Open Faced Slamwich

Back in the day when the internet was still a dial up provider that you paid for by the hour, I was fortunate to make a lot of friends that I still have to this day. One of them, we’ll call her “M,” reminded me of one of our favorite pastimes which was me writing her slam (aka fuck you) letters to weirdo dudes who tried to pick her up online. The conversation today went something like, “Dude remember how I used to get those freaks trying to pick me up from, like, fuckin, Russia and shit?” I tell her that I remember this and ask her what made her think of this. She says, “I wish I had you around to write those nasty emails you used to send for me telling them to go to hell. You were the best at that.” We had a laugh and went on about our days but the whole thing stuck with me. For whatever sick and twisted reason, I get a charge out of trolling people who deserve to be trolled. Call it boredom, low self esteem, being a generally disagreeable person, or just a plain old judgmental fucking asshole… it is what it is and I genuinely love calling people out for their bullshit. Mind you I don’t simply go around to random men, women, and children on the street and say, “You, yeah you with the fuckin shants and the t-shirt that looks like a dress, your clothes are fucking terrible…” I might THINK this but I don’t say it…. Unless they give me a reason.

What reasons are these exactly? The rules are simple so let’s make a list and then, with great joy, I will get to my first victim of my new project called “The Open Faced Slamwich.”

So the rules are as follows:

1. If you’re a dick to someone for apparently no reason whatsoever, you get slammed.
2. If you go out of your way to hurt someone again, for no reason, you get slammed.
3. If you think you’re fucking awesome and you have absolutely no reason to think so (you don’t do nice shit for people, you’re a generally selfish prick, or whatever it is that makes you repulsive as a human being) you get slammed.
4. If you’ve fucked me or one of my friends over, no matter what your so-called justification is, you’re getting slammed.
5. People being slammed by me will not be named directly but I will not attempt to disguise their appearance or mannerisms. If you’re an asshole, you’re fair game.
6. If you happen to be someone that is slammed and recognize yourself, please try and use this as a guide to change your shitty ways because more than likely I’m not the only person who thinks of you in this manner. I’m just the one with the balls to say so because you don’t scare me.

Here. We. Go.

I met you on AOL when I had just turned 18. From what I recall we were in a goth chat or something to do with Marilyn Manson because that was the thing at the time. You told me you went by the name “Misery” and that you, too, were 18. We started a friendship and spent many weekends together hanging out and just being those weird goth kids that people at Hot Topic would keep an eye on because we were kleptomaniacs who had no regard for rules. One day I got free tickets to an Orgy concert and you said you’d bring me. Instead of being on time you showed up three hours late, we missed the show and we hung out anyway. Some guy asked us if we knew Jesus loved us and we had a laugh. I later learned you stole a car to make that trip happen and you lied when you said you were 18. In reality you were only 15 and you apologized for lying but I didn’t care, I forgave you anyway.

Years go on and we keep talking until you disappear on me for the first time. I was married, living in NYC, and you suddenly weren’t my MySpace friend anymore. Maybe you were jealous that I found someone, maybe you were turning into the trainwreck I would later learn you had become. Whatever the case, you vanished. When you returned it was in 2008 after you found me again on MySpace claiming some excuse as to why you had disappeared. I forgave you though. Because that’s what I do. We hung out, went to the zoo, things were fun. I bought you dinner and we took selfies of us being stupid and then you left with a plan to call me so we could hang again. I never heard from you again.

I spent years looking for you because, in my heart and mind, you were my best friend and I thought if I could just find you things would go back to the way they were. I finally did find you after 8 years of wondering, searching, looking for phone numbers, sometimes calling wrong numbers. But the work paid off and one day, there you were. I was so happy, you sounded so happy. Everything was awesome. We hung out and you told me why you bailed. You said that you perceived I didn’t have time for you because I was going through stuff at the time. Maybe I was being naïve or I was in denial but I let it go. I forgave you. I made excuses for you to anyone who asked. “Oh she just didn’t know my name changed. She didn’t know what was going on. She probably had her own shit going on.” Whatever the case, I did what I could to justify your shitty action of bailing on me for the second time.

It became apparent right away that the reasons you bailed on me were reasons I could’ve held against you. You had a lot going on in your life with work, friends, home commitments, and so much more but I was willing to stick it out. But there was this little voice in my head needling at me. “She never looked for you. In 8 years she never once tried to find you, you asked her and she didn’t deny it when you said she didn’t.” You said we had a “history” though and to me that made it okay. But it wasn’t. Something wasn’t right.

The nice period of our reunion went by fast, we had maybe 6 months of peace with maybe one or two little spats but it wasn’t until recently that you decided that I wasn’t worth your effort anymore. Why that is, I’ll never know but after this, I won’t care. Yeah you paid to help my sick cat but the entire time you hinted that you wanted me to set you up with a friend. Was this supposed to be payment for your “kindness?” Was I supposed to sell you my friend in return for saving my cat? No? Then why did you hint about it and blow up my phone every other day asking if I talked to him about you? I tried nicely to tell you that you weren’t his type but you cheerfully ignored this spouting off, “I’m way more awesome than anyone he dated and you know it.”

……..Um not so much. I don’t know it at all actually because the girl that I reconnected with is nothing like the girl I met years ago. This girl that I know now is a self-involved and mentally unstable individual who somehow believes that because she lost over 80 pounds that she is suddenly hot shit. In truth, honey, you’re just a butter face. But even then, I can’t say the rest of you would be pleasant to look at anyway. Your hair is as limp as some soggy-ass fries in an all night truck stop diner. You know the ones where the girls go out back and give a handy for $5 bucks? Yeah, your hair is like that. Looking at your face I’m reminded of a horse that I saw once. Her name was Manhattan and when I see you, I picture her with a bunch of poorly placed piercings and some jenky-ass sharpie eyebrows that someone charged you too much to tattoo on your face. Your fashion sense is a cross between a mom who shops at Walmart thinking their shit is “edgy” and one of those hookers I just mentioned. Worst of all, you can’t blend your make up for shit and it looks like you just threw the shit at your face and said, “I’m good to go.”

Placing the physical characteristics aside, you’re a foul human being. I’ve  never once heard you say a nice thing about a person you spend time with. Everyone is either a liar, a whore, a back stabber, a bitch, a cunt, or someone who is beneath you in some way. Yet the moment you’re done talking to me, you’re posting photos on the internet of you and whoever the whore of the week is. In your world, you are above all reproach and the rules only apply to everyone else. Your strong moral code goes out the window as soon as you are the one in the hot seat and everyone else is wrong. No. Matter. What.

