All Things Will Pass (even the good ones)

You know what's frustrating? That when I feel good, like I do right now, everything goes better. I'm more compassionate, I'm kinder, I'm more open, I laugh more. I teach better, I therapize better, I connect better. And I feel so great doing it! It's like all the win.

So if I know this is the case, why do I keep on insisting on hating myself anyway? I mean, I know why [decades of conditioning and adapting to an environment I am no longer in, blah blah], but still! It's like a universal losing proposition. And yet!

I know I'm growing and changing in an overall positive direction and my poor neural pathways can't alter themselves overnight. But it sucks to feel good and to recognize that, in an hour, a day, a week, I'll most likely be back to my self-loathing suicidal self. It's valuable to recognize, of course, because the flip of "temporary state" can also help when I feel down and feel like *that's* going to last forever. But there are times, when I feel good in a stable "I bet this is what most people feel like much of the time" kind of way, when I never want it to end and feel frustrated that Future Juliet will find some way to make it happen.

Struggling with Acceptance

It's not just feeling bad that's hard. Self-recrimination, doubt, failure, these things seem like natural responses to the inevitable times when we bump up against our limitations. What makes it stick, though, what snares me like a fishhook and keeps tearing tearing tearing is this sense that this is forever. That there was some window, long ago, when I "could have been good." But that window has long since closed, leaving me to forever flounder, futilely trying to 'make good' even as I'm destined to fail.

That's where the belief goes from painful to insidious. "Forever." It's tempting, sometimes, to feel like I can 'atone' for what I've done. If I'm good enough, if I push myself enough, if I'm perfect then maybe, just maybe I can atone. And, in that atonement, I can finally be rid of this agonizing guilt. It's tempting. But invariably, my humanity raises its ugly head and, yet again, I fall back to forever.

And it's in these moments where the strongest feelings are not sadness or guilt or shame. Those are there, of course. But what really aches are the desire and the loss. The throbbing, unquenchable desire to find something that will soothe this pain and this persistent feeling that once there was a time when I could have found that cure, could have been that cure. But now I never will.

*Wanting.* I feel so wanting. It's the perfect word. Filled with a savage hunger. Lacking. Empty. And devastated by the so real fear that I will never, never be whole.

Fuck it, let's go with how I feel as plainly as possible: I just feel bad. I feel like a failure. I feel like I can't do anything right. I feel like that won't ever change. I feel hopeless. I feel unlovable. I feel like I'm wasting my life. I want more. I want so much more. And I am terrified I won't get it. I wish I was better. I wish I was so much better. I wish I knew more, worked harder, was more persistent, was more patient. I wish I didn't make so many stupid fucking mistakes. Hell, I'm not even making mistakes a lot of the time: I just honestly don't know what I'm doing and I'm desperately making it up as I go along. And I want to make up for what I've failed at. I so desperately want to go back in time and undo all the bad things I've done. I want to erase myself from the past-present-future. I want want want.

And it is so hard to accept that I just can't. That I have done so many things imperfectly. That I am so flawed. And that I will always be flawed. That I will have good days and bad days. That I am learning and growing but that I will never be Learned and Grown. That there are things I have done in the past which cannot be undone. That I may be alone for the rest of my life. That I may not get everything I want. And that that might all be fucking ok. It's hard to even type that. It's hard to type that maybe all of that is ok. That it is what it is. And all I can do is live and love and keep learning and growing. And that I will keep being imperfect, keep flailing. But that even as I do that, I can do good. I can be valuable. I can be loved. It is so fucking hard to accept that. That I can be imperfect and fuck up time and time again and still be loved. I don't want to accept it.

But it's true. It is true.

