duskcomesearly

[duskcomesearly]

Compassion

There's this common paradox called gambler's fallacy

You see the way it goes is a guy gets some shitty cards and bets a bit too much

And he loses more than he can

And he thinks to himself maybe if I put in more

I'll get my money back

So he plays again

And again

And again

And each time he plays he becomes more certain that this time

Finally

He will win

But the victory never comes

You may keep score but the universe clearly doesn't

You can lose a thousand times

While others just keep on winning

Now I'm no gambler

But I know a mirror when I see one

See I hated primary school

I got bullied for being weird

My only real friends were girls

But I was stuck as a boy

I remember thinking how unfair it was

How I wished I'd been born a girl

And then the theory of mind slipped into place

And I saw other people through my eyes

Everyone else was just playing a role too

Of course I was being bullied

No one would want this

No one would have asked for this

But this is the body I was born into

And the personality that went along with it

So I finally gave in

And realised the truth

Being yourself is just another word for being selfish

So without even realising it was a decision

I stopped trying to be myself

And decided finally to just fucking fit in

At least when I was in a crowd

So secondary was easier

I learned how to be a lie

Modelled myself off my older brother

Became the kind of guy that people liked

Funny when I was 12

Athletic when I was 15

Muscular when I was 18

And I just kept on smiling

Because people liked when you were happy

I listened to other people's problems and stayed up through the night with them

Because people liked when you were kind

And I think it struck me again at this time

Somewhere between 12 and 15

That if everyone else was just playing a role

Then why were they so fucking bad at it?

Being a good guy is just a matter of shoving everything down until it becomes humour

Of doing that exercise in the morning

Of gaining muscle

Of staying up and listening to people when they cry

Of paying attention

Of being nice to people

Of mirroring everything they do that makes you feel good but just a tiny bit more

Of expressing yourself authentically but playing it off as a joke

It's so fucking simple

How can people be so bad at it?

Just give them what they ask for, repeat it when they don't ask, and if they can't communicate then look into their eyes and think what you want when you feel that way

A teacher told us we were having a test once

And my friend said it would make me sad if we had one

And the teacher said she didn't think I was capable of being sad

And I thought about all the times I cried myself to sleep

All the times I sat on my windowsill with my legs sticking out

Knowing that if I wanted to die quick I'd have to go head first

That if I went feet first it might not even kill me

That if it did I would be bleeding out

And I would have to look at my mother's face

And I couldn't bear for my last moments to be with someone who had hurt me so badly she had stripped me off my ability to feel like I used to

So I wouldn't jump

I've never attempted suicide

I've self harmed a few times

I've looked up how to

So many times that I do it out of habit now

It's a way of soothing myself when I'm at my worst

The same way people fantasise about quitting that job they hate that isn't quite bad enough to leave

That's the real kicker though isn't it

If their job was a bit worse, or they were a bit braver, then they'd be a lot better of

Because they'd finally fix it

Finally find a different way to live

I'm not afraid of running

But everywhere I run to I'm just scraping that middle ground

And it's not the places I am

Or the people I'm around

It's the soul inside me

And the society I was breathed into

I cannot bear it

I cannot bear to be broken, in every way that matters, except the ones that allow me to "contribute" to this worthless world

A world that lets children die in factories making me clothes I still can't afford while the difference is pocketed by someone so rich they could pay my rent with the money they made in the time it took you to read this fucking paragraph

I cannot bear to continue being this person

To know that I will be forever exploited or become the exploiter

That there is no way to not be a part of the problem

But mostly

I just don't like being myself

There's nothing of me left

I am nothing but a husk plastered over the top of the real me

I was so busy concealing the wounds that I did not notice how all the blood had drained from them

I did not even consider the fact that when you press a pause on who you are

You will not properly develop

And I keep telling myself it will get better

And the situation I'm in has

But I keep getting worse

I am less kind

Less open

Less of a friend than I ever used to be

My confidence has dwindled

I can no longer fake it

I can no longer look at people properly

I can no longer stay in this world forever

I have to leave it every few seconds

I don't focus on what people say

I don't like what I see when I look in the mirror

And I suspect I never will

And I know that I will never be able to trust my frienda to be honest

Because I would not be honest if I were them

How can you tell someone like me how I really look when you know them well enough to know how they feel

The kindest people I know are so specifically happy to see me

So focused on me whether they have the energy

Always checking up on me when I disappear

They know I won't have anything else going on

And every year

I still stay in the game

Keep playing the cards I got dealt

Knowing that it has to get better eventually

But no life I want features me in it

I can picture perfect days

Or events

Or skills

Or holidays

But there is no every day where I am not depressed and ground down into nothing by the relentless hopelessness of my reality

I will never be pretty

I will never be able to walk around without being judged

I will never find a community that is constant and consistent and genuinely accepting enough to see beneath this disgusting pile of shit everyone else has to look at, not just in a mirror, but for entire fucking conversations

Who the fuck could stand that???