You toss people aside like the condoms you occasionally used but, considering you have herpes, it’s a good bet that you didn’t use them often. All of your so-called “friends” are on a carousel that you spin at your leisure based on who hasn’t lived up to your expectations at any given time. Considering my own experience and from listening to what you’ve said, there is no rhyme or reason to your definition of what is right or wrong. This is decided on a whim and the circumstances will not matter. Your so-called friend could have experienced a tragedy and in your world if they have dared to offend you in some manner, you don’t talk about it with them. You talk about it with others and block the person in order to avoid listening to the truth about what a hideous human being you are.

You’re not worth knowing and it took me a long time to realize that the person I thought you were was just a naïve interpretation of what friendships were when I was a kid. As an adult I see exactly what your definition of friendship is; someone who you can compare yourself to and judge in order to rise up when your self esteem goes lower than it already is.

People like you never find a happy ending. People like you are as transparent as glass, no matter how dirty it is. Eventually people will get wise to you, bust out that windex, and wipe away that grime to see what a hideous creature lives inside that glass house of yours. No man will ever love you. No woman will ever remain in your life as a friend. As your sister said, you’re toxic. As your brother said, you’re a bitch. You’ve often complained that so many people think ill of you and that you honestly can’t understand why this is. I choose to live by the rule that if one person thinks ill of you, it’s their problem. If many are saying you’re a cunt, then you’re the problem.

You’re no loss to someone like me and you won’t be a loss to those who finally decide  they’re tired of dancing on your strings. Be ready for a lonely life with your dogs, your pain killers, and your hope that you will someday matter to someone. Your disappointment will be profound and when it all finally crumbles in on you, remember that I was the one person to forgive you for being the bitch you are. In the end, you will have nothing.

Grief, loss, and all words to describe terrible things

The past three months have probably been the most emotionally trying months that I’ve experienced in some time. I lived by this code for a long time that it was best to never let that guard down and think, “Okay the coast is clear, nothing that bad could possibly happen now. The worst has to be over.” Yeah… not so much.

I’ll summarize the bullet points and then get to the big bad…

-  A new co-worker came on to the mid-shift from working overnights and has been… unprofessional since she started. I honestly couldn’t answer why she has behaved the way she has but all speculation aside, it’s been unpleasant to work with her and it’s resulting in a “conversation” with the managers. For once, I’m not on the receiving end of this conversation.

- My cat got sick and required surgery to remove a blockage. She is okay now though and I’m grateful to my friend for being generous enough to help out.

- I reconnected with a friend who was supposedly extremely excited to be reunited but after a metric ton of excuses that didn’t make sense, I had to distance myself from it. She has baby daddy drama and some other shit that she wouldn’t get into. I told her I would be there for her but she didn’t respond so… bye.

- The friend who helped me with my cat has been acting distant toward me after we had a spat. It started with me going to a movie that she believed I had made a plan to see with her. That was not the case. We talked it out and I thought things were cool. After this conversation I see she posted online that she was going to a convention with a friend of hers after we had planned to go together. She swears up and down that her decision to go had nothing to do with the movie thing and that’s all well and good but when I said I was bothered/bummed about the change in plan I was accused of acting like a jealous boyfriend and apparently her friends think I’m nuts. Now she’s tagging people in posts that she would’ve tagged me in and it’s all just fucked up. It is what it is and I’m just not playing anymore. I’ve taken my ball and gone home as the saying goes.

Now for the big bad… My cousin Joe and I were talking the other day via FB Messenger as we usually do and my mother calls me in her usual “ohhh my goddd, all this shit is so fucked up” way and proceeds to tell me that my cousin hasn’t been doing well. He had been passing out a lot and just didn’t feel well overall. He went away with his parents on this trip to Martha’s Vineyard which is usual for them since they live on the Cape. He had been staying with my grandparents and I guess when they went down to his room they found a bunch of bad shit. Booze bottles to name one. They were fed up with him drinking and said he couldn’t stay with them any longer. Aside: They’re both raging alcoholics who have no business judging anyone so… yeah.

Anyway, my mother flips out and says we need to tag team him to get him to go to rehab before some shit goes down. She’s telling me about how he carries a gun around and she’s insistent that he will do something if we don’t help him. I tell her I’ve been trying for years to get him help and he just wouldn’t do it for reasons that were his own. Just the same though I talked with him most of the day on Sunday and kept trying to get him to commit to going to the hospital since his symptoms sounded pretty serious. He kept saying no and changed the subject to ask how I was. He sounded okay but… that’s the internet. You can’t HEAR the person. Our conversation ends and I go about the rest of my night. The next day my mother calls to tell me that Joe had his gun taken away and he was staying with his parents. I tell her this is good and I give her a number to call for crisis services on Cape Cod to consult with ways to get him help. I don’t know if she made the call or not. Joe and I talked for almost the entire day again. It was another round robin of me asking him to go to the hospital and using a ton of motivational interviewing to try and get to the bottom of why he wouldn’t go. His reasons will never made sense to me but I’m not him. We finish our conversation just before 6pm and I go on with my night. I get things ready for work and I go to bed. At 2:30AM I’m awoken by my phone. It’s my mother.

“D---……” Long long pause. I knew what she was going to say. No call after midnight is a good call.

“Joey’s gone…”
“What do you mean he’s gone mom? Where is he?”
“He’s gone…”
“No.”
“He passed away…” She starts crying and I just keep saying no over and over again like it’s going to change something. When I can finally speak I ask her what happened. She didn’t know at the time. Only that he had been in a tub and said “Don’t call 911.” I tell her I have to go and I lose it. Wailing. Choking. The whole thing. My husband is hanging on to me and I think he was trying to literally hold me together because I was shattering with every sob that came out.

When I was able to get myself together, I text my mother to ask her more. She didn’t have enough info. But she said she would call me. Shaun takes me for a drive and I pop several benzos in order to stop the shaking and sobbing. It works and I finally sleep for a little while.

