So, I've always been a "good" child. Whatever it is that your parents tell you makes a kid good, that was me. Anyway, in November I turned 25. Being that I'm not really a child anymore, I felt like I could start to rebel against some of the archaic notions of "good."
Thursday after work, to quote the person who introduced me to my first experience, we went to "see the Grinch about a Christmas tree." Well, I'm not really really sure when the person met with the Grinch, but the tree was in tow on Thursday when we went out. The person drove around town and we smoked the tree. The first few puffs were pretty anti-climatic because I wasn't doing it "right" (or, in other words, it wasn't actually getting into my lungs.) I didn't feel any different, either, so I figured I'd try differently. I exhaled, and deeply inhaled to fill my lungs. I held it for a couple of seconds, then coughed for the next 5 minutes like this was the 19th century and I'd just caught something from the factories. Once I could breathe again, I guess I took two more hits. Now, the person I was with was telling me to stop before I went too far, but having never done it before, I didn't really know what "too far" was. I remember, though, that things were funny as shit when the effects first set in. I mean EVERYTHING was giggle-worthy. I knew that the person I was with was cracking up at me, laughing more often and more easily than normal, which was cool. I thought in that moment that it was a great experience. We stopped and got gas, and I was still giggling when the other person got out of the car to pump. I don't really remember what happened after that. It was like all the lights went out in my mind and everything rebooted without me actually losing consciousness (which reminds me, I will probably have to ask the person what happened in that time since apparently I was still awake and talking.)
When I "woke up", we were still in the car. But it was the fact that I woke up that freaked me out. I couldn't remember how long we'd been driving, but it seemed like anywhere between 4 and 6 hours. So, I completely panicked when I woke up, and the panic only increased as I realized I couldn't talk as fast as I was thinking, the fact that I kept coming in and out of "reality" (which, apparently, I referenced MANY times in the evening and how there were just times where I "understood" it), and the fact that whenever I looked at the person talking, it seemed like everything said was being echoed by the outlines of squirrels or chipmunks spreading to infinity in every direction. I hadn't been warned about what, specifically, to expect--and even if I had, I'm not sure I would have remembered it then anyway. I was terrified and beyond hysterical. Actually, I'd been like that one other time in my life, and that was when I was on my antidepressants in the spring and had briefly experienced a psychotic episode which only lasted a few hours and wasn't nearly as bad. So, all out with the hallucinations, panic, hysteria... I heard myself on a feedback loop screaming and saying, "I just wanna go home. Take me home. I wanna get in my bed." :D The thing that freaked me out the most was that I knew I wasn't dreaming, but I knew I wasn't awake. Everything would record to my memory before I consciously perceived it, so I kept thinking that things were repeating themselves. As we passed the church by my house I was not only panicking, but felt a little pissed and betrayed because, I claimed, "We already passed this. We already passed the church. Why are we passing the church again? Let me go home!" Then I looked at the clock and saw, with horror, that it was 12:58 and that's when I pretty much snapped. I just "knew" that it had been that exact time for HOURS and the fact that the clock wasn't changing, time kept repeating itself, there were squirrels on surround sound in the car, and my brain kept "itching" meant that there was actually some kind of conspiracy against me. Someone was watching me freak out and laughing somewhere. I had to "get out". I thought that if I went to sleep, I would escape, which explained my determination to get to my bed.
When I made it to my bed, I was still all jacked up with my brain racing in a completely different dimension from my body. I kept gaining and losing awareness of my skin... where my mind ended and my body began. Sitting in bed, I got on the computer because I had to record my feelings "for posterity." This is, word for word, what I wrote:
So, I have to tell you that I’ve been experiencing some sensations lately. I keep having this feeling that I am experiencing this inside and out side of my skin. My essence, I can feel it. I am it. My essence feels disconnected from my body. I knew, but I forgot why. I need to hold myself accountable. I keep realizing that I am slipping into and out of reality. Or, into and out of the realization I have about reality. The realization being my ability to know that I’m in the situation. Like, I understand that I experience that I AM a situation. My mom hates me. And she hates me so much, that she tells my dad to hate me. And my dad hates me so much that he wants me to hate myself. I don’t care about my dad, so his hate doesn’t bother me. I keep having these memories of something that happened earlier in the evening. I won’t tell you how I got there. But I had an incredibly long night that lasted because it slipped us into and out of reality. Why am I following the word count? I understand autism. I understand what autism is. It is being aware of things happening as they’re happening, and also lucidly remember them in dreams. It’s hard to filter out what to pay attention to because you can’t pay attention to only one thing. The itch on my back, my stomach, the word count, because it’s increasing. My itching. I don’t know what to pay attention to. I thought that I had typed more than that. I can type faster than I can think right now. I love that I’m not making any mistakes in my automatically correcting brain. I feel things, but I don’t know if they’re real because I perceive they are happening, or if they’re real because I know they’re real because they are. I need to save this right now. Tomorrow will I care? Will I care that I know all these things happened?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
I swear I'm not this angry all the time. Wait, yes I am.
I had been on T for almost 2 straight years before my insurance company decided to start fucking with me, creating a one month embargo to date. I'll survive in the long term, but I am concerned about my body shape and body, er, functions returning to my pre-T state. Especially since I am also fighting with said insurance company for authorization to have bottom surgery. But that's not what this post is about.
I don't actually talk about being 'trans' much. I sometimes refer to being 'gay' or 'queer', but my 'trans' identity is very minimal. Not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing, just a thing. Anyway, that's not really the point either. The point is, I have been male for a while, legally so for at least a year. At work, I didn't really make a big deal about it. I said, "I'm changing my name to Ethan, I identify as male and always have, I won't respond to my old name, and yes, my last name is staying the same." All of my male co-workers, you could see it rumbling around in their brains when I told them, then they just all kinda shrugged and said, 'okay.' And since then, they have all either used male pronouns, or not use pronouns at all (which is pretty amazing) and just used my name. For some reason, the females ALL mess it up. Unless they started after the fact, they still call me 'she' and 'her'. WTF? I'm fairly sure a good number have forgotten my old name (shit, even I almost have, and I had it for 23 years!) But still, what about me is so god damned feminine that they still mess it up? No, I'm not like, lumberjack butch, but most guys aren't and people don't mess it up.
Now, here's my personal problem with the wrong pronouns. I already have some pretty good body dysphoria going on, so when I hear, someone use female pronouns to refer to me, I immediately think, "She just called me 'her' because I still look like a girl, which means I still have big hips and a girlie body." And since they remind me about what I already hate about myself, naturally, I want to hate them. I've considered just saying "him" to refer to the women who always get it wrong... but I don't want to seem petty, draw attention to myself, not sure they'd even pick up on it, and most of them are in supervisor positions. Grrrr.
So yeah, I had to vent about that.
I don't actually talk about being 'trans' much. I sometimes refer to being 'gay' or 'queer', but my 'trans' identity is very minimal. Not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing, just a thing. Anyway, that's not really the point either. The point is, I have been male for a while, legally so for at least a year. At work, I didn't really make a big deal about it. I said, "I'm changing my name to Ethan, I identify as male and always have, I won't respond to my old name, and yes, my last name is staying the same." All of my male co-workers, you could see it rumbling around in their brains when I told them, then they just all kinda shrugged and said, 'okay.' And since then, they have all either used male pronouns, or not use pronouns at all (which is pretty amazing) and just used my name. For some reason, the females ALL mess it up. Unless they started after the fact, they still call me 'she' and 'her'. WTF? I'm fairly sure a good number have forgotten my old name (shit, even I almost have, and I had it for 23 years!) But still, what about me is so god damned feminine that they still mess it up? No, I'm not like, lumberjack butch, but most guys aren't and people don't mess it up.
Now, here's my personal problem with the wrong pronouns. I already have some pretty good body dysphoria going on, so when I hear, someone use female pronouns to refer to me, I immediately think, "She just called me 'her' because I still look like a girl, which means I still have big hips and a girlie body." And since they remind me about what I already hate about myself, naturally, I want to hate them. I've considered just saying "him" to refer to the women who always get it wrong... but I don't want to seem petty, draw attention to myself, not sure they'd even pick up on it, and most of them are in supervisor positions. Grrrr.
So yeah, I had to vent about that.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Comida Mexicana... Tarot Cards... Drag Race... Fabulousness... Visions and Oneness (Part Three)
I'm so tired, it's ridiculous. It's 5:03 AM. Imagine, however, that I was also tired at 2:53 AM when I was approaching the exit from 66 to go home. I tell myself that I will be home in less than 10 minutes, so just stay awake, concentrate, and enjoy the soft warm bed soon enough.
Visions and Oneness
I dropped my friend off at 2:20, and the entire way home, I was so tired I had to bite my wrists and forearms to stay awake. (This works VERY well!) But, I was so tired that even staying awake, I kept hallucinating. I kept feeling my body slipping away--not trying to slip away, but fall off or into something else. It was so strange. I hate hallucinating... anyway, my hallucinations involved me seeing huge biped creatures in the distance walking in or across the street. I won't even bother trying to explain how strange and scary this is, but imagine 15 foot Sasquatch dragging a club and walking across 66 in the distance. It's almost 3 in the morning and you've been awake for almost 24 hours. This happened from the time I was still in DC until I was about a mile away from home (over 30 minutes later.) As I turned into my subdivision, the vision returned.
