When I was 14, I sat alone in my Scranton bedroom, looking at the brick building directly outside my bedroom window, spending day after day losing track of time. I was cyberschooled throughout much of my youth, and so would often stare at the same four walls. Time goes slow when you’re left alone in a room. Ever since puberty, I had felt progressively more numb, more disconnected from my body and my surroundings than I already was. I simply existed as a passive vessel watching my own body move, my own life unfurl in front of me.
Their childhood was unfulfilling and boring, most likely because they were poor and had a single mother. At first they blamed this on homeschooling/cyberschooling because they imagined via television that going to school is as fun and exciting as it is in fiction. They will later gain more independence and still not be happy (because they are still poor and possibly depressed) and so they will shift the blame from 'no school fun' to 'the wrong body', when in fact being a girl or a boy would have zero impact on this phase of their life. In short, their childhood was pretty average.
I never could understand why—my mother would often scream at me that I was just a lazy failure, and so I figured that must be the reasoning. There couldn’t be anything else. She’d often reprimand me for the smallest mistake, threaten me with physical violence, and humiliate me in front of family and friends, so when she would often rant about how trans people are “mentally ill,” I never dared to even consider that I might be a part of that group, because I couldn’t bare what that would mean for me.
They are omitting information here. Although it's possible that their mother is simply unstable (they are, so it may run in the family), the far more likely answer is their sluggish nihilism and externalization of blame for those feelings resulted in them never showing any ambition and just lazing around the place. They quite likely also complained about boredom and a feeling of useless/emptiness, which would have frustrated her more. Assuming a non-crazy parent, the 'screaming' probably started out gentle suggestions and encouragement that were all ignored. She very likely reprimanded this person for normal mistakes, in the normal way you reprimand your child, including spanking. Because at this point they'd already developed a persecution complex and determined it was the rest of the world at fault instead of them, this normal discipline becomes "humiliating me in front of family and friends".
She also, most certainly, did not rant and rave unprompted about trans people in the middle of scolding this person. They are omitting that by this point they have already started to blame their depression and feeling of listlessness on 'maybe it's just because I'm not in the right body' and have made mentions and suggestions of this nature toward their mother, at least to test it out. If you weren't already playing around with the idea of genderfluidity, it would never occur to you to be scared of being one because of your mother's staunch disapproval of those. This would be like having a racist mother and being afraid of being black when you're clearly white. Alternatively, it came up maybe one time and the writer is blowing it out of proportion to make for a more 'dramatic' story.
Nonetheless, I found my way to the trans corner of the internet, and slowly did the pieces come together. I began to put together who I was and what that meant for me. I’m transgender! These words began to fit together into a cohesive sentence, and I began to feel a new spring of joy when my new friends would refer to me as she and her, as they let me try out name after name, and as I began to find out, for the first time, who I was. Maybe, just maybe, I could even start to transition.
They were already on tumblr in the previous conversation, because they've been on the internet basically their whole life. Tumblr just lured them over from lightly considering the subject to full on deep dive (one-sided) research and consideration. Tumblr told them that transitioning was the source of all of their problems in life and if they could only live their true self all of the boredom and mundanity they experienced in life would be gone, because they would then be special and different. As soon as they began to dabble with this, they immediately received extreme positive reinforcement from the people on Tumblr. As happens with literally any severe life change when you're feeling depressed (quit your job, start a new job, pick up a new hobby, get a new lover, break up with your current lover, move houses, buy a shiny) this caused an immediate period of elation and dopamine for them, which
seemed to clear up their depression and make all the things right in their world.
My first step on this journey had to be coming out to my mother.
I never directly told her that I’m trans, but she did find out and try to force me through a home-brew conversion therapy. Continuous attempts were in place to convince me I was delusional, that I wasn’t trans but just vying for attention, or making a scheme to sabotage her social position. In her world, I was a confused young man, someone who was a broken machine in need of fixing.
They began crossdressing and acting strangely, and the mother who was probably a bit too neglectful and absent in their childhood immediately recognized what had happened - too late - and attempted to correct their behavior. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that the source of this was the internet, and so didn't cut it off form them and her attempts to steer them away from their source of back pats and dopamine failed. They had already villainized their mother in the past and blamed her for their problems, so they were unreceptive to anything she had to say and simply continued to victimize themselves to feel better.