When I wake up, I’m thinking maybe it was all a bad dream and I check my phone. It wasn’t. I see the call log and I see the texts I sent. I re-read my cousin’s messages to me trying to make sense. I’m a mental health recovery counselor trained to look for signs of potential suicide risk. There were none from what I read. But just the same, my mother calls me later to tell me the whole story as it went down. Blow by blow by blow of the horrific detail of his death and the events thereafter. Due to the triggering nature of that, I will not share it. But just know that every time I close my eyes I see it and my heart hurts. So. Much.

I’ve spent the day in a stupor of opiates and benzos combined with the shock of losing a person who was for all intents and purposes my little brother. I was 5 years old when he was born and from the day he was born, he was always around my brother and me. We were the three muskateers. We looked out for each other. Did vacation stuff. We were bonded. The pain that comes when the drug haze lifts is excruciating beyond anything I can even describe. I couldn’t even try if I wanted to. It just… hurts.

I’ve received so much support from people I’ve never met, people I have met, and people whom I never would’ve expected it from. The words, “Anything you need” have been repeated over and over. It’s a sentiment that means so much even if there’s nothing anyone can do. I try to see that in this dark fucking place but there’s another part of the pain here too and that’s the fact that my friend, the movie one, is so distant right now. Of everyone I know, I would have thought she would’ve been the first person to drop everything and come to help keep me together but that was not the case. Instead, she posted pictures online and tagged people that she said called me nuts. I think it’s juvenile of me to care about something so trivial when my cousin just died but the whole point to being a best friend is to be here for these very situations and she failed me. Again.

My cousin’s death hurts worse than anything she could do or not do. But it doesn’t make this shit any easier. The solace I find in this though is that the support has come from the least likely of sources and I will never question that again.

When people say tragedy is when you learn who your real friends are… they aren’t kidding. I’m not saying to manufacture a tragedy to test loyalties because that would be fucked up. But if you ever have the slightest doubt about someone… believe it. I didn’t. I rationalized it all until I was blue in the face… The way she bailed on me because she thought I didn’t have enough time for her, the way she never looked for me in the years we were separated, the way she could so easy throw barbs at me when I questioned her motives, and the way she now has stepped back from me in my time of need.

I’ve received the message loud and clear and now I know. I wish I didn’t but I do.

So yeah… fuck this week, fuck death, and fuck whatever the hell happened between me and this friend. I’m sure she will read this and tell me what a piece of shit I am after she helped pay for my cat’s medical bills. I watched her do the same to a friend of hers after the friend questioned her previous decision to co-sign on a loan for my friend. Her wrath was telling…. Throwing all she did in the girl’s face all because she violated some rule she was playing by when no one else knows what those rules are. I place a great deal of importance on how friends treat their other friends in a fight because it’s a barometer for how I will be treated when I make the grievous error of crossing them. Lesson learned.

To the friend: if you read this, which you probably won’t, don’t bother throwing your good deeds in my face. I’ve already tallied it all up and when I am in the position to do so, I’ll pay you back and you can forget I exist again.

That time I got catfished

A couple weeks ago my husband were having a lazy night and tuned into a Catfish marathon on MTV. While I watched the series of unfortunate events unfold I found myself wondering how in the world these people can fall for the bullshit that they’re being fed by the individuals who have been scamming them. For a moment I allowed myself to judge the ever loving fuck out of these people only to silently kick myself and remember that I, too, was a sad sack who wanted to believe in the stories I was being fed.

The setting to this tale was much the same as anyone else who’s experienced the allure of something even better than the real thing. I was in a marriage that was failing in its first year. I had come to the sickening realization that the man who said he loved me was really just in it to get his green card. In his efforts to ensure he got what he needed, he’d alienated me from every friend that I had up until I met him. My only escape from him was to spend my time on the internet and communicate with the outside world through MySpace and Vampire Freaks. For some reason my socially anxious self was able to accept this as I was never really that outwardly social anyway. Yeah, even as a performer. But we all have our contradictions right? 

So one night in December of 2004 I was on Vampire Freaks and I came across this person who lived in Massachusetts. His profile said he was around 27 years of age and he was into a lot of the same bands I was and had very similar interests. I reached out and thus began 5 years of the biggest pack of lies anyone ever told me. At first it was innocent enough. We would spend a fair amount of time chatting about nothing and everything. Over time it came to be the one thing I looked forward to each day when I got home from work while my husband at the time was working at a hotel and getting friendly with the front desk girls and the cleaning girls and, basically, ALL the girls. While he was doing his thing, I was home lamenting my situation with a person I came to know as Morgan from Mansfield. 

Soon our chat sessions became near constant and one night in the summer of 2005 Morgan confessed he had feelings for me. I had already realized some time back that I had the same feelings but I was waiting for him to say it so I wouldn’t have to feel like I was the one being unfaithful to my then-husband. Even though the truth of the matter is that I was by simply having an emotional affair with another individual. But in my mind at that time, I felt like it wasn’t truly cheating because I had never met this person. Even up to this point I hadn’t even spoken to him on the phone so obviously there was enough distance between us to keep it honest right? I can tell you now that it was absolutely wrong no matter how I tried to justify it. Later I learned that the ex had been sleeping around on me and other worse things but that’s not what this story is about.

By the end of that summer, 2005 by that point, I was given an ultimatum from my ex. I was to move with him back to New York where his father was waiting for us after having thrown us out over a year ago for marrying against his wishes. I had no where to go so I reached out to Morgan to ask if he could help. He said he would…. But he was going to Europe so he would not be available. By this point he had admitted that he was a model and he had to travel a lot so meeting was out of the question. I know you’re smirking to yourself now knowing exactly where this is going but it gets so much better and more embarrassing for me.

So I head back to New York under the order of my ex and we set up shop in the home where I worked on music and drank…. A lot. I also spent a lot of my ex’s money since he was never home while he worked on construction projects. That part was nice if I’m to be honest. Since he worked long hours I continued my internet relationship with Morgan while he traveled. Soon things with the marriage became extremely explosive with trips to the hospital for violent fights, drinking binges that turned into alcohol poisoning, and constant screaming and fighting. The ex threatened to throw me out on my ass. I threatened to go to immigration and fall on my sword telling them that I lied and it was a scam marriage. He came back and said he would sleep with someone else. I came back and said I would leave and go to Morgan. He followed through on his threat whereas I had no way of following through on mine. Meanwhile, Morgan “watched” the story unfold from afar offering platitudes and lots of “I would help if I could.” Soon he said, “Get a passport and you can come here to England. I’ll fly you over.” So I did. He disappeared. 

