Dear Anita

I took the Nyquil pills for the sleeping aid because I was feeling depressed and anxious and had been having nightmares. I was feeling quite sad before hand and after taking the Nyquil pills I felt a wave of calmness wash over me like I didn’t really care if I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. I did reach out to some LGBTQ friends who helped me. I still feel anxious in life and sometimes I feel like I’m constantly fighting myself and it’s quite straining and sometimes I just feel like I’m not really here in the world and I find myself questioning my value and whether I’m worth anything in life. My parents have never been emotionally supportive and sometimes they think I’m a disappointment because I struggle with anxiety and gender dysphoria which is sad. I think that I was mostly not caring if I lived or died when I took the sleeping pills. I saw myself through a glass and everything felt surreal like I didn’t exist and was just a walking shell in my life. I reached out to the LGBTQ friends because I cared about them a lot more than myself and they helped me. But I still find myself struggling with my life. Sometimes I wonder what career path to take because I just feel lost in gender dysphoria and anxiety. I feel like I just want to understand the world, be spiritually fulfilled and alive within myself, be out in nature and enjoy the simple things and although I still enjoy exploring science sometimes I wonder if science is just a way I chose to try to understand the world and myself and work on building myself up to transitioning and that almost makes it seem like I never really had anything that fit me I was only going after something that would help me transition because I yearn for that with every ounce of my being that I’m starting to question other things in life.

Dear Anita

The quarantine has me stuck with my parents who are straining sometimes because they don’t accept my gender identity as a guy and I just felt like there wasn’t any reason to live anymore. I didn’t want to let anyone know because I didn’t want to be weak or burden anyone and while I was fading in and out of consciousness I was warring with myself about whether to talk with anyone, I eventually reached out to my college friend and they helped me along with some other LGBTQ people online and they helped me be more alive again. I currently have stomach cramps and chills, and still feeling dizzy. I had thought that this would be the end and I was prepared to go, taking one last look at the world, but I’m grateful that I had strength to reach out because if I hadn’t I might have fallen asleep and not have woken up. Thank you  for listening and Blessings to you!

Dear Tommy

Thank you so much for your advice. I have some rainbow flashcards that I often write quotes on and when I feel anxious I look at the quotes repeating them to myself and imagining the words as light that helps heal my body. I still feel very self-conscious around people but I’m working on facing some of my fears. Some of the fears like fear of the dark are easier to work on while having social anxiety is more difficult. Lately I’ve been listening to positive affirmations music on YouTube and dancing to the music and it’s a lot of fun. I want to take a ballet class in the fall semester when school starts because I think it will be fun. I feel like by connecting more with people and my inner self, I am starting to heal. There will always still be some anxiety, but I find that I am starting to be able to focus on things a bit. There are some days when I feel lost and have trouble believing in myself. That’s why I have been using music to connect with my emotions and release some of the tension because I tend to hide it inside because my parents aren’t really emotionally/mentally supportive so currently I turn on the music and allow the music to help me release the tension in me. I know that I love nature, Buddhist Wicca, want to study reiki healing and astral projection and those are interests that I have held for quite a while. I love analyzing things and writing poetry from the things I analyze and hope that my poetry encourages people to enjoy life. I tend to be my own worst critic but I love helping out others who are struggling. But I have started to work on myself as well because sometimes I drain myself helping others and that’s why I’m working on building myself up. I am grateful to have people like you in life to encourage me. Since I enjoy using science to help me understand my health, I think that I will study different diseases and ways to keep healthy. I might combine reiki healing learning with scientific research on health because healing comes from within in the mind as well as working on the outside as well. There’s just so much out there in the world and I have so many interests that I don’t really know a direct career path for me but as long as I can be creative, work on mental and physical health, have a good healthcare, be in nature (thinking of living in a house close to nature), and helping out the LGBTQ community I’ll be okay. What scares me the most is living an unfulfilled life which is why I want to push myself to enjoy each thing, I push myself too hard sometimes though. Some subjects may be more difficult for me to learn and I will beat myself up for not understanding it so I have to remind myself to keep breathing and take it one step at a time. Wishing you well and thanks for your encouragement.