I saw a creature walking slowly, zombie like, in the street. It was only a few feet away, and as I slowed down my driving, I realized that it was a real person. What the hell was he doing in the street? Behind him sat a totaled car wrapped around a tree. Funny how all your self-preservation instincts go out the window when someone else is in trouble. I rolled down the window, to ask him if the guy needed help, from the safety of my car, but even as I did so, I pulled over behind him, turned on my flashers, and got out to talk. I asked if he needed someone to call 911 since there were no emergency responders around. He said he did. The guy looked scared as shit, but definitely not drunk or belligerent. I guess I subconsciously knew this because I didn't hesitate to open my phone to call as I also opened my trunk and searched for a first aid kit. I was shaking so much, I felt enclosed by an entire cloud of sleep-deprived adrenaline. The one where your consciousness has all but shut down, the physical body is being animated by competing neurotransmitters and the mental body by the subconscious mind. God knows where emotional, spiritual, social bodies went... fair-weather friends. ;)
As I was calling, I was surprised to NOT hear my voice in my head as I spoke. It was like my lips were moving and communicating information with the 911 responder, but I had no idea what they were saying. In fact, when I first held the phone to my ear, I almost panicked that no one was answering before realizing I hadn't activated the phone application and dialed 911. I did it. Fumbling through the first aid kit on the ground to find gloves, the responder actually said, "Hello" to me 3 times before I realized someone was there on the line, that they were talking to me, and that it was my cue to answer. Amazingly, I gave an incredibly accurate description of the location. I continued to fumble with the gauze pads. The poor guy was sitting on the ground talking to his dad on the phone, scared shitless. I was scared for him, though the obvious extent of his injuries was the huge gash on his right knee. Fumble, fumble fumble. Fucken gauze pads. I think I broke the disposable ice pack trying to activate it. I asked the guy if I had permission to help him, though I was already crouching on the ground next to him, opening the kit and not paying enough attention to him to wait for a response. The responder asked me to ask him if he had any stomach or chest pain. He said he did where the seat belt caught him, but other than that, no. (And, BTW, thank GOD he was wearing the seatbelt. There is no amount of first aid kit in my trunk that would have helped him had he not been!!! So kiddies and adults alike, FUCKEN BUCKLE YOUR SEATBELTS!)
I wipe the blood that had dripped down his leg... there wasn't a lot, but the gash was deep and will definitely require stitches. The first gauze pad was comically thin, so I added the abdominal gauze pad on top. Perfecto! I held pressure until the paramedics arrived. The second set, since the first set was on their way to another accident further down the road but stopped to make sure that the guy I was with didn't have any life-threatening injuries. I'm glad they remembered the correct questions to ask because, between him talking to his dad on the phone and me shaking and waging a holy war against the sterile gauze pad packaging (who would have though tearing a fucken PAPER packet open would be so difficult) with no conscious facilities, I sure as hell wasn't gonna notice that he was missing a limb, his heart laying next to us(talking, no less!)or that his neck was broken in half, or something else painfully obvious. Fortunately, none of these things happened. Anyway, the po-po and the paramedics arrived, and I was surrounded by a dozen 30 to 50-something year old white dudes in the middle of the night... (Deja vu?)
The car was FUCKED UP! I mean, the poor guy! As it turns out, he was returning home from dropping off a friend and he fell asleep driving. (It was, after all, 3 in the morning!) His car hit the curb and did at least a 90 degree (and possibly a 450 degree, if done twice) spin around a tree. Ack! He hadn't been drinking... he was too scared and sober to lie about what happened. But he remembered driving, then he remember waking up with horrifying pain in his right leg and his car on the opposite side of the road. (Not his words.) At some point before the responders arrived, the operator I'd been talking to on the phone hung up. I don't remember when, I just know we asked me about the seatbelt thing, asked for something and I said the address again, which was the wrong answer apparently. I think the right one was my name and phone number. Anyway, responders arrived, took over, EMTs secured his neck and back to a board on the stretcher, police looked around the scene trying to piece together what happened, and I just kinda sat there in my car since I couldn't get around any of the vehicles at this point. I picked up my phone to call my mom and let her know what happened, or to play bejeweled, or send a text to my friend whom I'd dropped off earlier... and my phone died instantly. Had it died 10 minutes earlier, or with just a few more functions like another text message or so earlier in the evening, I wouldn't have been able to call 911. Weird how things work out, huh?
Anyway, the kid's dad came (sorry, I should say that the guy was probably about 19 years old... and I'm calling him a kid, even though he's only 5 years younger. Hehe.) The dad followed the ambulance to the hospital. I don't think he saw me at all the whole time. Funny how I just disappear sometimes. The po-po got my information. Had I not been so scared when they asked for it, I'd have said something like, "Go ask Officer So-and-So in This-and-That county... or 50 other of your cop friends. I've been pulled over enough times, I'm sure ONE of them has my data!" Anyway... free to go. Me, sleepy to the point of hallucinating, had been on scene for 30 minutes.
I got home and told mom, "You'll never believe where I just spent the last half an hour: doing first aid at the scene of a car accident a mile away from the house." I guess I felt proud because I know some people will just drive past, assuming that responders have already been called, afraid that the person involved might be some sociopath, or just not wanting to be bothered with being obligated to someone for a period of time--however brief. But, the more I think about it, the less proud I feel. Feeling proud should come from doing something extraordinary, in my opinion. Helping out a fellow living creature is NOT extraordinary in most circumstances. It's something that, if done more often, would lead to a much happier, less fucked up world.
I FINALLY got home, and approaching the door I see a bug moving on the porch. I stepped over it, not wanting to look at it (because if you look at it, you have to acknowledge it's form and the fear it incites within, which I would have rather not done.) I turned around anyway, and saw a beetle on it's back, it's legs desperately waving in the air to either grab onto something with which to leverage itself up, to flip itself over, or to get my attention. Only the latter worked. I bent down and flipped it over with my house key. I left before it could walk any closer to me. Fear, yes, but even that doesn't excuse us from our duty to other living beings.
Locking the front door and walking over to my mother to tell her the story of the evening, I was reminded of a verse, "i have abused my so-called power forgive me/ you mean we actually are all one/one one one one one one one."
-One, by Alanis Morissette
Retrieved from http://www.elyrics.net/read/a/alanis-morissette-lyrics/one-lyrics.html
Visions and Oneness
I dropped my friend off at 2:20, and the entire way home, I was so tired I had to bite my wrists and forearms to stay awake. (This works VERY well!) But, I was so tired that even staying awake, I kept hallucinating. I kept feeling my body slipping away--not trying to slip away, but fall off or into something else. It was so strange. I hate hallucinating... anyway, my hallucinations involved me seeing huge biped creatures in the distance walking in or across the street. I won't even bother trying to explain how strange and scary this is, but imagine 15 foot Sasquatch dragging a club and walking across 66 in the distance. It's almost 3 in the morning and you've been awake for almost 24 hours. This happened from the time I was still in DC until I was about a mile away from home (over 30 minutes later.) As I turned into my subdivision, the vision returned.
I saw a creature walking slowly, zombie like, in the street. It was only a few feet away, and as I slowed down my driving, I realized that it was a real person. What the hell was he doing in the street? Behind him sat a totaled car wrapped around a tree. Funny how all your self-preservation instincts go out the window when someone else is in trouble. I rolled down the window, to ask him if the guy needed help, from the safety of my car, but even as I did so, I pulled over behind him, turned on my flashers, and got out to talk. I asked if he needed someone to call 911 since there were no emergency responders around. He said he did. The guy looked scared as shit, but definitely not drunk or belligerent. I guess I subconsciously knew this because I didn't hesitate to open my phone to call as I also opened my trunk and searched for a first aid kit. I was shaking so much, I felt enclosed by an entire cloud of sleep-deprived adrenaline. The one where your consciousness has all but shut down, the physical body is being animated by competing neurotransmitters and the mental body by the subconscious mind. God knows where emotional, spiritual, social bodies went... fair-weather friends. ;)
As I was calling, I was surprised to NOT hear my voice in my head as I spoke. It was like my lips were moving and communicating information with the 911 responder, but I had no idea what they were saying. In fact, when I first held the phone to my ear, I almost panicked that no one was answering before realizing I hadn't activated the phone application and dialed 911. I did it. Fumbling through the first aid kit on the ground to find gloves, the responder actually said, "Hello" to me 3 times before I realized someone was there on the line, that they were talking to me, and that it was my cue to answer. Amazingly, I gave an incredibly accurate description of the location. I continued to fumble with the gauze pads. The poor guy was sitting on the ground talking to his dad on the phone, scared shitless. I was scared for him, though the obvious extent of his injuries was the huge gash on his right knee. Fumble, fumble fumble. Fucken gauze pads. I think I broke the disposable ice pack trying to activate it. I asked the guy if I had permission to help him, though I was already crouching on the ground next to him, opening the kit and not paying enough attention to him to wait for a response. The responder asked me to ask him if he had any stomach or chest pain. He said he did where the seat belt caught him, but other than that, no. (And, BTW, thank GOD he was wearing the seatbelt. There is no amount of first aid kit in my trunk that would have helped him had he not been!!! So kiddies and adults alike, FUCKEN BUCKLE YOUR SEATBELTS!)
I wipe the blood that had dripped down his leg... there wasn't a lot, but the gash was deep and will definitely require stitches. The first gauze pad was comically thin, so I added the abdominal gauze pad on top. Perfecto! I held pressure until the paramedics arrived. The second set, since the first set was on their way to another accident further down the road but stopped to make sure that the guy I was with didn't have any life-threatening injuries. I'm glad they remembered the correct questions to ask because, between him talking to his dad on the phone and me shaking and waging a holy war against the sterile gauze pad packaging (who would have though tearing a fucken PAPER packet open would be so difficult) with no conscious facilities, I sure as hell wasn't gonna notice that he was missing a limb, his heart laying next to us(talking, no less!)or that his neck was broken in half, or something else painfully obvious. Fortunately, none of these things happened. Anyway, the po-po and the paramedics arrived, and I was surrounded by a dozen 30 to 50-something year old white dudes in the middle of the night... (Deja vu?)
