Deconstructing My Depression

Please be warned this has very heavy topics of transphobia & suicide.

I am not in the best mental state right now, as I am sure so many other people feel the same, and I am sure that even if our struggles are different many other people battle the same emotions that I am.

I feel as if the very hope of a happy future is being stripped away from me day after day. With each news story about transphobic laws being passed or even debated, that or another story of a missing or killed person in some other minority group – or my own.

I am constantly mourning the death of my childish optimism. It is a song and dance that I have been suffering through my whole life, which so far has managed to be almost forty-one years long. However, I almost did not make it to this point.

I was too scared to try and check out of this world at the tender age of eleven years old, and that theme has constantly been there to save my life. That has not stopped the rampant depression that has come with such a struggle.

I suffered alone in my struggles for so long, and yet I was lucky to have a mostly understanding family. My mother supported me through every stage of my gender journey, even when she did not fully understand it. She shut down the ways that a small part of my family tried to force me to conform to a gender role I had never identified with.

I have lost that supportive person in my life due to bigoted viewpoints and her ignorance-based narcissism. She actively ignored the trauma that I went through in life, putting herself in the victim role and not wanting to do the work to work through her traumas either. She cared about looking good and staying comfortable in her small world.

I no longer have a single family member that gives a damn about me, no matter how much I loved and supported them while I was growing up. That alone has left me reeling and mourning so much of my personal history.

I digress, the point is that it took twenty-three years for me to find the vocabulary even to understand who I was. It was just like turning on a light in a dark room so that I could get a clearer picture. Even so, that picture has taken almost another twenty years to come into a more focused image. The last three years have been the most progressive and transformative than ever before.

I know that all of this 'trans trend' is nothing but complete bullshit. It is not a trend, it is the result of people not only being forced to self-reflect during the pandemic, but also of people with shared experiences also building a supportive community. Once that happened so many people have now discovered the language to explain their journeys and viewpoints.

I now have yet another child in my life that I could take part in raising, and once more I have offered as much information as I can so that they can have words to understand themselves. Unlike I was able to have forty years ago.

I am raising a young human that is now feeling empowered enough to speak their truth and explore their identity as shamelessly as they can. It breaks my heart to see the pain that they still face, even now in a world where it had seemed like it was safe for them to be who they are. Clearly, in the face of disgusting laws and open hateful rhetoric, that is not the case.

I no longer fight just to keep myself above the dark waters of depression, I fight to keep this innocent child afloat on a lifeboat of validation in their existence. I fear now more than ever the suppression of such beautiful happiness I see in that child's face.

I want nothing more than for all children to live in that optimistic, whimsical existence that I once used to when I was a kid. No matter their gender, sexuality, or skin color. Why is that not the goal for every other parent in this world? Let alone every person. We all deserve to live without fear of being ourselves. We all deserve to be happy, just like our children.

I have been here on this earth for over forty years and have yet to medically transition. Hell, I only just started testosterone about two years ago. So children are not undergoing gender reassignment surgeries, it is hard enough to do so as an adult.

I do not even know when I will get the ability to have top surgery, or for how long I will be able to take my lifesaving HRT shots. It is life-saving because without it I would have been dead two years ago.

Trans people are people, we are not a trend. We have always been here, despite the many attempts to erase us. Just like I am still here despite all of the hurdles and struggles I have faced in my lifetime.

Without allowing us the care we need, trans children and adults are going to die. They are dying right now as you read this because of how hard it is to get the treatment we need while this debate over our existence goes on.

I used to be a trans child, and I am doing all I can for the next generation, hoping to at least save one of them. They are the hopes and prayers I held for my future once upon a time.