Dear Anita

I enjoy looking at different plants that are edible like dandelions and thistles, I like to brew herbal teas with them. I think that agricultural sciences sounds very interesting because it would be great to collect plant samples and analyze how to use them in medicines. I have made some good friends online with the LGBTQ community and I love writing poetry about nature and spirituality so I have been uplifting the LGBTQ community and they have been uplifting me as well. I still feel a bit lost in myself because I feel like there’s so much to learn and I feel like I’m teaching myself because my parents aren’t really good teachers. My parents don’t really explain things much and sometimes when I ask them to clarify something when I am learning, they laugh at me for not understanding what they think is obvious. Also, it takes me time (two-three times doing the task) before I learn it well and sometimes when I help my dad with fixing the  car and forget where a part goes, he yells at me saying that I didn’t learn anything and that I should have learned all of it the first time. I would love to learn about life skills like car repairs and managing finances but my parents aren’t the best teachers. My mom often yells at me when I ask her to explain how to calculate some things, because she thinks that it’s obvious. She often yells at me saying that I don’t know anything about how to budget money and that I don’t learn. It can be difficult to focus when struggling with anxiety and gender dysphoria and it takes time to learn things, but I wish they didn’t yell at me so much and were more open-minded and compassionate. I think that after the quarantine is over, I’m going to reconnect with my gender therapist and work on some emotional turmoil.

Dear Anita

There was a seagull in the parking lot of restaurant where I help my parents out at this morning and it was eating bread. I waved at it and the seagull started walking a few paces toward me and with its swaying gait it looked like it was dancing and it made me laugh. I have been wondering if it would be better if I chose a career path that allowed me to be more in nature because I love connecting with nature, I always feel like I find myself again after feeling stressed being out in nature and I love feeling the wind blowing through me like it’s blowing away my sorrows. But I have been studying Biochemistry for three years and I just feel lost because I just don’t know if I have a definite career path for me. The anxiety and gender dysphoria makes me feel like I’m constantly trying to let go of myself and not really here at times which makes it hard to focus on things. Lately I’ve been having some panick attacks where I’m just crying and shaking because I just don’t know where I’m going even though I know that I love nature, wicca, and creative sciences but it just seems like other than that I just don’t have anything. And then I find myself lost in my thoughts of anxiety being afraid of myself and to escape those thoughts I start to work out a lot until I start to see shadows in my vision (I like to work out in the dark because it makes me feel less self-conscious) and sometimes the shadows seem like dark entities that will pull me under and I will pass away so I work out more until the shadows fade and I feel lightheaded and there are times when I pass out. After I wake, I look around the room and it seems like I see lights flickering in my vision and I tend to think that I am going into the light dissolving. And I find myself looking at memories of myself flash through my mind like a life review and I find myself feeling like it would just be better to just let go and just fade away.

Dear Anita

I tend to go to bed at around 1am at times because I sometimes spend time talking with LGBTQ friends who like to stay up late. But on most days I go to bed around 11 pm. I have been meditating a bit on healing my body and lessening the anxiety and I find that meditation helps me increase my mental focus. I am thinking of learning yoga poses or dance poses for fun and as a good way to exercise and release tension in my body. I like your idea of hugging myself using my arms because I have been doing that currently before falling asleep and I find it helpful. My parents restaurant has been quite busy lately because other restaurants have been closing due to coronavirus and there are lots of orders each day. The orders often start from 1pm- 7:30pm and there’s not much of a break between them. That is why I tend to make sure that everything is stocked up with all the supplies so that when the orders come in there is still supplies there to use. Because of coronavirus, my parents restaurant has been opening six days a week from 11 am- 9pm and on Mondays from 4pm-9pm. The normal hours used to be 10 pm for closing time, but currently the coronavirus curfew from the Governor Phil Murphy says that all businesses should close down by 9pm at the latest so the restaurant is also observing that. Since the restaurant is open every day including holidays, it has been quite busy currently from 1pm-7:30pm because a lot of the people have been coming to the restaurant after finding that ours is the only one that is nearby that is open. The stores in Lakewood, NJ which has the most cases of coronavirus are mostly closed but there are still some places in Brick, NJ that are still open. My parents never close the restaurant because they feel afraid that if they close for even a day, they will lose customers and money. Sometimes during the really busy hours of the restaurant usually from 4pm-6pm, there isn’t really much time for anything but just to take orders and stock up on supplies. Since there is a lot of running around the kitchen during that time, I tend to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. But there’s usually not enough time to eat anything or go to the bathroom because the customers keep coming in. I sometimes wonder if it would be better if my parents hired other people to help out with the restaurant, but they don’t want to because they think that hiring people is a process and having to pay them is tough when they are working on keeping enough income to pay things. Also during the times that are quite busy, my mom gets quite angry at times when an order gets wrong and she yells at my dad which is sad. My mom tends to yell a lot when she gets mad and she often gets irritated about the little things. She can’t stand it when other people make mistakes or when others criticize her for things because then she’ll yell and complain for hours. Like if someone accidentally forgets to put the sauce in the box, she will yell at them saying “I can’t believe you forgot that. One thing wrong messes everything up! Why can’t you get things right?! I hate you when that happens!” And sometimes it goes on for hours. Also when someone else criticizes her, she will talk about them a lot and complain “That person is a really mean and rude person. I’ve never met anyone like that.” And she’ll go on for a day and sometimes for another and sometimes she brings up past events as well and complains about them. She tends to compound things to the extreme at times I feel like.

