my family. I shouldn't be. They have shown time and time again over 22 years that they don't have much regard for me. I'm not important to them. Yet, I love them all so much and desire a relationship with them above all. I know it's not healthy to chase after unreciprocated love, but, how do you stop? How do you just move on and accept that your family, the people who birthed you, raised you, and grew up seeing every day, don't really care that much about having a relationship with you that's not extremely shallow (as in, they want you around, but don't want to actually know you, spend time with you, etc. Basically, they just want to see your face and that's it). How do you get over this, especially when family is the most important thing to you? Also, when your family is the only people in real life you ever interact with (and even then, the interactions are shallow)? I just don't know how to accept this and move on. Especially because, as mentioned, they're really the only people I get to interact with. They're also the only family I really have. I don't have a "chosen family" (outside of one friend who I do consider to be family, but it's a strictly online experience. Not to take away from online relationships as they can be very deep as well, but there is that difference between online and offline), heck, anyone offline I spend time with really. I don't interact with extended family at all either. To be honest, it's highly likely I never see them again. My mom's side is transphobic (but apparently they're supportive, which to be honest I highly doubt, because I remember them making quite a few statements on trans people which were quite awful and using quite a few slurs. So, yeah, I don't trust them when they claim to be supportive the moment their grankid comes out as trans), and my dad's side I was never close with an always felt like an outsider (though they are genuinely supportive from what I hear). Like, there's no replacement for my family. The moment I accept the loss of my blood family, even though I will still see them, but not trying to have a genuine relationship anymore, that's it. No more family. My one desire in life, gone, just like that. I don't have a family anymore. I just can't bring myself to do that. There's so much pain in that. But, there's so much pain in attempting to build a relationship with them as well, as they don't want one. I feel trapped. I don't know what to do. I want to move on, but that's terrifying and to be honest, I know will only make me feel more lonely than I already feel. I feel so beyond lonely most of the time, and even a good chunk of the time: alone. Completely alone. I am terrified of those feelings intensifying once I stop chasing after that relationship with my family that doesn't want it. 8/10/2021 0 Comments Transition UpdateSo, I have been transitioning for 17 months now. My transition stalled out 10 months ago, and started slowly reversing 6 months ago. So, I haven't really noticed any changes in a long time, except for negative changes, like smaller breasts and my facial hair growing as rapidly as it was pre-HRT. Well, thankfully, as of late, as in, last few weeks, my transition seems to have stopped reversing. In fact, there seem to be changes again. Not many, but some. My facial hair is growing slower again. Don't have to shave every single day. Most days, yes, but at least once a week I don't have to shave thankfully. It's something I first noticed awhile ago, but wasn't completely certain on until just yesterday when it became undeniable, but I am developing curves. Yes. I was NOT expecting that, but it's a change that I cannot pretend isn't there. My body is starting to get curvy. Doesn't make up for lack of breast growth (still rocking A cups despite having taken stuff to grow breasts for over two years. Yes, I was taking stuff to grow breasts even before HRT, and it worked some. Definitely had some growth, but after two years of first doing DIY and now HRT, I only have A cups. Definitely frustrated. Like, my breasts are hard to notice in a lot of my outfits, and that is so frustrating. Even in outfits where my breasts are visible people still misgender me, so it's not fun not having that extra signal I'm a woman), but it's definitely a pleasant surprise. I am shrinking. My middle sister is now taller than me. No official measurements, but when my mom measured me, it looks as if I'm now 5'5". I used to be 5'7". Hair is now long enough to put into a very small ponytail (and I mean, VERY small). Long enough to use a headband though, and I have really been rocking the headbands. Love the look (picture of me rocking a headband). My feet have shrank. I used to be a women's size 13, now I'm a women's size 11. So, while changes have been excruciatingly slow because I didn't have enough body fat (because I don't have enough food to eat, but lately have been able to eat a bit more), and so therefore the changes were reversing, there have been some as of late, and I will try to celebrate those even if they're not the ones I wanted (more feminization in the face and breast growth being the main ones wanted). 