Dear Anita

I have a gender therapist appointment at 12pm today and hoping that it goes well. I don’t think that my parents acknowledge how severe the anxiety gets at times. They aren’t very good at being supportive of me emotionally. Whenever I feel really upset in life and I try to talk with them on how I feel they will interrupt me with their thoughts while I’m talking and it feels like I’m not being heard. For example, I will start telling them about something that has been bothering me and they will listen for only five minutes and then they will say “Well, if you didn’t think about the negative thoughts then maybe you would be more positive.” Or “You have nothing to be sad/anxious about because there are other people less fortunate than you.”

I know that there are people who are homeless or starving, and they feel pain but their pain is different from the emotional pain that I feel and trying to compare the pain I feel and saying that others have it worse feels like they are invalidating my feelings by saying that mine isn’t as bad as others. Although there are people who may be struggling physically in life, I feel like their pain is based on their circumstances that can change while my pain is more internal because my parents don’t acknowledge my feelings. Both pains are valid, but I think that the emotional pain is worse because the person is fighting themselves and trying to improve themselves and that’s hard whereas the external environment can change if a person gets shelter, food or clothing. And when they say that things could change for the positive if I only focus on the positive, it feels like they are just ignoring the fact that there are negative things that can cause people pain and it takes time to heal from the negativity, just thinking about positive thoughts is only a small stepping stone when you are dealing with a current of thoughts and habits that you want to change and it takes time to build the bridge.

Or if I am talking with them, they’ll yell at me things like “you can’t think that way because you don’t fit into this world. You bring this on yourself by being different.” And I find this quite straining because as a transgender guy, sometimes my dysphoria makes me feel isolated from the world because I want to be seen as a guy. But since I wasn’t born a guy, I feel like when I’m around cisgender guys (guys who are born as guys and identify as a guy), I don’t fit in. And when I’m around cisgender females (women born as women and identify as women), I don’t feel like I belong either. So their comments are quite hurtful. I find refuge in the LGBTQ community because there are others who are struggling like me. That’s one of the places I feel like I can be myself. I also enjoy tinybuddha.com because I can talk about my feelings. I just wish that the LGBTQ community lived closer to Brick, NJ but since that is a small town I don’t think there’s many groups. The closest I found was in Toms River, two towns away. I am grateful that Stockton University in Galloway,  NJ has LGBTQ support groups as well. Lately, I just feel like I would do anything to just lessen the anxiety that I feel because I feel like I’m constantly struggling just to live and keep myself focused on tasks but I will feel tired, muscle aches or just feel like I’m losing myself in a haze and watching the world pass by. Especially when I’m driving, I am aware of the roads and drive well, but I just feel like I’m not really engaged in the motions of it like I’m just an automaton and time seems to just fly by and I find myself sometimes wishing I could just leave myself behind and adopt a new body that doesn’t have anxiety and that doesn’t have gender dysphoria and then I realize that I’ve just felt like I’ve lost myself and trying to hang on at the end of the rope but it seems like the knot I tie to stay on so I don’t fall is breaking and I am falling and I don’t know what to do.