As a minor, I ran away several times, once even across state boundaries. Each attempt at escape resulted in me getting caught and set back to square one, pushing me into an intense despair.
The mother was either a bad parent or too busy being a single mother, causing her to lack attentiveness to the degree where their rebellious child managed to run away multiple times. However, there is no way to 'run away' as a minor, so they inevitably were sent back home. Because the world revolves around them, they have no mention of what the mother felt like having their child disappear multiple times, nor what resources were spent or wasted on getting them back home each time. A child literally cannot survive in the world alone, especially one raised in a sheltered environment already mentally unstable, yet they saw themselves as a victim for being sent back to safety over and over. They also have such a narrow world view at this point that waiting what is likely no more than 4 years to freely leave is simply too much for them to bear. Very likely Tumblr continues to be a bad influence on them, because a bunch of 14 years olds are trying to give advice to another 14 year old about a life and world they have essentially zero knowledge of.
In the middle of this despair, though, kept that want for freedom, for escape. It carried over to college, where for the first time in my life, I felt truly, genuinely free. I was able to start transitioning, able to finally be who I am. I got a jumpstart on hormones, got my hands on a stable job, and had a small support system. I felt endlessly lucky, like I had actually made it in life.
After reality ensued and transitioning
didn't solve all their problems they fell
right back into a depression where they once again blamed the world and their mother for their own problems. Miraculously as soon as they had another big life change and moved to college that euphoria once again returned, and they believed the world was once again fixed. Because they'd already been trained by Tumblr to blame all bad feelings on not being the right gender, they immediately zeroed in on the trans section of college, meaning they had no opportunity to experience the life change
without associating it with their transitioning. Subtly, they're still living out what they initially believed as a child: that if only they got to go to school like everyone else they'd be having fun.
Much to my dismay, this didn’t last. College is expensive, and even going into it I knew that my funds were limited. Having low funds at such a young age meant low credit, and by the end of the first semester, I ran out of student loans.
Reality ensues once more. Transitioning and back pats don't create money. They've been poor all of their lives, and they continue to be poor. They have no credit because they've never had credit and their mother certainly has poor credit. They have zero personal responsibility, and so they never figured out how to get the grants for being poor - or they attempted to go to a college too expensive for those grants (because community college wouldn't let them dorm there) and so they blame college for being too expensive and raining on their parade.
It devastated me—there was no way with my then credit that I would’ve been able to get more student loans,
and my family was most definitely not reliable nor willing, and so I was out of luck again. I was left with no other options, and felt like I had no choice but to move back in with my family.
They lacked the income to pay for it themselves and disdained their own "too poor" family so much that they refused to ask most of them for any help. If they did ask for help, the help came with the condition that they change some part of their lifestyle or move to a cheaper, more affordable college. Like community college. Because they're incapable of taking personal responsibility or blame, they refused to compromise and instead embraced their persecution complex and dropped out of school.
I started to cope with substance abuse—alcohol, weed, and eventually psychedelics became my escape. I stopped transitioning out of fear of violence from my family, and started spending my time around people who only cared about how much I could drink. I lost track of time, tried to drink myself to death, and began to get especially reckless.
Transitioning no longer gave them the euphoria they wanted, as the high already passed and there was no one around to give it a false boost. They stopped attempting to transition because it didn't give them that happy feeling boost anymore, and predictably turned to alcohol and drugs. Nothing bad has happened to them to trigger this effect, it's merely that they're unhappy and dissatisfied with life and cannot take the personal responsibility to accept what's really wrong and fix it, so they move from psychological triggers for a high to physical ones. In retrospect, because they cannot accept the truth, they characterize this as a traumatic timeframe where they're attempting suicide via drinking. They likely had very little
actual thoughts of suicide: only self pity.
Maybe out of desperation, maybe out of spite, or maybe just from determination, I found it in me to keep looking for a place to live. I dug and dug, putting in countless applications for apartment after apartment. Application fees drained my bank account, and rejection letters came in the mail.