7/29/2021 0 Comments Summer Nights...Or NotSo, I don't think I'm aromantic. For a few years now I have claimed to be aromantic, but some memories that had been previously blocked off have been unblocked and some stuff I didn't want to remember, but needed to be remembered are now, well...remembered. So, years ago, there was this girl that I liked. As in, really, really, liked. We were a part of a thing called "Bible quizzing." Basically, in short, you study specific sections of the Bible and then once a month you meet up with other churches and you sit on benches with triggers in them, and questions are asked, and whoever jumps first gets to answer the question. I was part of Christian Missionary Alliance quizzing (Great Lakes District, more specifically). I quizzed for a church called "Christian Fellowship." We had the most amount of teams in the district. Our arch-rival church was Bedford. Our two churches had a history of super-stars swapping between the two, so the rivalry was natural, plus, we were only about 25 minutes away from the other, our church being in the Toledo, OH area, and their church being just over the border in Michigan (which, of course raises the rivalry, because, you know, Michigan vs Ohio State, and for the record, I'm a Michigan fan, and to me the football team is dead and doesn't exist, but I am a huge fan of their hockey and men's basketball teams). So, I was one of the better quizzers in the league, and there was a girl who quizzed for Bedford who was also one of the better quizzers in the league. Her family was a "traitor" to Christian Fellowship as they used to attend CF but then switched to Bedford, and her family was full of super-stars. Anyway, my team for the three years I was in the league (as I was always with this one other quizzer who I will name Logan for his privacy), we were a dynamic duo, always in the running for best team in the league (and were two of the three years, not to pat myself on the back too much). Well, this girl, who I will name "Jane" for her own privacy was a part of the best team of Bedford. She was a part of her own dynamic duo, as she had a teammate named "Emily" (not her real name), and while they were the only two good quizzers on the team, they somehow managed to beat the best teams in the league rather frequently, especially my team. I didn't know that Jane even existed until more than halfway into my second season (the best veteran in the league, may I add, and my best season. Also, I was 5th, the only veteran in the top 5 because the rookies were so much better than the veterans it was genuinely laughable, so when I say I was 5th, understand, there was a very, very large gap between me and even the 3rd place spot, because the rookies that year were that good. To rub salt in my wound, my little sister who was a rookie was #1, and her team beat my team 27 straight times. No, that's not a joke. We quizzed against each other 30 times, we beat them once. It was bad.) Anyway, getting off track. So, my team was up against Jane, and we were quizzing in the cursed church (a church that was so broken down only one person could be on the stairs at once, wires were everywhere, they literally burned the soup, and I always put on my worst performances there), and I had never quizzed against her before. Her team beat mine easily. Didn't help that I had my first ever error out (when you answer three questions wrong. You leave the quiz then and the team loses 20 points), because she was constantly beating me to the punch and knocked me off my mental game. I hated her guts. I wanted her dead. Originally, I thought I did so poorly because her fast jumping was getting under my skin. Now, I know it was because I was jumping too fast in an attempt to impress her. I genuinely did not realize that at the moment. Well, we didn't go up against her until end of year tournaments. They trounced us. It wasn't close, and my team was definitely superior. So, that only led to further hatred of Jane, the best quizzer on the team who seemed to be my equal (ok, she was my superior, but I would never let myself admit that at the time). The next season, we quizzed against each other a few times outside of tournaments. Her team regularly beat my team. In the first half of the season, it made genuine sense. My team sucked. Sure, me and Logan were together, but Logan wasn't doing well, and the two newcomers on the team (none of these are their real names), Jacob and Sam were at times literally fighting each other (not joking. One time they literally starting throwing punches over who sat where) and neither were good. I was literally dragging the teams carcass across the finish line. We were third in the league, and I was the 4th best quizzer in the league. We were expected to be the best team in the league. Her team beat mine during that time. Well, mid year tournaments came up, and finally, I collapsed. I couldn't handle the mental stress of being the team's sole star and watching the team literally throw punches at each other anymore. I went from 4th in the league to somewhere in the 30's by the end of the season. I couldn't keep it up. Thankfully, Logan and Sam got their shit together and Jacob stopped fighting. During mid year tournaments, we quickly found our stride and became the team we were expected to be before the beginning the season. Unfortunately, during the mid year championships we went up against Jane. Her team beat mine in epic fashion. It was a schooling. Over in 3 rounds. It was bad. My team was the mockery of the league for it. We had literally the best day in league history up until the tournaments started (we had regular season quizzes in the morning, and tournament quizzes in the afternoon). We had been killing it. Then we collapsed in front of everyone. We lost to two teams we should have trounced. We lost to Jane's team. Me and Logan literally cried. All three years we made it to mid year championships. All three years we got beat soundly. Didn't help that this time we ended up as a mockery. I was pissed. I really, really, really, hated Jane now. I told her coach to his face, and I'm not joking at all about this, after the championship: "our two teams will face again in finals, and my team will show up merely