The car was FUCKED UP! I mean, the poor guy! As it turns out, he was returning home from dropping off a friend and he fell asleep driving. (It was, after all, 3 in the morning!) His car hit the curb and did at least a 90 degree (and possibly a 450 degree, if done twice) spin around a tree. Ack! He hadn't been drinking... he was too scared and sober to lie about what happened. But he remembered driving, then he remember waking up with horrifying pain in his right leg and his car on the opposite side of the road. (Not his words.) At some point before the responders arrived, the operator I'd been talking to on the phone hung up. I don't remember when, I just know we asked me about the seatbelt thing, asked for something and I said the address again, which was the wrong answer apparently. I think the right one was my name and phone number. Anyway, responders arrived, took over, EMTs secured his neck and back to a board on the stretcher, police looked around the scene trying to piece together what happened, and I just kinda sat there in my car since I couldn't get around any of the vehicles at this point. I picked up my phone to call my mom and let her know what happened, or to play bejeweled, or send a text to my friend whom I'd dropped off earlier... and my phone died instantly. Had it died 10 minutes earlier, or with just a few more functions like another text message or so earlier in the evening, I wouldn't have been able to call 911. Weird how things work out, huh?
Anyway, the kid's dad came (sorry, I should say that the guy was probably about 19 years old... and I'm calling him a kid, even though he's only 5 years younger. Hehe.) The dad followed the ambulance to the hospital. I don't think he saw me at all the whole time. Funny how I just disappear sometimes. The po-po got my information. Had I not been so scared when they asked for it, I'd have said something like, "Go ask Officer So-and-So in This-and-That county... or 50 other of your cop friends. I've been pulled over enough times, I'm sure ONE of them has my data!" Anyway... free to go. Me, sleepy to the point of hallucinating, had been on scene for 30 minutes.
I got home and told mom, "You'll never believe where I just spent the last half an hour: doing first aid at the scene of a car accident a mile away from the house." I guess I felt proud because I know some people will just drive past, assuming that responders have already been called, afraid that the person involved might be some sociopath, or just not wanting to be bothered with being obligated to someone for a period of time--however brief. But, the more I think about it, the less proud I feel. Feeling proud should come from doing something extraordinary, in my opinion. Helping out a fellow living creature is NOT extraordinary in most circumstances. It's something that, if done more often, would lead to a much happier, less fucked up world.
I FINALLY got home, and approaching the door I see a bug moving on the porch. I stepped over it, not wanting to look at it (because if you look at it, you have to acknowledge it's form and the fear it incites within, which I would have rather not done.) I turned around anyway, and saw a beetle on it's back, it's legs desperately waving in the air to either grab onto something with which to leverage itself up, to flip itself over, or to get my attention. Only the latter worked. I bent down and flipped it over with my house key. I left before it could walk any closer to me. Fear, yes, but even that doesn't excuse us from our duty to other living beings.
Locking the front door and walking over to my mother to tell her the story of the evening, I was reminded of a verse, "i have abused my so-called power forgive me/ you mean we actually are all one/one one one one one one one."
-One, by Alanis Morissette
Retrieved from http://www.elyrics.net/read/a/alanis-morissette-lyrics/one-lyrics.html
Comida Mexicana... Tarot Cards... Drag Race... Fabulousness... Visions and Oneness (Part Two)
I got my reading first, and went outside while my friend got his done to give him some privacy. While I was out there, I saw this gorgeous, thin drag queen walk quickly past me. She had tons of curly blond hair and a short, blue Tinkerbell-looking dress. She was so cute! Normally I am not a big fan of blondes, but drag queens are totally my kryptonite. All the better if they're actually my age...
Drag Race and Fabulousness
After the tarot readings, my friend and I got more cash out of the ATM at 7-11 (and I got a sugar-free slurpee, yay me!) and we walked over to the club. It was still a little early, about 10 minutes early, so we sat outside and talked about stupid stuff while my friend finished his cigarette and I finished my slurpee. As we went in side, we waited for about 5 minutes, and the drag show began. Now, I've been to drag shows at this club several times before, and they usually last 45 minutes tops and they're not particularly crowded. Tonight, the club was PACKED (and, the show lasted over 2 hours!) But we didn't know this before...
Apparently, the night was replicating RuPaul's Drag Race in D.C. Local amateur drag queens were competing for $250 tonight and a chance to compete further for $2,500. As soon as I realized what was going on, it occurred to me that maybe the blonde blue-fairy might be one of the contestants. Sure enough, she was like the 4th. I hadn't seen her face before. She's really cute, in a fairy sort of way (i.e., long and pointy nose and chin, very thin--though not skeletal, shy and coquettish... etc.) Anyway, it was great watching each girl do their routine (though some were more irritating than others. For the final runway walk, each girl had to walk down the runway with a spoon in her mouth and an egg in the spoon. I think like 4 of the 8 dropped their eggs... it was hilarious. I kept covering my eyes like a little kid and giggling so incessantly. Good thing it was so loud in there and so crowded, otherwise I might have been too self-conscious in the lack of anonymity to enjoy myself. God forbid I should RELAX and ENJOY MYSELF for once...
Each girl was great, but it was clear from the beginning who the winner was. She could DANCE. She seemed VERY shy, which I thought was strange given her talent. Congratulations to you, Coco! The blue fairy was runner up, which surprised me because the audience didn't seem to care one way or the other for her (and she was from North Carolina, so it might have been that they just weren't cheering for a friend like with the others...) But she had her makeup done very well, none of her tucking came undone, her wig stayed on... and if judges were just going on technicalities, then that got her a lot of points right there. Congratulations to you, too, Blue Fairy.
Of course afterward everyone was free to dance in the club. It was great being with my friend (and maybe just where I'm at in my life) because I really wasn't concerned with checking out cute guys or worrying about how I looked. I was very excited about the drag show (and savored my 3 hour crush on the blue fairy) and was with a cool guy and completely sober (I'm always amazed when I'm able to go to a club without drinking and still have fun... sounds stupid, but that's definitely a skill I never thought I'd have.)
We had a lot of fun dancing to all the queer music, hanging out in the smoke pit with this weird ass guy talking about some shit... I had NO idea what he was saying. I think he might have been a little high--he was talking way too fast to be drunk. Unless that's just how he rolls. Anyway, he was talking about renting a boat and going out to Occoquan with his uber-straight Asian friend who's really tall and muscular and he's SO into muscle guys and they were smoking camel crushers (WTF?) and he had crushed the ball into his fingers and got badly burned from it and for some reason he and his straight muscle friend had to carry part of the boat somewhere... I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and he really didn't make any pauses (like the sentence above.) But I did notice something interesting. I guess when you go out with a friend, and the two of you meet a stranger, the stranger will talk to the more 'attractive' of the two. This is strange to me since 'attractive' is so subjective. I didn't even realize this was what was happening because people have always talked to the person I was with (I was always 'the friend.' Anonymous, simple.) I'm not sure if it's because I was a good 3-4 inches taller than my friend, that I've been on T for longer, that I had this stupid fake grin on my face the whole time, that I used 'active listening skills' such as nodding and repeating choice words that he had said, or some twisted combination thereof, but he'd glance at my friend--in between us--while talking mostly to me. Strange, strange, strange. Then again, I don't feel too bad--my friend isn't into biological men, and I most definitely am. The guy's name is Joseph, though I doubt anyone would remember him telling us this in conversation. Active. Listening. Skills.
We ended the night listening to Telephone, by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. I will assume that everyone has seen that music video (if you haven't, DO IT!) so that I can send you to the parody link. ::insert evil grin here:: I love you all!
SHERRY VINE!!!!! PEPPERMINT!! TELEPHONE Lady Gaga parody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8685ogp7QRQ
Stay Tuned for Part Three: Visions and Oneness
Drag Race and Fabulousness
After the tarot readings, my friend and I got more cash out of the ATM at 7-11 (and I got a sugar-free slurpee, yay me!) and we walked over to the club. It was still a little early, about 10 minutes early, so we sat outside and talked about stupid stuff while my friend finished his cigarette and I finished my slurpee. As we went in side, we waited for about 5 minutes, and the drag show began. Now, I've been to drag shows at this club several times before, and they usually last 45 minutes tops and they're not particularly crowded. Tonight, the club was PACKED (and, the show lasted over 2 hours!) But we didn't know this before...
Apparently, the night was replicating RuPaul's Drag Race in D.C. Local amateur drag queens were competing for $250 tonight and a chance to compete further for $2,500. As soon as I realized what was going on, it occurred to me that maybe the blonde blue-fairy might be one of the contestants. Sure enough, she was like the 4th. I hadn't seen her face before. She's really cute, in a fairy sort of way (i.e., long and pointy nose and chin, very thin--though not skeletal, shy and coquettish... etc.) Anyway, it was great watching each girl do their routine (though some were more irritating than others. For the final runway walk, each girl had to walk down the runway with a spoon in her mouth and an egg in the spoon. I think like 4 of the 8 dropped their eggs... it was hilarious. I kept covering my eyes like a little kid and giggling so incessantly. Good thing it was so loud in there and so crowded, otherwise I might have been too self-conscious in the lack of anonymity to enjoy myself. God forbid I should RELAX and ENJOY MYSELF for once...