A month went by and I was still trapped in my personal hell. I had been picked up by the NYPD for public intoxication and released after a night in the drunk tank. One day I was online talking to a friend and my instant messenger chimed with Morgan’s cricket tone. He had come back. He was sorry. Could we possibly talk? Desperate for something good, I said of course and the promise to go to England was put aside. I didn’t care. I had my drug back. I had some place to escape while my ex went to New Jersey every weekend to bang his middle aged, belly dancer mistress. Soon the mistress began to taunt me non-stop and insist that I move out so that she could move in. I didn’t relent because I still had my card to play with immigration if my ex tried to put me out on my ass. By that point I had asked my mother for help, I was prepared to leave and move to her home but she refused having told me that I got myself into the mess I was in and I could get myself out. 

Eventually it didn’t matter because the illusion my ex and I were living in was set on fire when his father confessed to sending almost everything in the family business’ bank account to his wife in Kiev. We were going to lose the house we were living in and the business was on the verge of collapse because of the mismanagement of the money. My ex and I made a deal that we would jump ship and return to Massachusetts. By that point Morgan had returned to Massachusetts so I was only too happy to go.

By the summer of 2006 I was in Fall River living in a one bedroom apartment with a blow up mattress, some lawn chairs for seats, little food, and a lot of alcohol. The ex would go out and work with the one car we had and I worked from home. When my mother came for a visit she finally got to see what I had become. There were alcohol bottles all over the place and there was still no furniture. She insisted at that time that I leave my husband and get sober… one way or the other. I accepted and returned with her. By that point I had left so much in New York and now I was leaving more behind in Fall River. It was just me, a bag of clothes, some books and CDs, my computer, and my beloved cat Myron. Meanwhile, Morgan witnessed this all from afar with my nightly reports. He was so relieved when I had left my ex. He said to me, “Now we can finally be together.” 

Then the wait began. I got sober and I got a job in retail. I started seeing friends but my entire life had become centered around when Morgan would finally see me. Several times there were promises made that he would be in town. So I waited. The day passed. Then one day I called out from work only to be told that he had tried to stop by the store to see me. So I stopped calling out just in case he might come by. I waited. Plans were made for Halloween and I waited. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years. I waited and waited and waited. Soon it had turned into 2008 and I was still waiting. By this point I had stopped caring and I had started dating other people with the hope that Morgan would become jealous. But still I waited. We talked but it was tense and the fights became frequent. Finally, one night he tells me he’s been hiding a huge secret. After much teeth pulling he admitted he wasn’t a model and he was just “some guy.” He sent me the real picture and still I didn’t care. To me it was the personality. I thought, “Okay so that’s all it was, we can meet now.” Yes, he promised, we can meet now. 

The winter of 2008 came and went and by April I finally had a nice car and I had landed a great job with Lifeline, the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” people. My first weekend off I was doing my homework and talking to Morgan and I started to feel my chest hurting and my heart was racing. I called for my mother and she came racing up the stairs and I had her feel my pulse. Immediately she called an ambulance and before I knew it I was on a stretcher and I was being attached to leads with my heart was hammering along at 190 bpm. I was put on an IV and injected with adenosine to chemically convert my heart rate and it worked while I was rushed to the hospital. At the hospital my heart rate skyrocketed again and I went unconscious. When I came to I was told that I had been hit with the paddles and I had an arrhythmia that needed to be monitored so I was admitted to the hospital. Morgan called me for the first time that night and cried, begging me to be okay because he didn’t want me to die. I was so happy that my heart began racing but this time it was all emotion. 

By May I was told I would need to have a heart procedure to check the electrical conduction of my heart and have the bad pieces of my heart ablated. I told Morgan and he said he would be there for me, he was going to ride back from where was now staying in St. Louis. Three days before my procedure he said he was heading out on his motorcycle. I waited. Two nights before my procedure I got a message from Morgan’s brother, “Morgan’s been in an accident. He has a spiral fracture in his right leg and a concussion. He’s in the hospital.” In my panic my heart started racing and my chest hurt again. I called all the hospitals I could map out on the route he could have taken from St. Louis. No one had a Morgan Richards there. So I waited. Morgan called the night before my procedure, he sounded weak, I heard the machines in the background and the hospital sounds. He said he was ok. He wished he could be with me. He felt like he let me down. I said it was okay. When I went in for the procedure the next morning, with no sleep, I laid my head back on the table in the OR and I kept thinking of him even while my heart began to race and I blacked out. When I came to, I learned I had coded and I had clinically died but I was going to be okay. 

I recovered from the procedure and by the end of the summer I had moved in with my friend, moved out of my friend’s house, and returned to my mother’s. I lost my job at the Lifeline place and I was working various temp jobs to make ends meet. Morgan was still recovering from his accident, now back in St. Louis and had no idea when he would return. December came and I got a call from my friend Ereka asking me to meet her at a show in Worcester. She wanted me to see her and the band she was with so I could let her know if I was interested in having her and their drummer, Shaun, play with my band Era Nocturna when I performed to support my album “Lackluster” released that October. Initially I said I wanted to stay home because I didn’t feel well (I wanted to talk to Morgan) and Ereka bribed me with pizza and gas money. I spent the day hanging out with Ereka, Potter, Connor, Chris, Jill, and Shaun. It was a break from the digital world that I needed. The connection I felt with Ereka and Shaun was something that I’ll never forget to this day. I went home that night and I told Morgan that he had until the end of the year to step up or I was ending everything. He said he would. So I waited. 

At the end of December I met a guy who would eventually become a two year relationship that sucked away whatever Morgan had left of me. By April of 2009 I was between jobs and had no clue what I was going to do. I enrolled in medical assisting school and the new ex and I continued to see one another and when we weren’t together I was still talking with Morgan. Things had changed at that point though. He knew I was with someone and, I guess that maybe gave him the out he needed to finally tell me the truth. He said he wanted to tell me something but he was afraid of how much I would hate him when he told me what he had to say. I told him at that point there was nothing left in me that would be surprised so the guessing game began. “Are you married?” No. “Do you really live in Massachusetts?” Yes. “Are you gay?” No. “…..Are you a woman?”   ……… Yes. “Show me what you look like.” She did. “You need to meet me. Come to the Lotus in (Medway?) tomorrow.” She did. 