Reckless

I made a reckless decision last night. I was driving back from Dallas after yet another expensive, painful, exhausting electrolysis session. Already beaten up, I planned on driving for a few hours and then finding a motel before making the rest of the 800 mile trip back the next day. But when I got to the motel I was planning on staying at, I told myself "just drive a little further." This repeated multiple times; me seeing a motel at an exit, coming up with some excuse not to pull over, and continuing driving. At 8p, I'd been driving for about 5 hours. And as I continued to postpone stopping, it occurred to me that I didn't *have* to stop. I was tired, certainly; but it was a pleasant sleepiness and I felt I could stay awake. So even though I was irresponsibly tired at 8p, I decided I could keep driving for 7 more hours because... I wanted to.

That was the strange part. It wasn't that I felt guilty about spending money on the hotel or that I thought I'd use the time from getting back early the next day. I just wanted to keep driving. I didn't want to stop, didn't want to rest, didn't want my body's needs to dictate what my mind and heart wanted to do. I was alert enough to focus on driving in one lane on the interstate, but not alert enough to notice much of the world around me. Not aware enough to feel much of anything. I was numb. Doing a task, making progress, not stopping. I didn't feel any sadness, any loneliness, any anxiety. The only feeling I felt was a content satisfaction that I could just keep going. When I really thought about my motivations, I realized that I didn't want to stop because if I stopped that numbness would go away. And, replacing it, would be my familiar loneliness, my familiar anxiety, my familiar depression. If I kept driving, I wouldn't have to feel anything.

It reminded me of addiction. "Just a little more, just a little more" leading to "fuck it, let's get wasted and make bad choices." I was aware as I was making that decision. And I acknowledged that this was a very unnecessary risk to myself and others. But I just didn't care. If anything, I told myself that if I died, great, and if I got hurt maybe it would teach me a lesson that would finally stick.  I even thought, as I was doing it, "This is the sort of small stupid thing, sitting in the hospital bed a day later, that you struggle to explain to the quizzical faces wondering 'why,' the small stupid thing you wish you could take back for years."

So sure, risk to myself. But part of me knew I was a risk to others as well. Yet I didn't care. I just didn't care. Part "young invincible," but also part "it's just not conceivable that I matter enough to have that kind of impact on someone else." I just didn't care.

It's one data point. I was fortunate. But it's another sign that my lack of self-care is dangerous. Perhaps more sinisterly, it's just... nihilistic. That level of apathy really frightens me. I feel so alone, so adrift, so empty that I'll just knowingly make poor decisions which put others at risk and not give a damn.

I would say it's a cry for help, if I thought there was any "help" to be had.

Wanting an End

I have been fighting a losing battle for my life for ten years. Well, maybe not. "Fighting" is a strong word. "Fighting" implies I have been resisting the side of "death," but I have not. There has never been a moment in these past ten years where I have said with conviction "I want to live." There have only been periods, in the past few years, where things have not been so bad and periods when they have.

Some would call this "depression," that my poisoned mind is whispering lies to me. But I don't believe that. I don't believe that there is some foreign voice within me with which I do battle. It is only I who wants to self-destruct. I who wants to give up. I who wants to be punished over and over and over again until I am finally a battered broken husk wrung clean of wrongness.

I want those things. That is real and true. I am doing this to myself.

So why am I still alive? Because part of me has always wondered "What if?" What if things change? What if there are other answers? What if?

"What if?" has kept me alive for a very long time. A tortured living, but alive nonetheless. But I am gradually coming to realize that I am the only thing that can change. I am the only other answer. And I am stubborn, I am exhausting. If I am the only other answer, I am not a good one.

And so I have that old familiar feeling. And so now there is a voice in the back of my brain telling me, in the most seductive of persistent whispers, to kill myself. And so I don't think I'll do it. But I also don't want to spend another ten years making this decision. I need to decide to live or to die. If not forever, then at least for now. I want to end this agonizing debate. But then, if I knew how to do that, it would already be over.

So the voice whispers on. And I go through the motions of my life just in case. And I am making myself so unhappy. And I just want it to end.

A Brief Reprieve During the Apocalypse

“I’m scared, Juliet.”

“Oh darling. I’m scared, too.”

“We’re alone. Completely alone. Completely, irrevocably, utterly alone. Everyone else is dead. And it’s only us. And, in a few hours, we’ll be gone too. Everything will be gone with us. And that is tragic. But also sexy. Let’s make out!”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I know, I know! I’m sorry. It’s just… this is really dark, ya know?”