to see who places second" (three teams quizzed against each other at once in this league). I hated Jane. She was the main reason for her team winning. I became obsessed with her. People started making jokes behind my back about how I was going to propose to her. I only know about these jokes because a people told me afterwards. At the time I had no idea, I didn't find out until a year or so later. Apparently, from what I have heard from others, she really liked me too, but didn't realize it at the time until it was too late as well. Today she is married and has two kids. So, how did I deal with all this? Kept it all to myself (to be fair, there was no one in my life at the time who I could have trusted to help me deal with it), learned to harden my heart, and block it out of my memories. Like, I genuinely had these memories blocked off for several years. Anyway, don't know if my anger issues come from this (I didn't have anger issues before this, so it's possible, or maybe part of the reason), but I definitely know my sarcasm and cynicism comes from this. That and a lot of the hatred I feel towards so many people comes from this. My hatred for romance comes from this. I didn't have the tools or anyone to go to for help back then, and to be honest, I still don't. Now, as an adult, when I already have more than enough to deal with (such as plummeting mental health), this comes back. To be honest, I needed to have dealt with this long ago, and since I didn't, this comes back at a horrible time for me to learn to deal with now. Problem is, I don't know how, and I don't have anyone in my life who I know who can help me through this. I have people I can just vent about this to, which is important, but how do you move past something like this? I don't expect to ever have feelings like that for anyone else ever again, I know it's not healthy to have this part of my heart closed off in such an unhealthy way. 7/25/2021 0 Comments Run by FearSo, I have been thinking about a lot as of late. My life is driven primarily by fear, and secondarily by anger. How anger is in my passenger seat is a post for another day. Today, I want to discuss some of the ways fear runs my life. There are three things that I am fearful over, and the most relevant thing to my life at the moment is interviewing. I haven’t applied for a single job in over a month. I am terrified of how to present at a job interview, telling the interviewer that my name is Anna, not “Nick,” and how they will react and/or how uncomfortable everything is. Heck, it’s scary enough just the idea of walking in wearing a more androgynous/slightly feminine outfit and having to tell an employee “Hi, I’m Nick, and I’m here for an interview.” I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want the discomfort and I cannot bear to hear anyone call me that deadname even one more time. I’m Anna, and that’s the only name I ever want to hear, and unfortunately, I can’t, not for a long time. Ugh. I hate being trans. Another thing that has me in fear as of late is the fear of being part of a community and finding a chosen family. I am so used to being alone and doing everything alone, being my own friend, etc. So, because it is tiring to be alone, I want to be part of a community and have a chosen family, but, it scares me. Being there for others isn’t a problem for me, I have always been there for others. Heck, I was expected to serve everyone whether I was equipped to or not. The problem is, no one was ever there for me. So, to be there and see people regularly who care about me, and I care about, have each others backs, get to know each other, as much as I desire it, it’s something that also truly scares me. Growing up, I never felt loved or cared about with my family. Never truly felt as if I was a part of the family, and to be honest, hasn’t gotten much better as I get older. I’m not all that close to my family today, or in the past. I love my family. Family means a lot to me, heck, family is probably the most important thing to me. I WANT to be part of a family. I have for my entire life tried to be part of my family and get them to love me. At age 22 I am still trying to do that, though I know it probably won’t ever happen at this point, plus, it’s just tiring. Let’s say I do find a family someday (not likely, but let’s pretend), it’s so radically different from anything I have experienced. I’m honestly scared of not being completely independent anymore. I mean, I’m not completely independent anymore, but outside of one online friend, I’m not particularly close to anyone. I’m scared of intimacy. Heck, even with that close online friend, I have to force myself sometimes to be honest, and many times I just avoid saying how I’m doing or what’s going on because I am used to doing everything alone, being my own support. Another thing that has been eating me alive lately is something I really, really don’t want to talk openly about honestly, that is, tell a single soul. So, if you are a long-time reader you probably know I have always wanted to a mom. Even though I know marriage is something that isn’t in my future, I still long to be a parent if I’m being honest. That said, I know because of how much trauma I deal with, how much abuse, I have no confidence that I wouldn’t just pass the trauma onto the kids. My natural instincts around people are to be abusive because that’s pretty much all I have known and seen in my life. The times when I have watched kids (with at least one of my parents at least being there) I always pretty much ended up abusing the children verbally and/or emotionally, and almost physically as well, but my parents being there prevented me from doing that. It’s