And even if they could

How are they going to delude themselves for long enough to love it

Actually love it with their heart instead of settling for a beauty that is too deep for them to see

People always think I am brave

If bravery is the ability to take unpleasant actions now because you know they are right, because they will make things better for you or for someone else in the long term, I am not brave, I am too much of a coward, brave would have been slipping off that windowsill

So even though I'm not religious

And even though I am a coward

I sometimes pray that enough bravery finds me to end this fucking fallacy

And accept the reality

That this life

Will never become worth it

[duskcomesearly]

Sometimes I just want to lie down and cry and cry and cry and cry

Until I am empty

Ready to be filled

With something else

Anything but myself

I stopped being who I am because I knew no one wanted it

And now I'm older

And every part of me that people do like is a falsehood

Not an aspirational target for who I want to become

Just a lie to get them off my back

A distraction from a real me that was never allowed to experience life without a mask

Who am I really

I'm no longer a child

Yet everything I have been since then is a lie

I guess I'm just stuck

Wishing I could have grown up in a body that allowed me the freedom to be myself

And the next best thing I guess

Is finding strength enough to be entirely broken

So I can be assembled into something unrecognisable

[duskcomesearly]

Sometimes I just wish I was brave enough to die

[duskcomesearly]

The hardest people to stay friends with after you've transitioned are the people who knew you as a man but never knew you as a child. They are the people I've found to be the most demanding that you maintain the performances of masculinity that benefit them.

I think there is a certain level of dehumanisation that happens to us when we become adults where only the people we knew before, and the few willing to stand against the growing apathy of adulthood, will bother to see you as a person anymore

[duskcomesearly]

The most painful thing about transition is how endless it is

It will never be over

Coming out is not an event but a recurring nightmare

It happens every time I try on new clothes

It happens every time I become close enough to a new friend

It happens every time I talk to a stranger

I will probably never feel comfortable in my own body

And the hardest part

Is knowing that some of this is self-inflicted

But having no idea how much

If I hadn't exercised so hard

Hadn't eaten so "healthily" during my puberty

If I had have told my parents before

Maybe

Just maybe

I could pass now

I took the path of least resistance

Even though it was the hardest

And it's made my future harder too

And the hatred I feel for the parts of my body that have become so masculinised has bled into every part of my being too

I hate how large I am

That I take up so much space

And the thing is

I feel like people know

They just never say anything

Maybe they see the falsehood they tell me

Or maybe they just all lie to me in the same predictable way that people who care will always lie to their trans friends

So even though it is a lie

I'll think that they are simply mistaken

That it's in their head and maybe therefore everyone else's

When I get therapy I'm going to have to stop indulging those little lies

I will have someone who is paid to be there for me

But who is also paid to tell me the truth

And when they give it to me

It's gonna floor me

And take away everything I've built myself on

And I just don't know if I can bear that

I don't know if I want to knock down this false perception of passing

Of being feminine

Because once I do I'll be left with the truth of where I was before

In a life that has never been worth it

[duskcomesearly]

I think that the thing I'm finding so hard about recovery is that if I could go back and do life again, I would do more 'bad' things. I'd starve myself and eat less healthily so my growth would be stunted and I wouldn't be so fucking tall. I'd have rotted in bed instead of exercising to get the dopamine going because then I wouldn't have muscles that never go away, and maybe my shoulders would be smaller. I wouldn't have worked hard at school because I would know how utterly empty the future is and I would have instead focused on the stuff that matters: fucking around with friends. I certainly wouldn't have passed the 11+ because that put me in an all boys school and the emotional stunting being around people I couldn't relate to caused gave me mental health problems I will never get over. And I wouldn't have put time or energy into most of the friendships and relationships I did have because they left me, leaving me even more hurt than I was before. And I wouldn't have gone to Oxford because the academic stress stripped me of the opportunity for finding myself that everyone else found at uni.

So knowing all of this

What the fuck am I meant to work for?

When everything I have ever put effort into has blown up in my face. I genuinely believed at every point that it was right to do those things. That those things would make me happy. I pulled myself out of bed to the screaming protests of my body to go on morning runs before school. I ate so healthily even when it was so much effort, I worked so hard to get good GCSEs and A levels. And all of it left me as a husk of a person I never wanted to be. Convinced that in doing the 'right' thing for long enough, I'd somehow end up stable enough to be whoever I wanted. But all that being the right thing did is make me hate myself. Alienated from who I am. Trying to get into the mould I left behind as a child and finding that I don't fit anymore. I know this is the point where I am meant to flip it on its head, declare optimism and say that actually, right is however I define it. But nobody told me I needed to go on morning runs. I defined it for myself as a solution to how people treated me. And maybe now I can surround myself with the right people. And they will treat me right. And I do believe I have that, as far as possible. But how can I truly have friends, who value me for who I am, when I am trying so hard to change that at the most fundamental level. Even the stuff the people closest to me say they like about me are things I want no part of.