“It is! But that’s what I like about it. There’s no anxiety, there’s no banal, there’s nothing except the moment and the acute knowledge that the moment will end. It feels real.”

“I don’t know. Why can’t you be into feet or school girl fantasies or something? I can be a stern taskmistress, teaching a particularly penetrating lesson. I know how much you love experiential learning.”

“As fun as that sounds, it’s just not the same. It’s not real.”

“I could make it feel pretty real!”

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s just… Sure, we’re all going to die someday, everything ends, etc etc. I won’t deny that it’ll happen, but I don’t really want to think about it either.”

“I don’t really want to think about it, necessarily. But I feel it a lot. I- I find myself wanting forever. Like, every relationship I’ve been in, my head can say ‘this, too, will end’ but my heart wants forever so badly it dives in, latches on, and won’t let go. The apocalypses help with that.”

“Well, I’m glad they’re good for something.”

“No, seriously. I am so terrified of endings. Of losing something that will never return. And the apocalypse fantasies help me sit with that fear. But they let me sit with it with someone I deeply care about, so there’s fear but there’s also love and life and now. And since I know forever’s impossible, that’s the next best thing.”

“I mean, I get that. I think. I guess it feels… inauthentic. Like, we have this intense, long night sitting with the ‘knowledge’ that tomorrow, for us, will never come… but then it does. And we’ll say tearful, heartfelt farewells, mime agonizing deaths in a fiery inferno, and then, I don’t know, do brunch.”

“We could do brunch. And while we sit, I can softly gaze across the table into your shining eyes wanting nothing more in that moment than to be with you, and I can be thankful that it was just a fantasy and that I am fortunate enough to have another day with you. And I never want to take that for granted.”

“That’s so sweet. And almost convincing. I still think it’s all kind of ridiculous.”

“Could you try it anyway?”

“Yeah. For you, I can try it anyway. But you’re buying brunch.”

Turning Twenty Seven: A Year of Connection

[Each year, around my birthday, I review the previous year. e.g. 24, 25, 26, etc. Here's 27.]

It’s hard to describe what it’s like not to have your own body for most of your life. I’ve used various metaphors (“wearing a sheet instead of clothes” “feeling like a shadow instead of a self” “a thing that only exists because a mind can’t exist alone”), but they’re all inadequate. For at least 24 of my 27 years, I have felt like a mind without a body. And even in years 25 and 26, as I’ve started to find myself, the constant fear and anxiety have kept me profoundly alienated.

But, without question, this past year has been a year of connection. I have discovered so much of myself and gotten so much closer to others. It has been immensely difficult, but it’s also felt very healing too. My dry existential cynicism aside, I am fundamentally a hopeful person. And this year is further proof that though so many days (and weeks and months) are so hard, my life as a whole keeps getting better.

You guys, I have cried so.much. this past year. And not just on my own: I have cried in front of other people. I have cried in front of groups, in front of strangers, with friends and peers and supervisors. In classes, in offices, over the phone, in bedrooms. And it has been wonderful.

Well, that’s probably poor word choice. It’s been painful, but it’s been a real, connected pain, not the grinding, isolating pain I’m used to. Crying, for me, is a sign that I am connected with myself. And crying in front of others is a sign that I can trust and be vulnerable and let others in in a way I have never been able to do before.

And it’s not just crying. I’m learning to be angry, learning to beaffectionate, learning to be present. I’m gradually developing the ability to “listen” to my anxiety, to hear what it says, and to answer it in ways that are affirming and kind (where, not so many years ago, I would have been violent and cruel). I can take a walk and just admire the colors of the sunset. I can, rarely but sometimes, really taste food. I can connect with others, not just cognitively but emotionally.

Perhaps all of that sounds odd. But I have lived inside of my head for so long that it’s all I’ve known. The physical, embodied world is just so new to me. And although I still feel like I’m stumbling more often than not, the increasing moments when I feel connected are truly revelatory.