all I know, and the only way I know how to treat kids, because quite simply, my parents seemed incapable of not abusing me emotionally and verbally. The desire to physically abuse the kids came strictly out of my uncontrolled anger. I have so much built up anger and resentment, that my desire to express it violently is strictly my own problem. Yes, most of it is a product of being abused, but my parents didn’t physically abuse me (outside of the time they spanked me as a baby). I couldn’t keep calm or cool around children. It would turn into a shit show where CPS would need to be called. Heck, I’m terrified of being asked to babysit for my oldest younger sister when she has kids (assuming that even does ever happen considering that she will be living in a city an hour and a half away from Ft. Wayne). Not only that, I was super sheltered growing up. It would be my natural urge to highly shelter the kids just as I was. Whenever I hear of kids watching movies I wasn’t allowed, heck, didn’t even hear of until I was an adult, such as Lord of the Rings when they’re only 10, I freak out. Then, how do I deal with school? I was homeschooled. I know literally nothing about public school, or a classroom setting outside of what’s shown on TV shows or movies, which from what I hear, isn’t very representative of real life school. I know nothing about what a classroom setting is like, growing up around other children (I was super sheltered and barely interacted with other children), or just anything involved with formal schooling. How could I be there for my child and help them through schooling and the challenges of school and friendships when I didn’t have much experience with friendships as a child and know anything of the challenges of school? I’d be useless. That, and the fact I’m trans. I can’t relate to boys one bit, and you know, take hormones to not be one, and I wasn’t a girl or raised as one, and I would be their mother. So, if one of the kids or the only kid is a girl, and I’m the mom, I’m the one the girl is instinctively go to, and yet, I know nothing of girlhood, or whatever she needs help with. How could I relate or be of help? She would need another mother, that is, a chosen mother to help her out. I would never be enough. This is something that has been eating me alive as of late as well. 7/11/2021 0 Comments A Life of ApathyI have come to really, finally, understand where my apathy comes from. So, what I am talking about when I say “apathy,” is that I know my life sucks. I’m in debt, jobless, no money, little food, etc. Yet, I just accept it and have little to no motivation to do better in life. I don’t really feel the need to improve my life by getting a job or actually have food, and I have been wondering why. I mean, some of it definitely comes from anxiety (such as how to present at interviews) and depression. But I always knew that those couldn’t be the full reasons why. Now, I understand. It’s another long-term effect from abuse growing up. As a kid, you really can’t do much, you don’t have freedoms or rights. You really can’t stand up for yourself. Well, you can, if you want serious consequences that you really don’t want to deal with. As a kid who was abused, my life always was getting worse, never better, because my parents only ever got more abusive over the years because no one was there to tell them “no.” Heck, I didn’t even recognize that I was being abused until I was 19 or 20. I thought the way my parents raised me was normal, not abusive. So, all this time I was learning to become more and more submissive, not only to authority, but to how shitty life could be. I had no other option but to accept a worsening life, to accept worse and worse abuse. I couldn’t fight back, because if I did, things would only get even worse. So, I had to learn to just accept it. To sit back, keep my head down and accept a horrible life. That’s what I have done my entire life. Now, I am being expected to just get back up on my feet and make a better life, when there is no part of my life where I was given the tools or even expected to make my life better. It’s like being expected to drive on the highway your very first time behind the wheel. It’s terrifying and you have no idea what to do. How do you gain motivation to make a better life for yourself when you spent the first 21 years of your 22 years of life suppressing any motivation for a better life just to survive? I was raised my entire life to be completely reliant on my parents, and now I have to just be completely independent. I was never given the tools for any of this. I was just thrown out into the world expected to know how to do everything, how to be motivated and how to be independent when I don’t. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I know I have to develop the tools though. I’m trying. I’m just worried that it will never be enough. I’m trying though. I’m trying to create motivation for a better life instead of just accepting this shitty life situation, but wow is it hard. It requires rejecting all the lessons that have been embedded into me my whole life. I guess that’s the story of my life though. Learning to reject everything I was raised with. Not easy. It must be done, but wow it’s not easy. |
AuthorHi! I'm Anna, a currently transitioning transgender woman! I started my blog "Ramblings of a Trans Woman" as therapy for gender and identity issues and abuse from my parents and church. Hopefully, someone else out there can get something from this. If you want to talk, just get in contact with me, there's plenty of ways how and we'll discuss the best way to talk! Archives
June 2022
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