Each girl was great, but it was clear from the beginning who the winner was. She could DANCE. She seemed VERY shy, which I thought was strange given her talent. Congratulations to you, Coco! The blue fairy was runner up, which surprised me because the audience didn't seem to care one way or the other for her (and she was from North Carolina, so it might have been that they just weren't cheering for a friend like with the others...) But she had her makeup done very well, none of her tucking came undone, her wig stayed on... and if judges were just going on technicalities, then that got her a lot of points right there. Congratulations to you, too, Blue Fairy.
Of course afterward everyone was free to dance in the club. It was great being with my friend (and maybe just where I'm at in my life) because I really wasn't concerned with checking out cute guys or worrying about how I looked. I was very excited about the drag show (and savored my 3 hour crush on the blue fairy) and was with a cool guy and completely sober (I'm always amazed when I'm able to go to a club without drinking and still have fun... sounds stupid, but that's definitely a skill I never thought I'd have.)
We had a lot of fun dancing to all the queer music, hanging out in the smoke pit with this weird ass guy talking about some shit... I had NO idea what he was saying. I think he might have been a little high--he was talking way too fast to be drunk. Unless that's just how he rolls. Anyway, he was talking about renting a boat and going out to Occoquan with his uber-straight Asian friend who's really tall and muscular and he's SO into muscle guys and they were smoking camel crushers (WTF?) and he had crushed the ball into his fingers and got badly burned from it and for some reason he and his straight muscle friend had to carry part of the boat somewhere... I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and he really didn't make any pauses (like the sentence above.) But I did notice something interesting. I guess when you go out with a friend, and the two of you meet a stranger, the stranger will talk to the more 'attractive' of the two. This is strange to me since 'attractive' is so subjective. I didn't even realize this was what was happening because people have always talked to the person I was with (I was always 'the friend.' Anonymous, simple.) I'm not sure if it's because I was a good 3-4 inches taller than my friend, that I've been on T for longer, that I had this stupid fake grin on my face the whole time, that I used 'active listening skills' such as nodding and repeating choice words that he had said, or some twisted combination thereof, but he'd glance at my friend--in between us--while talking mostly to me. Strange, strange, strange. Then again, I don't feel too bad--my friend isn't into biological men, and I most definitely am. The guy's name is Joseph, though I doubt anyone would remember him telling us this in conversation. Active. Listening. Skills.
We ended the night listening to Telephone, by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. I will assume that everyone has seen that music video (if you haven't, DO IT!) so that I can send you to the parody link. ::insert evil grin here:: I love you all!
SHERRY VINE!!!!! PEPPERMINT!! TELEPHONE Lady Gaga parody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8685ogp7QRQ
Stay Tuned for Part Three: Visions and Oneness
Comida Mexicana... Tarot Cards... Drag Race... Fabulousness... Visions and Oneness (Part One)
This will be a multi part series because, if it were all in one post, you'd get bored reading it very soon. But this is the story of 8 hours of my Friday night.
Comida Mexicana and Tarot Cards
I met up with a friend in DC tonight. I was reluctant to go, not because I disliked the person (on the contrary, I like him a lot) but because I have so much work to do and so little time to do it. Nevertheless, I went. Because everything happens for a reason. Once we finally found parking, we got dinner at a restaurant on U Street called Alero. While we both like lots of different food, Mexican was the first thing we'd agreed on--plus, it was close and I'd heard good things about it before. The wait for the food was long, but it was (sorta) worth it. My friend ordered a margarita and some guacamole and chips (he wasn't very hungry) while I ordered a grilled portobello mushroom in a tomato sauce (AMAZING!) and a giant salad. Dinner was great. (I didn't drink because, lately, I've been finding it extremely hard to force down alcohol... good thing, since it saves me money in the evening!)
Like I said, the wait for the food was long. We had a lot of time to talk (though I feel like I dominated conversation, which I always try to be mindful of doing) but talk was pleasant. Despite getting to the restaurant at around 7:15, we didn't leave until around 9:30. It was too early to go to a club (most open around 10:30), so as we were walking around, we passed a psychic. My friend insisted that we go, which is completely cool cause I like to get a reading done once a year--and I appreciate anyone who believes in tarot/psychics/horoscopes, or at least doesn't judge me for believing. I won't relay what the psychic told him since that's his business, but I'll break down what I remember of the tarot reading:
Life: As with most psychics, this one told me that I would live an extremely long life... if not into my late 90s, then definitely into my early 100s. She said that longevity was in my genes and that not only would I live long, but I would live an extremely health life as well. YAY!
Love: Next she said that love was not in my cards for the immediate future (well, for the rest of the year.) She said that I've had horrible luck with love and pretty much a nonexistent love life, and that that wasn't likely to change over the next several months, so I shouldn't stress about it. I guess I'm supposed to use the rest of the year to work on myself (?) and that would help me when I finally meet this person. She said that I don't know him yet, but that his name would start with a "D" and that we would meet in a very public place. Not like in a club or a bar... but somewhere completely unexpected, like a grocery store or library.
Career: I may be going out of order, but the next topic that I remember was her talking about career. The psychic said that I wasn't doing what I was meant to do. She said that I was meant to be in a leadership position. Specifically, I was meant to be in the military in the future. She asked if I had ever been in the military (I said that I had) and then asked if I'd ever considered returning. I said that I had considered it, but nothing more. She said that the opportunity would arise for me to reenter the military and that I should definitely do it. I was born to be a military leader, apparently. (I laugh a little when I think of all the people who are spiritually choking on their egos as I type this, and can't figure out why. For that reason, alone, I hope she's right.) She said that I'm not in the career I'm supposed to be in, and while I may make progress and things may go well, it's not permanent by any means.
Finances: Haha, so then she said that my financial situation would be set by the age of 33. She said that when I reach the age of 33, I would no longer have any financial worries. I wouldn't have any worries then, or for the rest of my life. I suppose all my current debts would be paid off and I'll be making enough money to never struggle for things I need. She said that I was blessed to always financially be provided for. So far, she's been right because even my worst has been better than 80% of the world's populations, sad to say.
School: Ugh, the worst news I got was that she said that for some reason I would be encountering delays in finishing my schooling. She said that it wouldn't been finished for another 3 years. I hope she's including graduate school in that because another 3 years in undergrad, and I might kill someone. She said in October I would find many distractions from my school work, but would eventually get back on track (seems like within the same semester.) Nrrrh. I REALLY hope that doesn't happen, but we'll see.
Family: The psychic said that my family life was relatively calm, without major disputes. I suppose if she figures my dad and I being completely estranged while living in the same house 'calm', then sure.
Children: So, as mentioned in the love part, she said that I would meet my true love in the beginning of next year (which, with psychics seems to mean anytime in the first six months...) and with this true love I would have three children. Then she clarified that these three children won't be biologically mine (no shit) and that one of them may not even be a human child, but something I love like a child. She asked me if I had any pets, and I said yes without saying what kind, and she said that it would be with me for a very long time. I guess that makes sense because while a goldfish doesn't last long, a cat can live to be 20 something years old. Yay for Serious!
Spirituality: She didn't say much about spirituality, other than over the next year as I come closer to meeting my true love, that I would been improving my own spiritual health and ultimately achieving a higher level of inner peace.
I think that's it. If I remember anything else, I'll edit the post and add it.
Stay tuned for Part Two: Drag Race and Fabulousness and Part Three: Visions and Oneness
Comida Mexicana and Tarot Cards
I met up with a friend in DC tonight. I was reluctant to go, not because I disliked the person (on the contrary, I like him a lot) but because I have so much work to do and so little time to do it. Nevertheless, I went. Because everything happens for a reason. Once we finally found parking, we got dinner at a restaurant on U Street called Alero. While we both like lots of different food, Mexican was the first thing we'd agreed on--plus, it was close and I'd heard good things about it before. The wait for the food was long, but it was (sorta) worth it. My friend ordered a margarita and some guacamole and chips (he wasn't very hungry) while I ordered a grilled portobello mushroom in a tomato sauce (AMAZING!) and a giant salad. Dinner was great. (I didn't drink because, lately, I've been finding it extremely hard to force down alcohol... good thing, since it saves me money in the evening!)
Like I said, the wait for the food was long. We had a lot of time to talk (though I feel like I dominated conversation, which I always try to be mindful of doing) but talk was pleasant. Despite getting to the restaurant at around 7:15, we didn't leave until around 9:30. It was too early to go to a club (most open around 10:30), so as we were walking around, we passed a psychic. My friend insisted that we go, which is completely cool cause I like to get a reading done once a year--and I appreciate anyone who believes in tarot/psychics/horoscopes, or at least doesn't judge me for believing. I won't relay what the psychic told him since that's his business, but I'll break down what I remember of the tarot reading:
Life: As with most psychics, this one told me that I would live an extremely long life... if not into my late 90s, then definitely into my early 100s. She said that longevity was in my genes and that not only would I live long, but I would live an extremely health life as well. YAY!
Love: Next she said that love was not in my cards for the immediate future (well, for the rest of the year.) She said that I've had horrible luck with love and pretty much a nonexistent love life, and that that wasn't likely to change over the next several months, so I shouldn't stress about it. I guess I'm supposed to use the rest of the year to work on myself (?) and that would help me when I finally meet this person. She said that I don't know him yet, but that his name would start with a "D" and that we would meet in a very public place. Not like in a club or a bar... but somewhere completely unexpected, like a grocery store or library.
