COMING CLEAN/OUT

It's been five years since I have come out as transgender.

It's been longer than that since I knew that I wasn't cis. When my dad died over fourteen years ago something inside me changed...something dark and powerful spoke to me in my dreams. I was broken for so very long before that. Growing up all I wanted out of life was to met someone special that I spend the rest of my life with, someone to give my love to that would fully reciprocate the way I felt about them. I wanted a family. My own immediate family has dealt with its hardships and struggles and my extended family only made matters worse. I dealt with bullying in elementary, middle and high school. All the crap that I had been through made me bottle up so much darkness, self-hatred and self-loathing. At some point before my dad died I was completely turned off by PDAs (public displays of affection) and seeing tenderness in the entertainment I consumed and I had to turn away from it because I just couldn't deal with it. All the anger I had, and still somewhat struggle with, over people that abuse/abused me had blown over into my subconscious with the passing of my father. 

It took seven years in battling myself, the demon within, to come to terms with something unrealized. In my dreams I had seen blood, carnage, despair, destruction and the wake of evil wrought into the worlds I created subconsciously. I saw the demon causing all the evil in my dreams...at first it was something of a cross between a naga and a marilith. The creature started to morph into something more human like in appearance but retained demonic features in its physical qualities. At some point in the process of these dreams, like a saga unfolding, I had cast myself as a hero that needed to put an end to the evils of the beast. When it came to the final battle, the creature had become more physically like a demon with no remaining serpent qualities. I stood there on the battlefield, clad in armor and with sword and shield in hand. The demon came into clearer view and I could see it with more clarity, and noticed her. HER! This was an unexpected twist, for I wasn't ready in any capacity to harm a woman, regardless of whether or not she was human or something else. In a fit of confusion, I took my life in hands by dropping my sword and shield and unfastening my armor. The demon watched me and took no action against me as I did this. I then walked up to her and threw arms around her in a moment of affection...I gave her a hug. It was in that moment that my subconscious told me that the demon was an extension of myself, a homunculus created from my emotions made manifest in my dreams. It took years of giving her my love that she continued to transform and she showed me the beauty within...and eventually she made me realized who I am. That she is me and that I am her. 

In the love I gave my demon, she became my angel...and in loving her I was able to undo all the self-hatred and self-loathing that I had inside me. In accepting myself as a woman I was able to find a sense of peace and became able to finally love myself. 

And it's been so long since then; many, many years.

Although I have not [yet] received therapy to help me pursue medically transitioning, I have made a lot of growth mentally. I have way good days than bad, as a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I had a bad day...I think the last one was back in May. I know I deal with some depression over the body I have, but it only is at its worst two or three days out of 365. I do have bouts and fits of crying due to my body dysmorphia, but even that I have more control over now...it seems to only rear its head when I am emotionally drawn out or [emotionally] abused in some way. There are specific triggering times of the year where the the dysphoria really hits...my actual birth month (which I will not disclose online, only a handful of friends that I trust know it) and around the holidays; my family is so fractured that the pain of that destroys me...I want nothing more than to be around people that I love that love me, and to feel that love from those people by being in the same room with them. A lot of my friends, the people that I want time with physically...I can't due to my vastly limited income. 

I am grateful to those of you that have stuck by my side, that have been there for me and that have made an effort to do more than just engage with me on more than just a surface level...you can't possibly know how much my heart needs that. My living situation isn't ideal, as many of you know I live with my mom. I will not go into why it isn't ideal but many of you may have a clue due to the things I have said and shared in the past. 

Know that I am in a much better place now than I was five years ago. I have entertained some dark thoughts and struggled with suicidal ideation; I am grateful to have been born with a fierce willpower to be alive, to be grateful for every day I am give no matter how dark any of those days might be. I remember my worst moment very clearly, it was right after I heard the news of the death of Leelah Alcorn. I wanted to join her so badly, because I feared for the future...and I was right. Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States is one of the worst things that has happened to the LGBT community; he systematically rolled back protections on human rights and made the lives of many people so much worse. 

I fear for the near-future of my brothers and sisters in the LGBT community, but I know in my heart that what we are dealing with is a stepping stone to the universal rights for the freedoms that we deserve in the USA and the world over.