The “man” I had loved for five years was a 40-something year old blonde woman who stood no more than 5 feet 2 inches tall. She was attractive in a peculiar way. She was quiet, awkward, scared shitless, and her name was Cheryl. We spoke over the loud karaoke music with my friends there as back up. In hindsight I think I had made sure they were there for her protection rather than mine. I was so unsure of what I would do when the time came that I saw her. But the thing is, when I saw how small she was and how self-effacing she came across, I couldn’t find it in myself to hate her. I simply wanted to know why.

Cheryl and Dae. Salem, MA 2009

Our friendship grew over the next year and by 2010 she came to be my confidant and my closest friend. She was my refuge from my ex when he became too abusive and she listened. She was always there. But still, I waited for a reason that made sense when I asked her why she lied. Not just to me but to others. There was never a reason she gave that made any sense. How she could watch as my life crumbled around me and still carry on such a lie. How she could tell me that “Morgan” had been in an accident just days before I was going in for a heart procedure knowing that I was off the medication that would prevent me from collapsing from another cardiac episode. How she could tell me lie after lie after lie. I wanted to hate her but I couldn’t. Even if she couldn’t explain any of it to me. She just said, “I don’t know why I did it. I think I just hated myself and wanted to be somebody else.” For some reason I was able to accept that… for the time being.

Eventually, my life imploded again but only because I made it happen. Shaun, from the show in Worcester, returned after several years of no contact on my part. He asked if I still needed a drummer and I told him I did. Cheryl and I were trying to make Era Nocturna happen live. I was even going to teach her the bass. My ex (still my boyfriend at the time) was going to play guitar and we got another guy named Dorian to take over the synths on his guitar. The first month of rehearsals were a disaster but I found myself looking forward to seeing Shaun every week and our friendship grew. Soon I was talking to him on the phone and texting daily while my ex was continuing to be an alpha douchebag. The final straw came one night when I told him it was over and I needed to go take some space. As I was packing up to go somewhere, anywhere away from him he tried to take a swing at me when he blocked my way out the door. I texted Shaun and he told me to come stay with him. So I drove away trying to find some sense of safety again. Nothing made sense anymore. I’d lost my compass by that point and I was heading toward the only place left now that my own home wasn’t safe and Cheryl had begun to act extremely possessive even though she maintained she was not gay. 

When I returned from my weekend with Shaun I moved my things out of my home and went to stay with a friend. The final night I saw Cheryl was when I went to her place to have dinner and her boyfriend (now husband) began talking about the motorcycle accident he’d been in. He brought down the x-rays and I saw a spiral fracture in his right leg. My throat go tight as I relived the pain of the night I heard about the accident, the panic, the desperate search for answers. I heard the phone call in my head again. The sounds of the hospital. The weak voice. My gut ached from the realization of how twisted the whole story had been. Then I looked at her boyfriend and I asked him, “This was you? In the accident?” He appeared confused and he said, “Yeah. In 2008.” I got up and told Cheryl I had to leave and returned to my friend’s home and I replayed the last five years in my head. I realized the forgiveness I felt toward Cheryl was just denial but her boyfriend’s x-rays snapped me back into the fucked up reality that I had been lied to by a woman who had used a voice changer to talk to me on the phone and had gone to the trouble to use sound effects to make it sound like she was in a hospital. It was all one big fucking lie and it had smashed me in the face like a cannon ball. I was done. 

I stopped talking to Cheryl, stopped returning her texts, dodged emails and messages on Facebook. She insisted that I come see her so she could explain. There was nothing to explain. But she continued to insist. Finally I answered and I told her no. She snapped at that point and turned everything around on me. I was a terrible person for turning my back on her. She thought I cared. How could I promise that we would be best friends forever only to abandon her for Shaun. She hated me. On and on she went. I tried so hard not unleash on her but everything I had wanted to say came flying out all at once and I ended with telling her I wished she was dead. I meant it too. 

We had maybe one or two e-mail exchanges afterward but they were nothing short of brutal. I was unwilling to forgive her and she was unwilling to give me an answer that made sense. I think even if she tried, it still wouldn’t have made sense. Nothing made sense. But I came to be okay with that. She was the one who had to live with what she did. I moved on. 

Epilogue 

I moved in with Shaun in April of 2011. We performed live with Era Nocturna throughout 2011 and 2012. Dorian appeared with us on guitars for several shows and Ereka was our first bassist. Dorian, Ereka and I are all still friends. 

Cheryl had more than one “victim” in her charade. One by the name of Dellena who was strung along for quite some time by Cheryl’s “Morgan the Model” character. Eventually Cheryl disconnected from Dellena with no explanation. I gave her one. Another one of Cheryl’s marks was a wonderful woman by the name of Helen. We are still friends to this day, even after our incredibly contentious start. We have yet to meet but we plan to someday. I’m 100% certain she will not be a man. 

Shaun and I married in 2013 and we both still make music but we currently spend our time helping people with mental illness navigate their way toward recovery. 

Myron the cat passed away in May of 2015 at the age of 14. I like to think that he waited until I was happy to let go after having cancer for close to two years. After all, he saw me through all of this and was my secret keeper when I had no one else. 

I don’t know what else happened after Cheryl got married and I honestly don’t care.

I thank you for reading this. Please take this as a cautionary tale to learn from. If someone is stringing you along online do your research. Make them Skype with you. Make them verify themselves with a sign with your name on it. Insist that you meet. If they give you shit about photos, phone calls, anything… trust your gut and get out. Your life is a life that must be lived. Don’t waste it on smoke and mirrors. You deserve more. Don’t wait. 

