Dear Anita

I am grateful to have a person like you in my life. Thank you for being the beautiful soul you are. The LGBTQ group members I often see on campus when going to my classes and they always help me feel better about myself. My classes are quite intensive this semester, even though the work load isn’t too much. Having three classes on most of  my days can be quite straining sometimes. Here’s my schedule:

Mondays: 12:30pm-1:45pm is Physics

2pm-3:40pm is Physics Lab

5pm-7:30pm is Chemistry II

Tuesdays

8am-9:15am US History III

12:30pm-1:45pm Art History

8pm-9:40pm Chemistry II lab

Wednesdays

Anatomy/Physiology II lab 10am-11:40am

Physics 12:30pm-1:45pm

Thursdays

8am-9:15am US History III

12:30pm-1:45pm Art History

5pm-7:30pm Anatomy/Physiology II

I use Fridays to catch up on assignments. Lately my gender dysphoria has become more prominent, but I am coping with it. It can be difficult at times and there are times when I will feel drained of energy as I’m just trying to stop my heart from feeling like it’s going to pound out of my chest due to anxiety and I am trying to hold things together with the thoughts in my mind saying I’m not enough. Sometimes I need to take a break from school because the dysphoria interferes with my concentration. When I miss a class or an assignment and my grade goes down, I feel sad and that causes more gender dysphoria. I start wondering if I’m making progress in life because I’m missing assignments and I’m afraid that I will fail a class and not get a degree. When this happens I start to panic and think about how without the degree I won’t be able to get a good job to pay for my medical transition and this makes me feel depressed because I don’t have to live my life in a body that doesn’t feel like me. It’s even worse when my friends try to get me to help them with school work because they think I’m smart and I can help them and since I write lots of inspirational things I am good at holding things together, so when I withdraw from them I feel guilty because I am not helping them with their school work and I feel like a bad friend. But most of my friends don’t know what it’s like to have gender dysphoria that can be so intense that it causes me to feel like I’m losing myself and wonder if I’m just a robot in my life. I wanted see if Student Supp Services for the college could help give me some aid and time for assignments and counseling and I was rejected because I don’t meet academic need with a 3.7 cumulative  GPA. But it’s still difficult and last night, I had a 3.00 GPA which is just above what my state grant NJSTARS will cover in tuition costs, but students have to maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher and I just managed that last semester. I am scared that this semester that I may fail my classes and not be able to transfer my credits because the classes are a bit difficult, my friends keep trying to get me to help them with things and my gender dysphoria seems to rising. I feel irritated with myself and anxious about many things like school, wondering about my friends and if I’m being selfish not helping them as much as I would like to (mostly just reminding them that I care and giving them inspiration or a small hand, but not a lot) and the gender dysphoria about wondering whether I look masculine enough is getting to me. When the gender dysphoria is at its worst, it feels like I’m lost in a vortex where I’m being sucked down by thoughts of who I don’t want to be, thoughts of a body that seems female and it makes me feel like I’m screaming on the inside trying  to fight my way out of the vortex but I can’t so I just dissociate and it seems like part of me just becomes part of the void and I’m drained of trying to fight myself, trying and make myself look like someone my mind wants me to be and I just shatter into the vortex and I start to cry because I feel like I’m fighting to stay who I want to be, but my mind is at war with itself and trying to bring me down and I get lost in the vortex of my mind and just feel empty, anxious and depressed.