More on that later. For now, here are some example of positive growth in the past year:

-          I’ve taken a lot more emotional risks with my friends, and as a result I’ve gotten much closer to many of them. Building my capacity for platonic intimacy has been a really significant part of my growth this past year.

-          I’ve become a lot more ok with being single. There’s still a huge part of me that wants a relationship so badly, but I’m learning to make life good and meaningful without it. I’m learning not to wait for my life to get better but to, instead, find ways to make it better now.

-          I’m learning how to identify and manage stress. Sometimes, I can actually relax and let some of it go. I held on too tightly in Spring13 and it blew up on me, so I’m learning to pace myself and take care of myself better.

-          I feel more confident in my counseling. It’s still quite often a trial, but I’m beginning to see some of the value I can offer my clients. I’m also getting much better at just being present with them instead of trying to fix them.

-          There are multiple people at the Counseling Center who I feel are challenging me and supporting me. Working with our “Diversity Committee” has been a huge source of community, esteem, and inspiration. It’s probably been the best non-friend thing that’s happened to me this past year. I feel part of a supportive team that gets shit done in a way I’ve never felt before.

-          I’m developing a bit more sense of my “style.” Growing into myself helps. It’s nascent, but it feels a lot less amorphous and confusing than it did a year ago.

-          I started a short story reading group and have been involved with a few feminist discussion groups, helping to challenge my mind and connect more with friends new and old alike.

-          I got more involved in psychology professional organizations, giving me a pathway to stay involved and grow post-graduate school.

-          I’ve traveled a fair amount and actually gotten a feeling for different places (which is new for me). In the past year, I’ve gone to Austin, Nashville, Asheville, Honolulu, Houston, and Dallas (4 times). Most of my travels have been alone, which has been intimidating but has also helped me feel like I can handle myself in new situations.

-          I was able to make some progress with my procrastination habits, getting work done on self-determined schedules. Significant emphasis on some.

-    I did a lot of processing with one of my exes which was really painful but really healing, too.

Continuing challenges/areas for growth [it’s interested to read how many of these I’ve actually addressed from last year’s post; better make these count!]

-          I eat really poorly. I exercise by walking some, but I definitely need to take care of my body better.

-          My cleaning habits are pretty bad. I need to set aside more time for taking care of things instead of escaping into my computer so often.

-          I’m getting better, but I still have lots of anxiety and avoidant coping strategies. I’d like to move through those more instead of running away from them.

-          I would like to practice being kind more. I hate being kind to myself, but I am continually learning that it’s really difficult to be kind and love others if you’re not kind to and love yourself.

- I want to keep practicing being “present” and not stuck in my anxiety, isolated from myself and others.

Finally, there are two themes developing which I most want to nurture: I want to continually strive to become more connected to myself, to others, and to the now; and I want to continue discovering and becoming “my self.”

Becoming the person I want to be and becoming more and more connected feel like the core of my life’s work. It’s work that will never be done, but I’m learning that’s the only kind of work that brings enduring satisfaction. I’m sure what these things look like will change with time, and I know I will always struggle in reaching them. But I want to live authentically, to live each moment so that if I die in the next I will not regret it. And I feel like this the path to get there.

So much of twenty-six was so hard. And yet, given how far I’ve come, I must admit I’m a bit eager to look back at this post a year later and see how much more I’ve grown. Here’s to getting older.

Discovering Myself in Paradise: A Trip to Honolulu

Late Friday night, I was invited with some other Counseling Psychologists to an informal party in the division's Presidential Hotel Suite. My exhaustion told me to say no, but I decided that going would be a good exercise in spontaneity. When I arrived, I found maybe two dozen people chatting in the beautiful rooms, perched atop the hotel overlooking the churning darkness of the ocean against the Waikiki Beach. I could not bring myself to join in their conversations; the small talk far too draining for this point in the night. So I gravitated towards the balcony and stared off into infinity.