Career: I may be going out of order, but the next topic that I remember was her talking about career. The psychic said that I wasn't doing what I was meant to do. She said that I was meant to be in a leadership position. Specifically, I was meant to be in the military in the future. She asked if I had ever been in the military (I said that I had) and then asked if I'd ever considered returning. I said that I had considered it, but nothing more. She said that the opportunity would arise for me to reenter the military and that I should definitely do it. I was born to be a military leader, apparently. (I laugh a little when I think of all the people who are spiritually choking on their egos as I type this, and can't figure out why. For that reason, alone, I hope she's right.) She said that I'm not in the career I'm supposed to be in, and while I may make progress and things may go well, it's not permanent by any means.
Finances: Haha, so then she said that my financial situation would be set by the age of 33. She said that when I reach the age of 33, I would no longer have any financial worries. I wouldn't have any worries then, or for the rest of my life. I suppose all my current debts would be paid off and I'll be making enough money to never struggle for things I need. She said that I was blessed to always financially be provided for. So far, she's been right because even my worst has been better than 80% of the world's populations, sad to say.
School: Ugh, the worst news I got was that she said that for some reason I would be encountering delays in finishing my schooling. She said that it wouldn't been finished for another 3 years. I hope she's including graduate school in that because another 3 years in undergrad, and I might kill someone. She said in October I would find many distractions from my school work, but would eventually get back on track (seems like within the same semester.) Nrrrh. I REALLY hope that doesn't happen, but we'll see.
Family: The psychic said that my family life was relatively calm, without major disputes. I suppose if she figures my dad and I being completely estranged while living in the same house 'calm', then sure.
Children: So, as mentioned in the love part, she said that I would meet my true love in the beginning of next year (which, with psychics seems to mean anytime in the first six months...) and with this true love I would have three children. Then she clarified that these three children won't be biologically mine (no shit) and that one of them may not even be a human child, but something I love like a child. She asked me if I had any pets, and I said yes without saying what kind, and she said that it would be with me for a very long time. I guess that makes sense because while a goldfish doesn't last long, a cat can live to be 20 something years old. Yay for Serious!
Spirituality: She didn't say much about spirituality, other than over the next year as I come closer to meeting my true love, that I would been improving my own spiritual health and ultimately achieving a higher level of inner peace.
I think that's it. If I remember anything else, I'll edit the post and add it.
Stay tuned for Part Two: Drag Race and Fabulousness and Part Three: Visions and Oneness
Monday, March 1, 2010
Nightmares
When I was younger, 8th grade, I think, I went through this phase of extreme paranoia... just before I fell into deep depression in 9th grade. During this time, I had nightmares every single night in which someone would try to kill me using the most violent (and lethal) means known. I was shot multiple times in one instance, poisoned in another, etc. The amazing thing was that I survived every attempt on my life. The one time I didn't, I was poisoned by my mom, but I allowed myself to be. We agreed that it was something that I must do, and I didn't resist, nor was I particularly sad about it. That evening in my dream, I came back as a ghost. My dad was the only one who could see me, and he was very sad that I was dead. He watched me as I floated out of the house, across the street, and allowed my essence to be dispersed by the wind (and I woke up.)
Lately, I've been having similar dreams (without the preceding feelings of paranoia) in which people try more violent means to kill me than before (either my imagination has grown, or I've just seen that many more violent, sadistic movies since 8th grade.) Only thing is, this time, I'm not surviving, and seconds before I wake up, I see me dead, mutilated-beyond-recognition body laying on the floor. When I wake up, I'm not scared or saddened to tears like I was in 8th grade; now, I just sort of accept it. Maybe it's the depression, or maybe I know "it's just a dream." But as a deeply superstitious person, and one who lays a lot in messages from the subconscious, nothing is ever "just a dream" to me. All the more shocking that when I woke up from tonight's nightmare, I simply went to the bathroom, got a drink of juice, and began writing. I feel nothing.
In my dream, I was a girl, and dressed in a very formal evening gown. I paid a dollar and entered into what was supposed to be an huge state dinner to raise money for some charity. There were partitions in the main room which were like mini stores where the jewelry or trinkets or whatever were being sold to raise money for whatever cause. Anyway, I followed my mom and a few people I knew in the dream (not in real life) through this exit door and found myself in this underground shopping mall. This isn't particularly strange, since they have a underground mall in Montreal where I was last winter. But this mall had a very foreign, marketplace feel to it. Everything was black and red, there were steam vents every few meters, and everyone had that grungy, post-apocalyptical look to them. Even I had on layers of clothes that looked layered and pieced together as I found them. My mom said down and offered my sisters money to buy food at the food court, but I had to wait since there was nothing vegan cooked at the moment. So I wandered off. I was in the 'streets' (the alleys between the kiosks) and watched this undercover Israeli moussad (sp?) agent track down a guy who claimed to be Arab or something, but upon further investigation (the agent said or did something to the guy to make him talk) he admitted to being Greek and actually gave whatever information he had before running away. I guess the guy was an informant, not a threat. Either way, it was interesting to watch. The Israeli agent disappeared into the woodwork.
I was with a couple of friends, two guys and the girlfriend of one of them. We were passing out flyers for a rave party that would take place at a gym that night. It was some protest party, I think. As the evening came, things got scarier. People started 'disappearing' (the polite term for being kidnapped and murdered by government forces) from the very crowded place. They were being turned in by friends, family, strangers, for whatever reason. The four of us decided to lay low until the party. So we went to this hotel room and all layed down on the single king-sized bed in the room. Even the room had a dark, seedy feel about it. We joked half-heartedly about the rise in suicide bombers in the mall. Even one of the guys (oh, I should mention that both were extremely hot, though ethnically ambiguous, guys about my age, of course) had squirted a couple of drops of juice on my shirt as we layed on the bed, and the other pretended that I had a bomb interlaced in my clothes and jumped on me to deflect the blast. We were all laughing, then he suddenly asked, "Yo, where are your tits?" I looked to see the other two were looking at me curiously, too. I told them I thought they knew that I dressed and looked like a boy all the time before I was, in fact, transitioning to be one. The two guys were okay with it. The girl made a horrible face and groaned about how disgusting I was. I expected and ignored her response.
I left the room and was back at the food court where my mom was supposed to be waiting, but I couldn't find her anywhere. I wandered around a bit before making my way out a side door and finding myself in a parking lot (it was about 9:00 at night, I think) full of cars and dirty piles of plowed snow. I didn't see anyone, and as I was about to go back inside, I saw a very pale figure laying on the ground, partially under a pile of snow. It was an African-American woman, and she looked dead. I reached down to look for a pulse. When I touched her, she came to life. She was pissed. I helped her stand up and saw that she was naked and still pale, though not as much as before. I told her not to be afraid of me, that I had used to be a woman (though from her expression, I don't think she saw me as anything but female) and I offered her some of my layers of clothes to wear. She just yelled at me that she was fine and told me to 'piss off' and stuff. So I just slowly backed away as she half-heartedly tried to cover her parts with her arms and made her way toward the entrance door. She continued to hiss and curse at me, which made me think she might have been a homeless woman with some psychological ailment. Once she got to the door, she was immediately flanked by what looked like members of the SWAT team, and instantly she was stressed in full battle protective gear and armed with an assault rifle. The scope of her rifle, along with about twelve others, were all aimed at me.
So I ran. I ran inside another side door and found myself in a sort of maze (for lack of a better description) of partial walls and lockers; the soldiers found me. I told the woman again that I was sorry for bothering her, but instead of the insane gibberish she was yelling at me before this time she said nothing. The soldiers continued to point the guns at me, when finally a small man (the commander?) in a green armored vest pointed a laser at me. I ran again, but this time the laser has turned into very painful, though small caliber bullets. At least five had shot me deep in the back. I dropped to the ground and hid under one of the obstacles in the room until they all ran past, then I crawled in the opposite direction, weaving around all the lockers. I could feel myself bleeding internally, and the blood was rising slowly in my throat. Strange that in my dreams, it seems like I can only die when I give myself permission. I crawled to the doors and became aware of the soldiers circling back to look for me more. There were people, market vendors I think, who were getting their belongings out of their lockers and going home for the evening. I put my finger to my lips to warn them to be quiet and I snuck out with them. A couple of the agents saw me, though, as I ran out because I was shot a few more times. I spit out the blood that had filled my mouth. There were buses outside, and somehow, it was already after dawn because the sun was out. the buses were getting ready to pull away, the doors were already closed but I ran to one, anyway, that had opened up a window for me to jump into. I ran and jumped and grabbed the window and realized that the soldiers had not followed me outside. When I pulled myself part of the way through the window, the bus started to pull out.
The soldier commander from before was on the bus and he pointed his laser gun at me again, shooting me several more time before I was forced to let go. I could feel the life draining from me against my will. As I hit the ground, I found myself in the lobby of some high-rise corporate building, laying on the floor in a huge pool of my own blood. I felt my face hit the ground, and then I was outside my body, looking at the body of a young woman who was clearly not me but a character I was playing in this incredibly realistic video game. A bloody "Game Over" screen appeared in my vision, followed by a 'login' screen in which I could enter a password and play again. I woke up.
Lately, I've been having similar dreams (without the preceding feelings of paranoia) in which people try more violent means to kill me than before (either my imagination has grown, or I've just seen that many more violent, sadistic movies since 8th grade.) Only thing is, this time, I'm not surviving, and seconds before I wake up, I see me dead, mutilated-beyond-recognition body laying on the floor. When I wake up, I'm not scared or saddened to tears like I was in 8th grade; now, I just sort of accept it. Maybe it's the depression, or maybe I know "it's just a dream." But as a deeply superstitious person, and one who lays a lot in messages from the subconscious, nothing is ever "just a dream" to me. All the more shocking that when I woke up from tonight's nightmare, I simply went to the bathroom, got a drink of juice, and began writing. I feel nothing.