Like when I decided to take time off to talk with the counselors at college for my mental health, she said “Well this happened before when you had to take time off at community college. When are you going to grow up and face your problems because it’s going to be the same loop again and you keep choosing to be this way?!” Or she’ll say “You can’t be that way because that makes you too different from society and you’ll only be a disappointment, how can you expect yourself to do well if you are like this?”

My parents aren’t really good at handling their emotions, my mom often yells while my dad just ignores the situation. When I tell my dad about mental health things, he doesn’t really listen and just tells me that there are other people in the world who are worse off and it’s like he isn’t even acknowledging that I have anxiety and I struggle with gender dysphoria like I’m not really being heard by him. That is why I am grateful to the LGBTQ community and the tinybuddha.com blog where I can talk about my feelings and work on healing.

Dear Anita

Hope you enjoy the nice weather. Thunderstorms started at 2:17 pm today and they lasted until 2:41 pm and then it was cloudy for a while before the sun came out around 4pm. There was a slight breeze and it was great to feel the breeze and look at the cumulus clouds in the sky. The birds came out and it was fun watching them around the yard searching for food. I love the wind (as long as the weather is not cold) and the thunderstorms. It makes me feel cozy to just sit inside watching the rain, and looking at the trees dancing in the wind. Nature is an inspiration because it reminds people that even though that life may bring storms that it’s okay to cry (rain of tears) and know that sunny skies are ahead again. The rain helps cleanse away the negativity and the wind blowing is like working on building your strength again to get through the struggle. And when the skies are dark and lightning races across the sky, it reminds me that there is still a strong light in a person no matter how dark life gets. So I see the storms as inspiration. I hope that I can enjoy the time being out in nature, exercising and just being creative and gain a good relaxation from my anxiety that lasts into when the quarantine is over. I still have some anxiety, but spending time in nature and social distancing has helped me lessen it a bit because I’m not as self-conscious about myself.

Dear Anita

There is a thunderstorm this morning and listening to the rain is relaxing, I love watching the lightning light up the sky, the static in the air fills me with energy and the loud thunder is like a drum that releases the tension in my mind as I listen to its rumble, nature’s music is the best to relax and enjoy the little things in life. The quarantine makes things quieter and I find that it helps me de-stress with less people around making me feel less self-conscious. I still have anxiety since I’m around my parents who tend to yell at me every now and then and sometimes don’t really provide much emotional support when I feel sad. But I feel lots better because I’m taking the time to meditate, listen to nature, get healthy exercise and do some spring cleaning. I find myself getting up early in the mornings when it is quiet to meditate or journal and it helps me de-stress throughout the day. I hope to lower my anxiety more so it’s not overwhelming before the fall 2020 semester starts. I think that I will always have some anxiety being around my parents and not being accepted for who I am, but I think that as I work on my spiritual self, I might be able to manage the anxiety better. Although I miss going to LGBTQ events because of the quarantine, I find it helpful to talk with the LGBTQ community online and since I enjoy writing to people (I tend to write better than speaking in person), I find myself building connections in the LGBTQ community and I feel better about myself knowing that there are people who struggle and we help uplift each other. I love the LGBTQ community with all my heart because they have helped me find a sense of self and provide me with hope during the stressful times. I love the blog on tinybuddha.com as well because I find journaling my thoughts and reading over past posts helps me understand how far I’ve come and to remind myself of things when I feel lost in myself. The quarantine may be the time for me to work on myself and understand what career path to go for because I love the sciences and helping people and I was thinking of helping the LGBTQ community, it would be great to study health sciences and neuroscience to help the LGBTQ community with mental health resources and promote better health care for people. Although I’m not sure what career exactly that I want I know that I love being a creative scientist helping out the LGBTQ community and know for certain that I want to transition to feel more comfortable with myself.