It was beautiful. And haunting. Throughout my trip, it was the ocean's vastness and solemn, persistent rhythm that arrested me. How large it was, stretching towards the horizon as if literally the edge of the earth. It made me feel so small, so full with wonder. In the night, the black waves had the feeling of an endless army throwing itself against a stolid foe; a war of attrition that slowly but surely the waves would win, even if it took millions upon millions of softly violent iterations.

I was afraid of the height, afraid to stand at the edge and look over the railing. I was wryly amused at this fear, given the countless number of times I've given so much careful thought to killing myself. And it occurred to me, in that moment, how easy it would be. All I need do was quickly put one leg over the other to escape the rail, and I would crash lifelessly below. I considered it. I thought of the risk to those I might land upon, thought of the grizzly scene everyone would see. Thought of how many others might be dead and dying in the vast hotel hives of the city. How impactful to some and yet ultimately small my death would be in the scope of the thing; a curiosity, a grotesque, maybe a trauma for a small few. How ironic it would be, to dive at a party of Psychologists trained in mitigating distress. Would someone see me in the 2 seconds of my movement, yell "No!," throw a "no suicide" contract like a shuriken to strike me on the spot, wonder for the rest of their lives what they could have done to stop me?

Then I looked again at the sprawling ocean. And in its movement and its immensity, I found some solace. Drawing upon its beauty, I asked myself "What are the voices saying, those small piercing cries that push you towards this task?" They are screaming "YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH. YOU ARE WASTE. YOU HAVE NO VALUE. YOU OFFER NOTHING." And I sat with their sharp sounds. And as I sat, I felt a kindness bubble from inside me. It flowed through me and in the soft insistence of the waves, it overcame the voices. Softly, truly, I whispered "I *do* have value." I began to cry. And I decided, at least for the moment, to live. To live, and so deciding, to step away from my thoughts and go about the joyous task of absorbing the beauty of the moment. The waves crashed on, and so did I.

***

Hawai'i was lonely. I met no other trans women at the conference (out, at least). Five or six trans men, but no trans women. Indeed, one trans man who had long been active in APA was heartened that I, as a trans woman, existed. "We've been waiting four years for a trans woman to show up." And veiled behind that assertion lie a million questions as to why there aren't other trans women. What barriers have kept my sisters away? What forces have crushed them as they've approached? Likely, I assume, the same ones that weigh upon me now.

I am the only one of me in every space. In some ways, I know, this is true of all of us. But I feel it poignantly. No space was explicitly welcoming of me; few knew of the unique challenges trans women encounter in the world. There were many good intentions, of course; when I came out, most people were pleasantly surprised. It was clear that many were more than willing for spaces to be better (if someone else would do the work). Yet I think part of me hoped for more, hoped that even more of the work would have already been done. It does feel good to feel special and unique, to have one's very existence spur change. But it is lonely all the same.

I hoped for more on a smaller scale, too. There were some women who I tried to flirt with, but it was faltering, platonic. I think one has to believe one is desirable to create that dialectic of desire, and neither I nor my culture believe that of me. Even on a broader interpersonal level, everyone else seemed to know someone else, to have come with family or friends; most did not seem as if they really wanted to make new friends. They were there to network, to get professional contacts, to have fun with those they already knew. Our needs were different; I did not fit in the spaces they provided. I realized that perhaps I am unusual, to be so often alone. I felt no small amount of envy for their intimacies, for their companionships. As with most everywhere else, here too I felt alien.

***

On Saturday, I woke up sick. I had tried to do too much, and my body was rebelling. I insisted on going to some conference activities, but by midday I gave in and returned to my hotel room to sleep. I let myself feel my exhaustion, and it flooded into me, the force draining me even as the release nourished. I woke off and on, eventually deciding to forgo my planned evening activities in the hope of rebuilding myself.