In my dream, I was a girl, and dressed in a very formal evening gown. I paid a dollar and entered into what was supposed to be an huge state dinner to raise money for some charity. There were partitions in the main room which were like mini stores where the jewelry or trinkets or whatever were being sold to raise money for whatever cause. Anyway, I followed my mom and a few people I knew in the dream (not in real life) through this exit door and found myself in this underground shopping mall. This isn't particularly strange, since they have a underground mall in Montreal where I was last winter. But this mall had a very foreign, marketplace feel to it. Everything was black and red, there were steam vents every few meters, and everyone had that grungy, post-apocalyptical look to them. Even I had on layers of clothes that looked layered and pieced together as I found them. My mom said down and offered my sisters money to buy food at the food court, but I had to wait since there was nothing vegan cooked at the moment. So I wandered off. I was in the 'streets' (the alleys between the kiosks) and watched this undercover Israeli moussad (sp?) agent track down a guy who claimed to be Arab or something, but upon further investigation (the agent said or did something to the guy to make him talk) he admitted to being Greek and actually gave whatever information he had before running away. I guess the guy was an informant, not a threat. Either way, it was interesting to watch. The Israeli agent disappeared into the woodwork.
I was with a couple of friends, two guys and the girlfriend of one of them. We were passing out flyers for a rave party that would take place at a gym that night. It was some protest party, I think. As the evening came, things got scarier. People started 'disappearing' (the polite term for being kidnapped and murdered by government forces) from the very crowded place. They were being turned in by friends, family, strangers, for whatever reason. The four of us decided to lay low until the party. So we went to this hotel room and all layed down on the single king-sized bed in the room. Even the room had a dark, seedy feel about it. We joked half-heartedly about the rise in suicide bombers in the mall. Even one of the guys (oh, I should mention that both were extremely hot, though ethnically ambiguous, guys about my age, of course) had squirted a couple of drops of juice on my shirt as we layed on the bed, and the other pretended that I had a bomb interlaced in my clothes and jumped on me to deflect the blast. We were all laughing, then he suddenly asked, "Yo, where are your tits?" I looked to see the other two were looking at me curiously, too. I told them I thought they knew that I dressed and looked like a boy all the time before I was, in fact, transitioning to be one. The two guys were okay with it. The girl made a horrible face and groaned about how disgusting I was. I expected and ignored her response.
I left the room and was back at the food court where my mom was supposed to be waiting, but I couldn't find her anywhere. I wandered around a bit before making my way out a side door and finding myself in a parking lot (it was about 9:00 at night, I think) full of cars and dirty piles of plowed snow. I didn't see anyone, and as I was about to go back inside, I saw a very pale figure laying on the ground, partially under a pile of snow. It was an African-American woman, and she looked dead. I reached down to look for a pulse. When I touched her, she came to life. She was pissed. I helped her stand up and saw that she was naked and still pale, though not as much as before. I told her not to be afraid of me, that I had used to be a woman (though from her expression, I don't think she saw me as anything but female) and I offered her some of my layers of clothes to wear. She just yelled at me that she was fine and told me to 'piss off' and stuff. So I just slowly backed away as she half-heartedly tried to cover her parts with her arms and made her way toward the entrance door. She continued to hiss and curse at me, which made me think she might have been a homeless woman with some psychological ailment. Once she got to the door, she was immediately flanked by what looked like members of the SWAT team, and instantly she was stressed in full battle protective gear and armed with an assault rifle. The scope of her rifle, along with about twelve others, were all aimed at me.
So I ran. I ran inside another side door and found myself in a sort of maze (for lack of a better description) of partial walls and lockers; the soldiers found me. I told the woman again that I was sorry for bothering her, but instead of the insane gibberish she was yelling at me before this time she said nothing. The soldiers continued to point the guns at me, when finally a small man (the commander?) in a green armored vest pointed a laser at me. I ran again, but this time the laser has turned into very painful, though small caliber bullets. At least five had shot me deep in the back. I dropped to the ground and hid under one of the obstacles in the room until they all ran past, then I crawled in the opposite direction, weaving around all the lockers. I could feel myself bleeding internally, and the blood was rising slowly in my throat. Strange that in my dreams, it seems like I can only die when I give myself permission. I crawled to the doors and became aware of the soldiers circling back to look for me more. There were people, market vendors I think, who were getting their belongings out of their lockers and going home for the evening. I put my finger to my lips to warn them to be quiet and I snuck out with them. A couple of the agents saw me, though, as I ran out because I was shot a few more times. I spit out the blood that had filled my mouth. There were buses outside, and somehow, it was already after dawn because the sun was out. the buses were getting ready to pull away, the doors were already closed but I ran to one, anyway, that had opened up a window for me to jump into. I ran and jumped and grabbed the window and realized that the soldiers had not followed me outside. When I pulled myself part of the way through the window, the bus started to pull out.
The soldier commander from before was on the bus and he pointed his laser gun at me again, shooting me several more time before I was forced to let go. I could feel the life draining from me against my will. As I hit the ground, I found myself in the lobby of some high-rise corporate building, laying on the floor in a huge pool of my own blood. I felt my face hit the ground, and then I was outside my body, looking at the body of a young woman who was clearly not me but a character I was playing in this incredibly realistic video game. A bloody "Game Over" screen appeared in my vision, followed by a 'login' screen in which I could enter a password and play again. I woke up.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
A Day in the Life
For my Abnormal Psychology class, I'm reading a memoir of a woman with bipolar disorder. She's also a renowned psychiatrist. Her book is very sterile; I empathize with her, but mostly just on a cognitive level. Ironically, a book about roller coaster emotions is rather unemotive. So I want to share with you a glimpse of major depression. I hope that by the end, you'll be able to *feel* it as well as just know it.
Allow me to set the mood. Turn out all the lights in your bedroom and put a heavy blanket or drapes over the windows. Only whispers of light should enter the room. Crawl into bed and pull the blanket up to your chin. Curl up into fetal position. Pick a spot on the wall, and stare at it. You're really too lazy to look away anyway. It's about 9:30 in the morning, a lazy Saturday or Sunday. Or maybe it's a Tuesday and you decided that you simply cannot pull yourself out of bed to go to work or class. So you stare at your place on the wall. You're extremely thirsty, and decide to get out of bed for a glass of juice, but then your mind starts going through the motions of what you'll need to do: it's exhausting. In your mind, you pull back the covers and brace yourself against the cool air rushing onto your skin (your apartment is just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, but not much more.) Then you have to uncurl yourself and slide your legs out of bed. Already you feel out of breath from the exertion, and here comes the worst part. You will have to pull your head from the indentation on your pillow and actually sit upright. There's a slight melancholic tugging on your heart; you want a drink, but are having second thoughts whether it's worth the effort. Stand up and immediately start walking before, in one motion, you lose momentum and fall back into the respite of fetal position under the comforter. You drag your legs, which feel more like fins, across the carpet. It's only about 10 feet from your bed to the kitchen, but the distance seems to stretch indefinitely. You pour the juice, and as you sip, are vaguely aware of the smell of trash you haven't taken out in close to two weeks. Your former pristine place has now become the host of large amounts of decaying matter and possibly biological weapons grade bacteria growing on the counter tops. You can't even remember when the last time was you did the dishes; but you see a slight film on the water of the bowls sitting in the sink. The cold, dark apartment with its musty smells of rot only depresses you further (is that possible?) and you seek refuge in the only place you know. Before you can think it, you're back under the covers.
Of course, none of this really happens. Remember, this is all in your mind--you figuring out the steps required to attain this much coveted glass of juice. Your tongue is sticking to the sides of your mouth. You contemplate calling your mother, who lives 20 minutes away, to come over with the spare key and pouring the juice for you. Sadly, it's not the inconvenience to her that stops you from calling, but the fact that she just had major back surgery and can, in fact, barely walk for more than 3 minutes at a time, much less climb stairs, drive, or completely dress herself. So you set in bed, staring at the wall. Another thought comes to you: maybe you don't really want juice anyway. You want a latte. In your mind, you fast forward past the getting out of bed, putting a coat over your pajamas, walking down the two flights of stairs and across the quarter mile of parking lot to your car, to where you actually pull into a parking spot at the local coffee shop. You envision yourself standing in line, your armpits slightly moist and forcing your to remember when you last took a shower. You apologize silently to the people around you for your surely offensive smell and just pray that the baristas are quick with making your beverage. In your mind, it's your turn to tell the cashier your order. You look into her earnest, cheerful eyes and open your mouth to speak. You choke on the words. In bed, your eyes well up with tears, which quickly begin to spill over onto your pillow already warm and slightly damp with sweat. You're embarrassed and you pull the covers over your head to hide your shame from the shadows of your room. In the dark, you cry freely for a minute when, just as inexplicably as they begin, the tears stop. Deep breath.
You wonder what time it is, but then, it doesn't really matter. Whatever you're supposed to be doing, you're not. Whomever you're supposed to be meeting will be neglected. Where ever you're supposed to be, you're not going to. You've given yourself freedom to hide in your cave indefinitely. Your face itches. When did you last wash it? Are you breaking out? Who cares, no one will see you. Now you have to go to the bathroom. How could you be so dehydrated and still have to pee, you ask yourself. You hold it. The warmth and carbon dioxide from your breath under the covers is unbearable, and you peek your eyes and nose out for not fresh, but slightly less stale, air. While you've moved this much, you decide that maybe you should just go to the bathroom and get it over with. This time, you actually get out of bed for real and try not to think about how cool the apartment is. You walk into the bathroom and turn on the lights. Only one of the eight lightbulbs is actually screwed all the way in, allowing for the least amount of light possible. You still look away from the brightness. Pee, and done. There's the scale. You step on and realize you've lost a pound since yesterday morning. For a fleeting moment, you're happy to have lost weight, but then you realize that you're not actually losing weight so much as wasting away. You're not getting thinner, you're decaying into nothing. Your eyes sting with tears again, and the choking feeling returns to your throat.
