Reflection

This isn't anything special, and I doubt it's worth reading unless you're interested in why I tried to live as a woman.

Looking back, I finally understand why I thought I was a woman and I realize I haven't really ever explained it here. There's a little bit of backstory required, so I'll just get through it as quickly as I can: ~2011 I was in a car accident that should have killed me but instead broke 8 bones (6 of them in my back) and it changed my life forever. I became obsessed with becoming the best person I could be, started exercising 5-6 days a week (~3-4 hours a day) and got into the best shape of my life. ~2014 I found out that the back pain I'd been ignoring since the accident was because My L-5 vertebra was slipping off of my spinal column and if I didn't get major surgery, that people twice my age are afraid of, I would lose the use of my legs and genitals. By 2016, I weighed more than I ever had in my life because I was bedridden for much of 2015 and I started having serious body image issues. The pecks I spent years creating had become breasts and I started to have a lot of trouble looking at myself, in the mirror, without a shirt. No one ever told me this until somewhat recently, but apparently the narcotics I'd been taking since 2014 (I live with severe chronic pain so bad that I generally prefer not to talk about it because I'm not a fan of pity) mess with your hormones. Between that, suddenly not being able to lift any more and putting on 30-40 pounds...I don't think it's hard to see why I suddenly had gender issues.

At first, I decided to test out Tim Leary's Reality Tunnel theory that I'd read about in RAW"s Cosmic Trigger Trilogy. I had a really warped view of the way transpeople are treated and figured that, since transtrenders were a thing, it would be the easiest and most different reality tunnel I could use to test the theory. It was my way of trying to deal with my gender issues without admitting to myself that I was even having them. It turned out to be a very apt metaphor, and I have no real doubts on the Reality Tunnel model, but it didn't really solve anything. Then I started trying to talk to people about it and decided that the best idea would be to try and live as a woman for a month and see if it made anything better. It was around this point I fully accepted that my ideal male body was physically impossible but I was still convinced that there was something that could make my life easier. I realize now that I was projecting the worst and most restricting parts of my disability (that I was still in denial about and I'm hoping that if I finally just accept them and get a wheel chair, that it'll make my life easier because it's so difficult and isolating that death is more of a fantasy than a fear) onto my gender issues because at least there was a possible solution to them. There isn't a solution to spine damage.

I was convinced that the root of the issue was that I was actually a woman; not that I need to find a way to actually get out of the house without spending three days crying my eyes out in bed because I pushed myself too far by barely doing anything at all. I was also convinced that I needed to finally be public about it, and that would be what finally made my life easier. So I came out and figured that it could only help. It was really weird having people pay attention to me and tell me that they cared. Nobody ever really cared all that much when I way crying my eyes out, scared to death about the surgery I needed, but I never really talked about it on social media until after the fact. It might sound silly, but I was embarrassed that the years I spent exercising were all for nothing because within half a year of being able to run again, for the first time since the accident...I was having trouble walking at all. Then I had the fun of realizing that living as a woman didn't solve anything because I hadn't actually dealt with the real problem: being a shut-in who is afraid to even try to make plans with people because of their disability. Whenever I'd be out with friends, and there was something we couldn't do because I can barely, it would eat me alive and I'd just never try to be in the same situation again so nobody would have to suffer because of me.

I've learned the hard way that I'm not a woman and just the lengths that you can go through to live in denial about your real problems. I can finally accept that I'm bi, enjoy drag and need to get a wheel chair and stop letting my disability make me afraid to even try to make plans with most people. I don't really expect anyone to read this, or even care at this point, but it would probably be a good thing for me to stop getting all of my human interaction from books. If nothing else, I guess at I least I understand why I have the issues that I do, but it's pretty lonely when you've managed to isolate yourself from almost everyone you know just trying to make your impossible life a little easier. It's funny when you have to explain at length, to you doctor, that you're not going to hurt yourself...but you dream about dying the way kids do about Christmas and you don't remember the last time you felt as though anyone actually cared. But, that's life, people don't really give a s**t unless you have something to offer them...I guess it's a good thing I wrote this out with no expectation. I just wanted to try and explain what I've only somewhat recently come to understand myself.

Author's Note

1/24/18