As evening approached, I went downstairs to check my email and get a sandwich. I decided that eating in the hotel would be a waste, so I ate on the beach. The sun was already outside my view, setting someplace else, but I always enjoy the vibrant pinks of dusk. I sat on a small wall, watching the people and the waves, eating. As I sat, I acknowledged that I hadn't physically touched the Pacific since my arrival, hadn't felt those waters since a high school trip to San Diego more than a decade ago. I realized it might be now or never. So I put down my things, took off my socks and shoes, rolled up my jeans, and started walking.

Surrounded by tourists, I felt cushioned and safe. I appreciated the feel of the sand on my feet, the ocean lapping in and out, tasting the land before retreating. I liked the way the waves softly buried my feet in sand, briefly taking hold of me. I liked how impermanent my footprints were. How impermanent everything was. How small I felt. And yet, how cohesive too. I was alone and yet surrounded by people, alien and yet organic. I thought of how I had felt so little in my 27 years, thought of my recurring fear of a life lived without feeling alive.

But the same force that prompted me to touch the ocean sprang to life, saying "If not now, when?" I was in a beautiful space, dipping my feet in infinity, safe and secure and tasked with nothing but the necessary mechanics of existence. Why not live now?

So I did. I practiced letting go of my thoughts and seeing the ocean. I smiled at children playing in the surf. I let myself feel a fierce, gracious joy. I let myself live.

Not only did I live, I embraced myself. Certainly, I found myself envying the couples on the beach, walking hand in hand, and I wanted that. I wanted it so very much. I wanted to share my experiences, to find meaning in the presence of others. I acknowledged these thoughts, and they felt true. But beyond wishing was the now, and the now was that I was with me. I could share the beauty with myself, I could converse with myself, I could tease and play and love myself. I could spend a lifetime waiting for another to unlock my heart or I could open it myself. So I did.

When I finally returned to my hotel room, I sat on my balcony for a long while, overlooking Honolulu. In the past, it would have been madness for me to simply sit and be, but now I cultivated the feeling. I loved the city. I loved myself. I playfully chided myself that 24 hours before, I had seriously been considering denying myself this moment, denying myself all future moments. And when I blew the city a kiss goodnight, it was like the end of a loveletter to it and all and me.

***

On Monday, I ate alone at a small vegan restaurant and then walked to downtown Honolulu. I passed numerous parks, and the trash and the homeless people in them seemed a metaphor for a paradise still scarred by colonialism and inequity. Closer to the Capitol, the parks became cleaner. Eventually, I reached 'Iolani Palace, "the only royal palace in the United States used as an official residence by a reigning monarch."

I didn't go inside the Palace. But just being on the grounds and visiting its statues of Queen Liliuokalani and Kamehameha the Great had a solemn, resilient power that nourished me. The lawn had large trees interspersed, and I sat underneath one for awhile. I felt breezes warm and cool, watched the tourists take their pictures, stared up into the sky through leafy filters. There was nowhere to go, nothing to be but here and myself.

Like the Saturday evening balcony, the calm was new for me. It was not "relaxed," not exactly. It was connected. With the space, but also with myself.

I have spent my whole life hating myself. Wishing I was different, wishing I was more, thinking of all the things I should be doing that I have not will not can not. But on the beach, on the balconies, at the palace, I let go of my regret and resentment, set aside my anxiety, and I let myself live. I felt strong and I felt beautiful and I let myself live.

***

I'll write more in a few weeks about the changes I've made in the past year. Hawaii was not so much the answer as it was a catalyst for processes that have been in motion for many years. And it is an ongoing process. There is an ebb and flow, still; I felt the terror return anew the moment I reentered work on Wednesday. As the stress of the new school year builds, I will retreat into more anxiety and be enveloped in more fear.

But more than ever, I will have the strength to set those feelings aside. A quiet confidence is growing inside me, a fierce joy spreads its leaves. I am maturing into the vision of myself I saw when transition was more a question for the future not a description of the past. I am becoming that tall, willowy woman with the strong sad eyes and small fierce smile, who is passionate and compassionate, wryly playful and empathetic, driven by a vision of a world that includes, affirms, and empowers everyone. I am, as I have been doing for the past four years, becoming myself. And the more of her I discover, the more of her I love.