Back in bed, you stare at your favorite place on the wall. This eternity has actually only lasted about 8 minutes.
Allow me to set the mood. Turn out all the lights in your bedroom and put a heavy blanket or drapes over the windows. Only whispers of light should enter the room. Crawl into bed and pull the blanket up to your chin. Curl up into fetal position. Pick a spot on the wall, and stare at it. You're really too lazy to look away anyway. It's about 9:30 in the morning, a lazy Saturday or Sunday. Or maybe it's a Tuesday and you decided that you simply cannot pull yourself out of bed to go to work or class. So you stare at your place on the wall. You're extremely thirsty, and decide to get out of bed for a glass of juice, but then your mind starts going through the motions of what you'll need to do: it's exhausting. In your mind, you pull back the covers and brace yourself against the cool air rushing onto your skin (your apartment is just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, but not much more.) Then you have to uncurl yourself and slide your legs out of bed. Already you feel out of breath from the exertion, and here comes the worst part. You will have to pull your head from the indentation on your pillow and actually sit upright. There's a slight melancholic tugging on your heart; you want a drink, but are having second thoughts whether it's worth the effort. Stand up and immediately start walking before, in one motion, you lose momentum and fall back into the respite of fetal position under the comforter. You drag your legs, which feel more like fins, across the carpet. It's only about 10 feet from your bed to the kitchen, but the distance seems to stretch indefinitely. You pour the juice, and as you sip, are vaguely aware of the smell of trash you haven't taken out in close to two weeks. Your former pristine place has now become the host of large amounts of decaying matter and possibly biological weapons grade bacteria growing on the counter tops. You can't even remember when the last time was you did the dishes; but you see a slight film on the water of the bowls sitting in the sink. The cold, dark apartment with its musty smells of rot only depresses you further (is that possible?) and you seek refuge in the only place you know. Before you can think it, you're back under the covers.
Of course, none of this really happens. Remember, this is all in your mind--you figuring out the steps required to attain this much coveted glass of juice. Your tongue is sticking to the sides of your mouth. You contemplate calling your mother, who lives 20 minutes away, to come over with the spare key and pouring the juice for you. Sadly, it's not the inconvenience to her that stops you from calling, but the fact that she just had major back surgery and can, in fact, barely walk for more than 3 minutes at a time, much less climb stairs, drive, or completely dress herself. So you set in bed, staring at the wall. Another thought comes to you: maybe you don't really want juice anyway. You want a latte. In your mind, you fast forward past the getting out of bed, putting a coat over your pajamas, walking down the two flights of stairs and across the quarter mile of parking lot to your car, to where you actually pull into a parking spot at the local coffee shop. You envision yourself standing in line, your armpits slightly moist and forcing your to remember when you last took a shower. You apologize silently to the people around you for your surely offensive smell and just pray that the baristas are quick with making your beverage. In your mind, it's your turn to tell the cashier your order. You look into her earnest, cheerful eyes and open your mouth to speak. You choke on the words. In bed, your eyes well up with tears, which quickly begin to spill over onto your pillow already warm and slightly damp with sweat. You're embarrassed and you pull the covers over your head to hide your shame from the shadows of your room. In the dark, you cry freely for a minute when, just as inexplicably as they begin, the tears stop. Deep breath.
You wonder what time it is, but then, it doesn't really matter. Whatever you're supposed to be doing, you're not. Whomever you're supposed to be meeting will be neglected. Where ever you're supposed to be, you're not going to. You've given yourself freedom to hide in your cave indefinitely. Your face itches. When did you last wash it? Are you breaking out? Who cares, no one will see you. Now you have to go to the bathroom. How could you be so dehydrated and still have to pee, you ask yourself. You hold it. The warmth and carbon dioxide from your breath under the covers is unbearable, and you peek your eyes and nose out for not fresh, but slightly less stale, air. While you've moved this much, you decide that maybe you should just go to the bathroom and get it over with. This time, you actually get out of bed for real and try not to think about how cool the apartment is. You walk into the bathroom and turn on the lights. Only one of the eight lightbulbs is actually screwed all the way in, allowing for the least amount of light possible. You still look away from the brightness. Pee, and done. There's the scale. You step on and realize you've lost a pound since yesterday morning. For a fleeting moment, you're happy to have lost weight, but then you realize that you're not actually losing weight so much as wasting away. You're not getting thinner, you're decaying into nothing. Your eyes sting with tears again, and the choking feeling returns to your throat.
Back in bed, you stare at your favorite place on the wall. This eternity has actually only lasted about 8 minutes.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
I miss my binder
I might be one of the only post-op FTMs to say this (grrr, I hate the label "FTM", but at least you know what I'm talking about) anyway, I miss my binder.
Don't misread. I don't miss having to bind when there was something to bind. Rather, I miss that deep pressure, that security, I felt when binding. I think it's the same sensation that many children with autism experience and appreciate when they're feeling out of sorts. I didn't realize that I missed it until a few days ago. I found my binder in my undershirt drawer (yes, my underwears are separated by briefs/boxers, undershirts, and socks!) and was wondering if it still fit and what it would feel like to wear it now. Then this morning I was rebandaging up my tattoo (oh yeah, so, for anyone who didn't know, my top surgery, while it healed very fast and painlessly, also left a hideous scar more pronounced than many I've seen. So I got a tribal tattoo over it to hide most of the horror--the last part was done last night.) Hok, so I was rebandaging my tattoo and since the towel covers the left side of my chest, tiny bandages wouldn't have made sense to hold it, I just rolled some painting tape (relatively low adhesion) over the entire thing. It's holding pretty well--it isn't too tight or too loose. Anyway, I noticed that it's applying pressure to my chest in the same way the binder used to. And I also noticed that the pressure creates a very secure feeling. If I wasn't so squeamish about people touching me, I'd go for a deep tissue massage...
Don't misread. I don't miss having to bind when there was something to bind. Rather, I miss that deep pressure, that security, I felt when binding. I think it's the same sensation that many children with autism experience and appreciate when they're feeling out of sorts. I didn't realize that I missed it until a few days ago. I found my binder in my undershirt drawer (yes, my underwears are separated by briefs/boxers, undershirts, and socks!) and was wondering if it still fit and what it would feel like to wear it now. Then this morning I was rebandaging up my tattoo (oh yeah, so, for anyone who didn't know, my top surgery, while it healed very fast and painlessly, also left a hideous scar more pronounced than many I've seen. So I got a tribal tattoo over it to hide most of the horror--the last part was done last night.) Hok, so I was rebandaging my tattoo and since the towel covers the left side of my chest, tiny bandages wouldn't have made sense to hold it, I just rolled some painting tape (relatively low adhesion) over the entire thing. It's holding pretty well--it isn't too tight or too loose. Anyway, I noticed that it's applying pressure to my chest in the same way the binder used to. And I also noticed that the pressure creates a very secure feeling. If I wasn't so squeamish about people touching me, I'd go for a deep tissue massage...
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Another dream (maybe I should just start numbering them?)
I had this dream two nights ago (okay, so not last night or the night before, but the night before *that*.)
Because this dream was further back, my memory has a few more gaps. Well, my accessible memory does. Anyway, I was a mentor or a Big Brother or something in my dream, and I was working with various children. Some of the kids were from where I work, but others were from out in the community. Anyway, in the first part of my dream, I was working with two incredibly overweight women who would just sit in chairs and eat and gossip, even though they were supposed to be helping me watch all these kids. (Please don't hate me for judging these women... they were in my dream and I don't think my conscious self would ever intentionally criticize or judge a woman's weight or eating habits. I know how hard it is...) For some reason, we were watching all of them at my parents house (I have no clue where my parents were) and the two women were sitting in lawn chairs on the deck. The kids were just running around and I was really worried about any of them getting lost since we have a dense wood behind our house. So I'm running upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, all around trying to keep the kids happy and occupied. Fortunately, the weather is beautiful (summertime!) outside.
I guess something went wrong, despite my efforts. I was back in Manassas near my own apartment and I had just bought a kid an ice cream or something before I was to take them back to their parents. The kid seemed really happy and I didn't say/do anything wrong... but then he (or she?) suddenly turns and shoots me in the stomach. I fell to the ground and the kid ran away. I knew I wouldn't die, but as I lay there curled up in a ball, my first thought was covering up the wound so no one could see it. Now, this isn't really easy to do when you're just wearing a t-shirt and jeans cause it's summertime (as opposed to the billion of layers in the winter) but I think I managed for a little bit. I walked some more, past a group of youngish boys playing near the road. As I passed, one of them shot me too, but this time in the chest. Both core shots (think target practice outlines) and the loss of blood should have killed me (maybe the caliber was too small?) but it didn't. I wasn't even particularly afraid of dying. I was just embarassed of being shot and didn't want anyone to know about it. I ran the rest of the way home, clutching my chest and stomach so no one would see me bleeding to death.