I hate that I'm a knowitall, that I can't honestly engage with most of the cool musings and interesting stories other people have because I'm constantly thinking of corrections or extra detail that I learned so it becomes less of a conversation and more of a lecture. I cannot count the number of times someone has told me something I have pretended not to know about, just to avoid taking the light out of their eyes.

I hate that I sound so posh and proper when I talk. I don't want to but a more casual voice makes me sound so much like a man.

I hate that I am so tall.

I hate that I am so muscular.

I hate that I find it so difficult to control my voice now. People misinterpret me as annoyed, dismissive, or uninterested all of the time, and it's entirely based on how warmed up and or tired it is.

I hate how the tip of my nose juts out from my face like I'm trying to draw attention to myself

I hate how my hands and feet are filled with veins that swell with blood

I hate how I laugh in a hysterical overdramatic contortion, but in absolute silence

I hate how I am simultaneously avoidant and needy

I hate how I stare into the distance during even good conversations simply to self-regulate

I hate how I don't feel scared at even the most extreme situations, how people trying to harm me can brighten my day because it makes me feel alive

I hate how I feel terrified at the most mundane everyday occurrences

I hate how when I'm in the right space I can read people so well that it feels invasive

I hate that when I'm not in the right space I don't read people even when they really need me to

I hate how I have gotten so much worse at reading people just so I can live my life pain free

I hate how I look in feminine clothing

I hate how I look in masculine ones

I hate how I look at all angles in every fibre of my being

I hate knowing, truly knowing, that I am so so ugly

I hate knowing, in a tiny small voice inside, that sometimes when I am on the bus, I have seen CCTV of someone else, and mistaken it for me, and I have felt that surge of visceral disgust like I always do, and it has melted instantly into passive disregard, or even positivity. And I tell myself that in the moment that I clocked that it was someone else I had obviously noticed the features that actually made it pretty. And I hate myself even more because I know it is not a lie. And I hate myself even more because I know it is a lie.

I hate how I have lost my energy. How I cannot feel as strongly or deeply as I used to. Cannot do the things I used to do, at least not with the same passion.

I hate how I have so much energy. How I am chomping at the bit to do anything at the tiniest provocation, literally shaking my body to calm myself down, to release the energy trapped within me.

And most of all. I hate the fact that I will never let myself stay still. Stay as one person, in one place, with the same people doing the same things. Not because I don't enjoy them, but because when I am around anything new for too long I become consistent enough - even in my own consistencies - for the way I act in that new situation to become identifiably me. To know I am no longer escaping myself but have simply become a new me.

I wish I could pour myself out until I am empty, and be filled with someone else. And at that point, does it even matter if I am refilled? Wouldn't it be kinder to remove myself entirely, so nothing else gets polluted by this.

I hate that regardless of what I am, I will always find a way to hate me.

Oh how I would give anything to be anyone but me.

[duskcomesearly]

Does it ever get better or do I just get better at dealing with it?

I feel like I've become an expert at enduring to the point where I accept things no one else would

And people take it as okay

I'm tired of fighting for a future I will never find

I'm tired of wishing for care that will never come

I'm scared of asking anyone for help

I'm scared of staying alone

I'm scared that all my energy has been spent

That I no longer have the strength to continue this journey I have set myself on

But knowing I was travelling on it I haven't built enough of a community for me to have anything to go back to

I think the thing I really struggle to understand is why most people just don't care

How can people be safe and secure in their own situations and not care that there are others around them that aren't

How can people take from someone without ever intending to give back

That's what I just don't get

I wish I couldn't see that so clearly now because it has made me so bitter and jaded

I wish I had found out before I based my self worth on being kind that it will never be valued by those who use it the most

I'm tired of feeling bitter towards my friends for their utter indifference to my misery knowing that I will be there for them whenever they ask

Perhaps, if I am honest, the reason I no longer have the strength to keep on, is not because of the bridges I've burned but the ones I've kept

Maintaining an insurance policy that I can never quite use

Friends who are never quite there for me

But keep leading me to believe that one day they will be

Is what truly takes the last of my strength

I need to take a break from those I supposedly love

To see if it is love that sticks me to them

Or just the fear that I will lose something I cannot replace