To anyone who might be reading this, hear me out. When you’re in a
very bad place, you don’t believe that things will ever get better, no
matter how many people tell you that it will. For some reason, you
think they’re lying to you; you think that they are just repeating
the same bullshit lies you’ve been hearing for longer than you can
remember. You ask yourself, ‘how can things possibly get better for
me when it hurts just to get up in the morning?’. I’ll prove to
you exactly why that way of thinking is corrupt, just like those
thoughts in your brain that tell you that you’re not good enough, or
those voices that tell you that no one would care if you were gone.
I had a pretty decent childhood growing up. I had friends, I was
happy, I was healthy, and I was active. I had not a care in the world
about anything, the extent of my stress being denied that one ice pop
before supper. Life was simple, it was carefree, and it was happy.
Things soon started changing for me around age 11, when I started to
question why I wasn’t developing like all of my friends. I started
to question my gender, wanting to remain ‘one of the guys’
forever. I hated my growing body. It was a prison, to which I could
not escape. Suddenly, dressing and acting like a boy wasn’t
‘cute’ anymore, and I was expected to grow up and learn how to be
a woman. I didn’t even fully understand what made someone a woman to
begin with! I sure as hell didn’t want to become one!
As puberty went on, I started developing more feminine features, and
while everyone else was so ecstatic to see me growing up, I was
missing being a kid again. What happened to that place I was in not
too long ago, where nothing else mattered but having fun? What
happened to that place where everyone was accepted for who they are,
and nobody cared who they played with, as long as they were good at
the game? What happened to my happiness?
As my friends all started growing muscles and dating, I was stuck in
this never ending depression that consumed my entire being. My parents
had gotten rid of my boys clothes and encouraged me to be girly
instead. I was miserable. I hated my body, I hated the way my life was
going, and I just wanted to escape. I started getting severely bullied
in school, and sometimes, it would turn physical. Now I had an army of
people against me, saying the exact same things I was thinking in my
head. So it was true then? All that time I spent hating myself was for
the better? I believed that.
Once the bullying got to its worst, I lost my cousin Barry due to an
accident that happened while he was on duty in the military. He was
one of the only people that I actually looked forward to spending time
with. He never treated me as any less of a human than he was, and it
was refreshing interacting with someone that wasn’t trying to tear
you down. I looked up to him, more than he ever knew. I loved him, and
I wanted more than anything to bring him back, but he was gone
forever. With this, my depression worsened to a point lower than
anyone would even dream possible.
I turned to self destructive means of coping with this depression,
which I was convinced would work. Those damn voices in my head told me
that the more scars I had, the less I would feel the pain, and I
believed every word they said. This led me down a very destructive
path which eventually got me locked up and restrained in a hospital on
two separate occasions, after some of my many failed attempts at
taking my life. My health started to deteriorate along with my mental
well-being, and I was soon diagnosed with a heart condition called
ventricular tachycardia. My heart was malfunctioning and giving up on
me, just like I had given up on myself.
The next six months after the diagnosis were spent traveling from
hospital to hospital, enduring test after test, in an attempt to get
my heart working properly again. To be completely honest, I could have
cared less about my heart failing, because I wanted to die anyways. It
wasn’t until one MRI, where I got a wake up call to get my life back
on track.
I entered nervously into the MRI room, never having done one before,
to find a few doctors looking quite concerned for me. They had me lay
down on a table while they put an IV line in my arm. To be honest,
that part never phased me. I was used to needles by that time. After
my IV was set, the doctors left the room, leaving me on this table
that would soon bring me into a coffin-like tunnel. After I was
completely submerged in that tunnel with no where to move, it hit me
like a ton of bricks. I had my epiphany.
What was my life coming to? I let myself get so wounded by the things
these people were saying. I lost a grip on reality, for far too long.
What if those attempts had worked, and I was in a coffin, cramped and
unable to move or see? What would my family think if they had to come
down and verify my dead body? How much pain would they be in, to see
their first born baby laying motionlessly in a padded case, never to
be seen again? It was at that moment that I decided that I needed to
take control of my life again, but how?
Soon after that epiphany, I realized that being what someone else
wants you to be will only break you down and turn you into a hollow
shell of the human being that you once were. I acknowledged this, and
started going down my own path. I went back to acting and dressing in
the way I felt most comfortable, while also finding a huge community
of people who feel just like I do. I started my transition to becoming
the boy that I was always meant to be, the boy that got lost and
stumbled a bit along the way, but would make it out victorious in the
end. The bullying was still going on, and to help rebuild my
confidence, I started taking karate lessons. It wasn’t long after I
started the lessons that word got around school and people started
leaving me alone. I started to gain back that happy-go-lucky attitude
that I had as a young child.
With the help of this new intensive karate program, my heart slowly
started to get stronger. Test results started improving, and the
cardiologists finally found a medication to help control my heart. It
only took about a year for my heart to be almost completely functional
again.
Now I am a freshman in college, treated as no less than the man that
I am. I met a bunch of friends in the LGBT organization here, and I
couldn’t be happier with how my life is going. I’m planning on
being a social worker, so that I can help kids who are struggling with
the same issues that I was. The next time someone generically tries to
tell you that “things get better”, listen to their advice. They
wouldn’t be saying that without a reason, and you never know what
someone could be hiding behind a smile.
-S. Roy, Maine
assignedmale