Because this dream was further back, my memory has a few more gaps. Well, my accessible memory does. Anyway, I was a mentor or a Big Brother or something in my dream, and I was working with various children. Some of the kids were from where I work, but others were from out in the community. Anyway, in the first part of my dream, I was working with two incredibly overweight women who would just sit in chairs and eat and gossip, even though they were supposed to be helping me watch all these kids. (Please don't hate me for judging these women... they were in my dream and I don't think my conscious self would ever intentionally criticize or judge a woman's weight or eating habits. I know how hard it is...) For some reason, we were watching all of them at my parents house (I have no clue where my parents were) and the two women were sitting in lawn chairs on the deck. The kids were just running around and I was really worried about any of them getting lost since we have a dense wood behind our house. So I'm running upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, all around trying to keep the kids happy and occupied. Fortunately, the weather is beautiful (summertime!) outside.
I guess something went wrong, despite my efforts. I was back in Manassas near my own apartment and I had just bought a kid an ice cream or something before I was to take them back to their parents. The kid seemed really happy and I didn't say/do anything wrong... but then he (or she?) suddenly turns and shoots me in the stomach. I fell to the ground and the kid ran away. I knew I wouldn't die, but as I lay there curled up in a ball, my first thought was covering up the wound so no one could see it. Now, this isn't really easy to do when you're just wearing a t-shirt and jeans cause it's summertime (as opposed to the billion of layers in the winter) but I think I managed for a little bit. I walked some more, past a group of youngish boys playing near the road. As I passed, one of them shot me too, but this time in the chest. Both core shots (think target practice outlines) and the loss of blood should have killed me (maybe the caliber was too small?) but it didn't. I wasn't even particularly afraid of dying. I was just embarassed of being shot and didn't want anyone to know about it. I ran the rest of the way home, clutching my chest and stomach so no one would see me bleeding to death.
Dreams again
I wrote the last post this morning about a dream I had last night. This post is about a dream I had the night before.
I don't typically dream that I'm floating anywhere (some people do, but in a more abstract way. My dreams tend to be very detailed and realistic.) Anyway, in this dream, I'm in the ocean. The water is very blue and clear and quiet. I'm probably about 15-20 feet down... deep enough that it's starting to get dark, but not so deep that I can't still see the sun rays refracting through the surface. I'm swimming around and I look to my left and I see my friend (whose name I will leave out for her sake) swimming next to me. I didn't notice at first, but come to realize that she is completely naked. (Think art, not eroticism, please.) She is completely genderless--her body is not male or female (though I keep using the female pronoun because, in real life, she's still a girl.) She has an intensely serious expression on her face and I get the idea that there's something I'm supposed to know, but I don't. I start to get really scared... not because I'm afraid of drowning, but because of the darkness that so closely surrounds me and that there's something I'm meant to know but I can't understand it. I feel afraid and also a bit like a failure for not knowing.
I told my friend (the one from this dream) about it and she gave a few possible meanings, but mostly she asked me what I felt. I told her that I mostly felt afraid and ashamed. Then she asked me what I looked like. To my surprise, I didn't know. I hadn't thought of it, but in my dream, I didn't have a gender either. But more than that, I didn't have a race, ethnicity, religion, height, weight, or maybe even a physical body. Mostly, I didn't have an identity. I was just an existence, swimming in this ocean near where the darkness begins, feeling afraid and ashamed of something I didn't know.
I don't typically dream that I'm floating anywhere (some people do, but in a more abstract way. My dreams tend to be very detailed and realistic.) Anyway, in this dream, I'm in the ocean. The water is very blue and clear and quiet. I'm probably about 15-20 feet down... deep enough that it's starting to get dark, but not so deep that I can't still see the sun rays refracting through the surface. I'm swimming around and I look to my left and I see my friend (whose name I will leave out for her sake) swimming next to me. I didn't notice at first, but come to realize that she is completely naked. (Think art, not eroticism, please.) She is completely genderless--her body is not male or female (though I keep using the female pronoun because, in real life, she's still a girl.) She has an intensely serious expression on her face and I get the idea that there's something I'm supposed to know, but I don't. I start to get really scared... not because I'm afraid of drowning, but because of the darkness that so closely surrounds me and that there's something I'm meant to know but I can't understand it. I feel afraid and also a bit like a failure for not knowing.
I told my friend (the one from this dream) about it and she gave a few possible meanings, but mostly she asked me what I felt. I told her that I mostly felt afraid and ashamed. Then she asked me what I looked like. To my surprise, I didn't know. I hadn't thought of it, but in my dream, I didn't have a gender either. But more than that, I didn't have a race, ethnicity, religion, height, weight, or maybe even a physical body. Mostly, I didn't have an identity. I was just an existence, swimming in this ocean near where the darkness begins, feeling afraid and ashamed of something I didn't know.
Dreams
I haven't posted in a while, and I'm sorry to just sorta jump into a topic without explaining my prolonged absence. Really, I've just been too lazy to write. Lazy and uninspiration are a lethal combination for the scribically inclined. (Scribically? Did I make that up? That's fucken awesome...)
I am somewhere between narcolepsy and insomnia right now. I sleep, but only because I drug myself into doing so, and I wake up frequently in the night due to a combination of highly psychologically intense, mellow, or straight up scary-as-shit nightmares (those are usually the times when I've stopped breathing while sleeping... yes, sleep apnea. No, I haven't been to a doc about it. Give me $25 copay and I'll get back to you.)
Last night I had a dream that I was in an academic building, and whenever the professor of the classroom I happened to be in said something disturbing, I would get up (like a ghost) and wander the halls and stairs of the school. I say like I ghost because, while I don't remember being able to go through walls, I had an inexplicable feeling of being invisible... and probably intangible. Finally, I wandered to the mental health clinic because one professor had implied that I should go. Again, my physical (conscious) body wanted nothing to do with this, so it was up to ghost body (or, perhaps another personality?) to take me there. The mental health clinic was in the basement of the building. I tried to be as discreet as possible when entering; fortunately, people politely did NOT stare at me and play Guess-the-Psychosis with me when I stood at the reception desk getting the forms I needed. I sat down near a few guys (because I just absolutely DO NOT sit next to females in an otherwise empty room anymore.) I noticed that the guys I was sitting next to were actually young, emotionally disturbed boys between the ages of 14 and 22. Chronologically they were much younger than me, but I'm not sure that that's relevant since physically (and probably emotionally/psychologically) we probably weren't that far apart. I think that the reason these boys were there wasn't so much that they needed help (they did) but because they needed to learn to ask for help... to identify when areas of their life were impaired by their mental health and to be able to do something about it before they hurt themselves or others. (Shit... and I hadn't even read my psychology book in weeks!) Then, there was one guy who looked about my age (24) who was apparently leading this sharing session. I hadn't realized that actually all the boys of this group had to read what they were feeling and experiencing to the group. Everyone was scared about being judged by the other boys, but somehow, they all knew this would happen so they just sucked it up and were honest (I think) with the group about what was going on with them. I didn't share mine because, like with the professors before, I turned back into a ghost and listened to, but did not interact with, the group for a few minutes. Then I started to leave. But one of the doctors or nurses yelled for me to come. How did she see me?!? I pretended not to hear, but she told me that I had manic depression and, if I didn't stay and get help, that it would morph into the most severe kind of depression (implied: the kind were the only 'recovery' is usually suicide...) Damn.
I woke up as I pushed open the doorway to the stairs... ignoring the nurse's warnings.
I am somewhere between narcolepsy and insomnia right now. I sleep, but only because I drug myself into doing so, and I wake up frequently in the night due to a combination of highly psychologically intense, mellow, or straight up scary-as-shit nightmares (those are usually the times when I've stopped breathing while sleeping... yes, sleep apnea. No, I haven't been to a doc about it. Give me $25 copay and I'll get back to you.)
Last night I had a dream that I was in an academic building, and whenever the professor of the classroom I happened to be in said something disturbing, I would get up (like a ghost) and wander the halls and stairs of the school. I say like I ghost because, while I don't remember being able to go through walls, I had an inexplicable feeling of being invisible... and probably intangible. Finally, I wandered to the mental health clinic because one professor had implied that I should go. Again, my physical (conscious) body wanted nothing to do with this, so it was up to ghost body (or, perhaps another personality?) to take me there. The mental health clinic was in the basement of the building. I tried to be as discreet as possible when entering; fortunately, people politely did NOT stare at me and play Guess-the-Psychosis with me when I stood at the reception desk getting the forms I needed. I sat down near a few guys (because I just absolutely DO NOT sit next to females in an otherwise empty room anymore.) I noticed that the guys I was sitting next to were actually young, emotionally disturbed boys between the ages of 14 and 22. Chronologically they were much younger than me, but I'm not sure that that's relevant since physically (and probably emotionally/psychologically) we probably weren't that far apart. I think that the reason these boys were there wasn't so much that they needed help (they did) but because they needed to learn to ask for help... to identify when areas of their life were impaired by their mental health and to be able to do something about it before they hurt themselves or others. (Shit... and I hadn't even read my psychology book in weeks!) Then, there was one guy who looked about my age (24) who was apparently leading this sharing session. I hadn't realized that actually all the boys of this group had to read what they were feeling and experiencing to the group. Everyone was scared about being judged by the other boys, but somehow, they all knew this would happen so they just sucked it up and were honest (I think) with the group about what was going on with them. I didn't share mine because, like with the professors before, I turned back into a ghost and listened to, but did not interact with, the group for a few minutes. Then I started to leave. But one of the doctors or nurses yelled for me to come. How did she see me?!? I pretended not to hear, but she told me that I had manic depression and, if I didn't stay and get help, that it would morph into the most severe kind of depression (implied: the kind were the only 'recovery' is usually suicide...) Damn.
I woke up as I pushed open the doorway to the stairs... ignoring the nurse's warnings.
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