With love,

Dae

When Shit Gets Real: The Beginning

I’ve thought long and hard about doing a series on what it’s like to live with mental illness, especially when there’s more going on than a single diagnosis. In fact, there’s really no single diagnosis that can truly define what I have and what I am. The best that psychiatrists, psychologists, clinicians, social workers, and counselors have come up with is best summed up in a list of possibilities shared over the years. Let’s see if I can remember them all, these will not be in any specific order and do not include all of the guesses:

Bipolar Type I – Not otherwise specified (NOS)

Bipolar Type II – NOS

Bipolar Type II with psychotic features

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (now being referred to as Complex PTSD due to years of sustained trauma)

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Asperger’s Syndrome

Schizoaffective Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

Bulimia

Binge Eating Disorder

Drug and alcohol addiction

Shall I keep going or do you get the point? Yeah, I’m fucked up when you look at me on paper. I’m “fucked up” when you only know me through my Facebook posts. I’m “fucked up” when you catch me on a bad day and I’m not able to self regulate and I’m essentially going into crisis. Inside, my head is a mess. I take a lot of medication to live with this. Are all or some of the above true? Not all of them can be concurrent diagnoses but several of them are relevant. I agree with the Bipolar with psychotic features, the C-PTSD, the dissociative disorder (without the identity issue), the bulimia, the binge eating, and the addiction. That’s still quite a lot for someone to live with. To live with it being able to function is, to me, a miracle when some of the clients I work with have experienced less and are in a worse state than I. I guess it goes to count for the resiliency theory right?

Anyway, one gets to thinking when they meet someone who is a, to use the stigmatized term of “mental case,” how in the hell someone gets so fouled up. It’s a good question. It’s a valid question. But it’s also one that not many can ever answer because they lack the insight. Because of my job and because of the fact that I am a social science major with the goal of working as a neuropsych professional, I do have the insight. I’ve felt for a long time that it would be valuable to share these with others to help them understand not only me but those around them who may not be easily understood.

Before I get on with this I will say a few things: First of all, I am not really a professional. Yes, I work in the mental health system but I am NOT a clinician, I am only a mental health recovery counselor which translates to "Hey, I've been there too, let me help you through your shit by using the knowledge of my own shit to guide you." Nothing I share here is meant to be taken as clinical advice and, in truth, some of what I share can be triggering. I am not holding anything back. If you know me, work with me, listen to my music, or are just a passerby; there are going to be things shared here that are deeply personal and may be things you’ve never heard from me before. I’m doing this to help myself and to, hopefully, help others with the understanding that I’m empathizing , disclosing, but not treating or offering treatment.

There will be examples and some details. I will change the names of some individuals to be respectful and I will not discuss clients that I work with.... at all. HIPPA is a big deal in this day and age and to violate that could mean my job, fines, and a whole lot of shit I don't want. I want that out there in case anyone gets the funny idea of trying to go to my supervisors with this and say, “Oh hey by the way, she’s talking about so and so on her blog.” So the disclaimer effectively covers my ass and, besides, I know/knew enough fucked up people to fill this thing for years without going near my job.

Finally, my med regimen, which I will talk about, is MY regimen and what works for me may not work for you. Please do not go to your P-Doc and say, “So I read on this blog that (drug name) worked for this person and their symptoms were better/worse because of it, I think I should try this/stop this.” Please always follow the instructions of your clinical team and if you have questions, talk to them. They have degrees. I don’t… yet.

That all being said… here we go.

The thing that got this going was thinking about my father, whom I will name because he doesn't deserve protection, Greg W. Howard (google him some time). My mother and Greg met while serving in the Marines together while out in San Diego. Sparing the details, I happened at some point along in their relationship. They had moved to North Carolina  before I was born and they got hitched. Some time later, viola, I come howling into the world while my father was stoned on the weed he'd been smoking with his friend when my mom went into labor. Things were supposedly good though and I supposedly had a good first year. In hindsight, according to my mom, they weren’t. I was left in the care of a questionable woman who, for kicks, like to call social services on my parents for starters. More to the point though, my father was/is a very sick man with the possibility of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. At the very least, he is a very delusional individual with issues that run the gamut of pathologically lying (he claims he went to the Citadel when in reality he was kicked out and discharged from the Marines for abusing my mother), cheating on multiple wives (one of which he is still married to even though he was having an affair with a woman named Cara when I found him), violence (he threw his own mother down a set of stairs and sexually assaulted his own brother), and so much more. 

My very first memory is of him beating up my mother and shoving her across a room while she was pregnant with my brother. I was no more than three at the time and there was no way I should have known about it but my mother confirmed it years later when I told her I kept seeing it in my head. My next memory was my father holding me up to a window to show me my new brother. Another of us in a car, driving redneck style with me in his lap. After that it’s a haze. I vaguely remember a game of blocks and a ride to a local store in Massachusetts after it happened but I can’t really tell if it’s true or not.

What was it that happened and why is it so important to my development as a person? It was my mother, my two week old brother, and me being put onto a plane headed back to Boston with my father’s promise that he would either send for us or come back. Neither of these happened. It wasn’t until I was 16 years old that I ever talked with my father again and it didn’t go well.

The years up until that communication with my father began were trying. By the time I was 13 I had already experienced abuse in a number of ways and it continued until was removed from my mother’s home for “good” by the age of 16 and a half. That all will come later. But what sticks out is the way my father handled the situation when I did barge my way into his life with a letter telling him I wanted to talk to him and wanted to understand what had happened. I sent this letter, against my mother’s warning of “Be careful what you go digging up,” and I waited… and waited… until one day the phone rang and it was the voice of a man asking for me by my legal name. It was perfectly pronounced the way it was meant to be and somehow I knew it was him.

I’ll be honest in saying that the first few weeks, months maybe, were euphoric but then it all went south. My mother was resentful of me bringing this man back into her life after the pain he had caused her, my brother was also displeased since he was not asked after, and I was isolated in my reunion. I had to keep the phone calls a secret and when the joy finally passed and I asked him why he left and why he never tried to come back, the answers were less than satisfactory. Much to the point that I’ve blocked most of the detail of it and only remember that he wanted to avoid it and pretend that everything was fine. When I refused, I was rejected again. This time while sitting on a payphone on a psych unit after I had tried to take my life and I was asking him for help since my own mother didn’t want me back. and I was looking at being placed into a group home until the age of 18. I later learned that my father didn’t want me messing up his life (his sex life to be exact, gross huh?) and the idea of bringing me into his world was unthinkable. So I spent days in my room in the hospital not wanting to even breathe because my father had abandoned me again, my mother had turned her back on me for trying to find him, and my very first boyfriend ever had broken up with me just months before. My friends at the time stopped coming to see me in the hospital, and I was alone. To address this grief I was heavily drugged on thorazine to the point of being nearly chemically lobotomized. But, hey, at least the pain went away and I could stop reacting to it by going into rages right?

Over the years I tried many times to talk to my father again only to experience the same results. I wanted answers and he dodged them. My way of coping was to lash out. If you googled him, you’ve seen that he is a very unpopular person. Up to the point where he attempted to sue Twitter after making threats against the president and his wife, my step-mother, calls him a “political refugee of Twitter." He is an ultra-conservative who would likely team up with Trump if he was given the chance. My lashing out was quite public and the result was a woman contacting me claiming to be the wife of my half brother and supposedly understanding my vitriol. I later found out she was a friend of my father’s looking to get information about me. Why? I didn’t stick around to find out once I realized she was not who she said she was and she had no intention of putting me in contact with my brother Will. When I figured out what she was up to I promptly wrote love letters to my step-mother, grandmother, and my other half-brother letting them all know exactly what my feelings were on the matter considering that my very existence has been kept a secret from my brothers. Nice huh? 

Just thinking about all of that makes my head spin but it’s a good place to start and now is a good place to stop. Many think that having their father die on them is the worst that can happen. I agree that losing a parent hurts, especially when they loved you and were a part of your life. That is a loss that I imagine to be devastating. For me though, I suffered numerous losses and heartbreaks from the same man over and over again to the point where devastation doesn't even begin to describe the pain. This was a man who was supposed to be my father, my protector. Instead, he was anything but that. Instead he was someone who set me up to fail from day one by doing the very thing a father should never do to his children…. And then he did it again… and again… and again. Each time cutting the hole deeper. Death is painful but knowing he remains alive with no desire to be what I so desperately needed throughout my life is, in a way, worse. It would be better if he had died but he didn’t and it’s something I had to accept but the result is a deep mistrust of people early on in my life. Kindness, to me, is always cause for suspicion because I wonder when it will be taken away or if it's a ruse to get something. I will never accept that a person is here to stay and I am always vigilant for that "inevitable" hurt and abandonment that I know is going to come. Sadly, I usually bring it on myself through my own suspicion and eventual trashing of the friendship to avoid what I believe will be the inevitable pain of their betrayal or abandonment. It's something I continue to work on and I think I'm getting better.

I will end here, truly now, but I thank you for reading this far (if you did) and I will continue soon. I thank you in advance for coming on the journey with me. It will be hard but in the end, you will see what it took to create the person I am today and, I, along with you, will be puzzling out how I am not even more fucked up than I already am.

Fan Questions "Where the hell have you been?"

So where in the hell have I been? This is a fair question. When I walked away from doing Era Nocturna back in 2012 my genuine intent was to never make music again. I had had enough of slogging through shows singing the same shit over and over. I had had enough of dragging gear through the ice and snow and the heat and humidity to play in hole-in-the-wall clubs where the response was typically mediocre due to the location in which we were playing. Western Massachusetts isn’t exactly welcoming to goth/electro music. Joke maps say, “here there be dragons” but in reality it’s metal country and they don’t take kindly to us geek musicians who use computers almost exclusively to produce music. It is what it is and it takes all kinds.

Behind the scenes and inside my head there was more going on though. I have never kept my mental illness a secret and I have bordered on unapologetic when speaking of it as this is a subject that makes many extremely uncomfortable. But you know what? I don’t care. Not talking about something has never made it go away and I never saw merit in hiding who and what I am. Unfortunately a lot of people get caught in the cross fire of my issues and it’s something I’ve worked very hard to fix but my past is extremely messy and my professional and personal relationships have suffered due to the shit I live with. If you’re new to the club here’s the deal: I have type 2 bipolar disorder that has been resistant to treatment and I also live with complex PTSD and dissociative disorder. This translates to a person who can be very hard to work with, live with, and be friends with. For THAT I do apologize but I don’t and won’t apologize for my illness.

So yeah, I ended Era Nocturna in 2012. In 2013 I got married to Shaun, whom many of you know as Era Nocturna’s live drummer, and I continued to work as a medical assistant up through early 2014. That is when I basically lost my shit… I believe it was around April that it hit a critical mass resulting in a full-blown psychotic break but, hindsight being 20/20, I knew it had started long before that and that is essentially why Era Nocturna ended if I’m to be honest with you and with myself. I was overwhelmed by life and I was completely out of control. So there’s that.

Where are we in the tale now? Ah yes, April 2014. So I up and quit my job as a medical assistant and I proceed to tear my life apart… literally. I ripped myself down to the base of who I was and rebuilt until I was close to who I once was but even then it was incomplete. Just the same I was approached by my old friend Jason with the offer to distribute my music online. Seeing this as an opportunity to reinvent myself musically I renamed the band and went forward with the release. Initially I was very excited and promoted the crap out of it but the damage I had done when I “killed” Era Nocturna was extensive and people were not really too keen on returning to see what other bullshit I was going to spew when I was having a bad day. Fair enough. So I stepped back once again and started getting my head on straight. Meanwhile I took a job working as a mental health recovery counselor to make ends meet. I thought at first it would just be a job to pay the bills but as time went on I found that I was actually making a difference with the clients that I worked with each day. I also found that they were making a difference in MY life as well. They showed me what was important and when I saw that, I was one step closer to reclaiming myself in total.

In the last few weeks I’ve felt something spark within me. Perhaps it has been allowing myself to finally remember the dear friends I have lost to untimely deaths that has brought me back. One memory in particular has me in Brooklyn sitting in a kitchen drinking wine and pouring my heart and soul out to one friend in particular and half way through my venting I got up to take a piss and when I came back I looked in my bag only to find that the pills I was looking for were gone. As you can guess, being the junkie that I was, I went off. I sounded like Batman in “The Dark Knight” hollering “Where are they?” Only I wasn’t looking for my friend and her man, I wanted my shit back. My friend’s response was to shake his head at me, take my hands and tell me that I was worth more than the “bullshit in that bottle.” He even took away my wine and told me I was done as long as I was around him. I left, furious, and rode the train back to my place that I was sharing with my ex-husband (who was cheating on me at the time) and I vowed I would never speak to him again but my phone rang as I was walking back to the house and it was my friend checking to see if I was okay. The next day we talked again and he said, “There are worse things than death and you’re shining the fucking lights to get them to find you. You’re better than that.” I didn’t stop using at that time but in the mental health world we have this thing called “harm reduction” when it comes to continuing bad habits with the intent to lessen their negative effects. Why I remembered all of that is quite plain. Because of my PTSD I carry many bottles of “shit” that are meant to keep me from going over the edge and the addictive nature of one of them often causes me to feel the urge to take more than I should. One day when I was reaching for the bottle I remembered that encounter and it hit me, I was still waving that light looking for the demons to come back and break me down and I knew what it was I had to do. I had to go back to my music because that was my old friend, that was my way to cope, that was who I am… plain and simple.

It is a new year now, we’re only a few weeks into it, and in the last 17 days I have shed the last of the effects of the break I suffered between 2012 and 2014. I have accepted that I am perfectly imperfect… a beautiful disaster at times. I have accepted that I have burned more bridges than I have built. I have accepted that I am not the best at what I do but I try hard… every day. I have accepted that there are many who hate me but the ones who do love me are worth a hundred to one of those that don’t. Each day I am thankful for the fact that I am able to try again and knowing that it’s people like Shaun who fight for me and people like Vicki, Peter, Kenny, Shelly, Alicia, and Rachel who took my shit and showed me that even us monsters have our good sides.

So if you’re looking for a short answer of where I’ve been and why it’s taken me so long to make music again, I can’t give you one. I can only give you what I’ve said and I can only say thank you if you’ve read this far because you are on this journey with me and you haven’t given up on me. There are no words of thanks that I can offer for that but know that whoever you are, you have my gratitude.

End of year survey

1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before?
Stopped living in the past.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make resolutions. If I'm going to do something, I'll just do it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
We're not close but a number of people I know had children. You have my condolences.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. 

5. What countries did you visit?
Westeros 

6. What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015?
Boobs and self esteem

7. What date from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There were many but the day I decided to have Myron put to sleep was the worst and I miss him every day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Enrolling in school again.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't fail so much as I allowed my illness to get the better of me too often.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was sick at the end of the year with a bad cold that sent me to the hospital by ambulance.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Books. So many books.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Shaun's for standing by me with everything. Rachael for accepting the fact that I'm nuts and still wanting to be friends with me anyway. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one of consequence. I stopped caring about what most people do. Their attitude is their problem, not mine.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Books and clothes. Then bills.  

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Halloween of course.

16. What song will always remind you of 2015?
"Anesthesia" by Type O Negative

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? I'm more at peace.
ii. thinner or fatter? Much fatter.
iii. richer or poorer? I think I broke even.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Going to the gym.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Eating

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent it with Shaun doing nothing at all.

22. Did you fall in love in 2015?
I fall in love with him all over again everyday. I did open my heart to two new kitties and a hamster as well.

23. How many one-night stands?
Nada

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
There are some people I'd like to not have to see/interact with but I don't hate them. 

26. What was the best book you read?
Tough to say. I would go with the Mortal Instruments series. 

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Foals

28. What did you want and get?
The respect of my co workers. 

29. What did you want and not get?
A house.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 34 and I went to Tunnel and Sierra Grill with Shaun, Liz, Amber, and Jon.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Losing weight.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2015?
Classy goth

34. What kept you sane?
Clonazepam

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Toss up between Noomi Rapace and Jennifer Lawrence.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The bullshit terrorists. 

37. Who did you miss?
Vicki, Jinx, and a few others that are either dead or consider me dead to them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Any of my new FB friends I suppose. Jesse is alright too. 

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015:
Psychosis doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's all in how you look at it. 

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
‘Are a thousand tears worth a single smile?

When you give an inch, will they take a mile?

Longing for the past but dreading the future

If not being used, well then you're a user and a loser

World renowned failure at both death and life

Given nothingness, purgatory blight

To run and hide, a cowardly procedure

Options exhausted, except for anesthesia "

Don't call me Caitlin

Before even writing this post, the very idea of it scared the shit out of me. I watch the media very closely on this subject and when I see how much hatred is directed at certain subsets in our society, I become so fearful that I will be dragged into that and I'll be forced into the fight to defend myself and my identity. As if having to defend myself for having a mental illness wasn't bad enough right?

I think what pushes me to say what I'm about to say though is the fact that I have to be true to myself above all else and I now get why gay men and women feel the need to tell others that they are gay. When it's such an integral part of who you are as a person, to not share that with others almost feels like you're living a double life. Sadly though, it's not just me who is affected by this and that has been the second part of my fear. I worry so often how others will see my husband. Will he be dragged into this for being with someone like me? What will his family think? His friends? Our colleagues. When I voiced this to him he said, quite simply, "I don't fucking care. You are who you are and I love you." That is what has given me the courage to finally say this: I am transgender.

I've hinted at it for a long time. I've joked with others. "It depends on the day." I've slipped in during awareness conversations that I understand how it feels. Only, maybe I don't. Because I'm not physically changing anything about myself in order to fit society's role of what a man is. I'm not insisting on pronoun changes, I'm not seeking out medical intervention. Nothing changes except the fact that anyone who reads this knows that Dae is trans and Dae accepts this... with the very deepest hope that you will too.

This past year has forced me to come to terms with what gender actually is and my answer is still, "i don't know." Genitalia does not make one a man or a woman. Clothes do not make one a man or a woman. Mannerisms do not make one a man or a woman. So what does? Ultimately I think it's the spirit of the individual. Deep down when you ask yourself who you are, what you are, what comes up? For me, that voice answers, "You are a man or you are neither."

I don't ask that you do anything to change the way you have acted toward me. I am still me. I am still going to wear ridiculous amounts of make up, strange clothing, collect shoes and handbags, and be the me that I've always been... but with the knowledge that I am not a "real" woman. I don't relate to the whole woman mindset and I wouldn't want to. When I hear a man's point of view it makes sense to me. When I see men doing "manly" jobs, I envy them because if I didn't have this body I could do what they do too. I wouldn't be hit on the way I am sometimes... though I find it hysterical when it's a totally burly man's man finding me attractive not knowing who I really am inside.

I feel like those of us who acknowledge who we are inside, embrace it, but still live within whatever normal we have created for ourselves are the true champions of the trans community because those who have worked to change their bodies to fit some idealized version of themselves are only playing into society's rules. I find I have a more deep respect for biologically born male friends who identify as female but still remain male in appearance than i do for those who will fight for years to change and hope for acceptance. There is no right way to be transgendered but I don't feel that I need to physically be anything different. I just have to accept what I feel and hope that those who love me will still love me with this knowledge.

Either way, everyone is beautiful in their own way and we're all fighting some battle for self actualization. For me this is just one more step toward that.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll still be friends with me now that you know.