Because they externalize all blame and constantly blame their family and home around them, they became determined that the problem was only where they lived and nothing else, thus became singularly obsessed with 'righting' this by finding another apartment to live in. Because they had no idea what they were doing, they likely constantly tried to get apartments way beyond their income level, causing constant rejections. It's possible they also didn't have a job at all, which makes getting a house
almost impossible. Because they could only see 'must leave house', though, they likely didn't think clearly enough to get a job
first and then leave.
It took a while before stumbling across an opportunity; my childhood home. It was owned by my grandfather, and he was willing to rent it out to me. I only had to deal with my mother’s house for a month while my new apartment got fixed into livable order. At the time, it seemed too good to be true. Did I just completely luck out?
Because they primarily blame their mother for everything wrong in their life, the idea of living in a house without her was basically salvation. It also likely was reasonably high quality enough to meet whatever arbitrary standards they had that kept them from finding any other apartments in the area willing to rent to them.
I underestimated how traumatic being in this house would be.
Their mother is not the source of their problems. They blame it on the house instead.
They do not have PTSD.
and much of my trauma occurred within these four walls; I was in a state of continuously reliving my past experiences. Flashbacks are a constant part of my life, something that became as mundane as brushing my teeth. It didn’t help that I seemed to face bad news after bad news. I spent well over a year there without running water. I lost several cars to accidents or botched repairs.
They suffer from hallucinations and delusions due to their frequent drug use, and between those drug trips are still unhappy with their life. Because it's what they've always done, they twist this into somehow still being their mother's fault, even though she's not even there. They're such a mess that they can't even afford to keep the water on, but refuse to mention it to their grandfather in the rightful fear that they'll be evicted for this. Because they're often high, they get frequent car accidents and they or their junkie friends attempt to repair the car themselves and fail due to lack of skill and sobriety.
The job search was lacking, and what ones I did find were lost from either no transportation or labor safety issues. COVID rates began to spike to new extremes.
Their drunken, drug addled state was so poor that they were unable to keep down a job. Rather than acknowledge they were at fault, they blamed transportation, the jobs themselves, and COVID. Anything to avoid accepting that they are their own worst enemy. Throughout all this, they still don't bother to continue to transition because it isn't giving them the high they want when the rest of their life is actually bad.
Days turned to nights, my vision blocked by the bottom of a bottle. I didn’t escape through healing, but through bong clouds and loud music. I lost sight of what I wanted and where I wanted to be. Refuge was found in what I consumed, and it never ceased to end. I couldn’t count how many times I was blackout drunk, or how often I ran past death’s door. It was a hopeless cycle that I didn’t know, or even care, if I could escape.
Provided the excuse to no longer even try to look for a job via COVID they continue their downward spiral looking for shallow highs and euphoria because they refuse to accept responsibility or try to turn their life around in any meaningful way. The shine from the drugs and alcohol began to wear away as they likely were forced to consume less than they wanted, lower quality, or for less pleasant favors and exchanges than they desired. Their chronic depression begins to catch up to them.
Yet, through the chaos, there was some part of me fighting to keep afloat, to stay and be who I was, to not let myself be consumed by the desire for escape. I couldn’t be myself under that path. Something had to change, because I’d never be free, be myself, if I kept it up. I decided to take the biggest risk yet, and started transitioning again. It wasn’t safe—the new threat of whether I’d get hate-crimed or kicked out for it—loomed over my head, but it paled in comparison to the hell of losing myself.
Unable to blame their mother in a way that felt satisfying to them, and no longer finding their alcohol and drug requirements sufficient to keep up with their emotional needs, they turned right back to the other coping mechanism they've always fallen back on: if only they were a woman
then they would be happy.
I started the process of recovery, ending my time with substances, and instead I started my new journey. It was one of healing and betterment, a long and arduous road, but one that leads to where I always wanted to be. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me on this path. I couldn’t let myself fall back, I had to keep going.
Although they struggled with withdrawals, the endorphins and good feelings they got from "improving themselves" from a problem they created for themselves by breaking away from their substance addictions bolstered the 'new life change' feeling that they got from returning to the "girls never have any troubles in life, if only I were a girl I'd be happy" cope. As usual, the happiness they felt from 'improving themselves' obfuscated the general uselessness of trying to be a girl, and they attribute their happiness to that.
I now live in Virginia. The car ride down was a cold day in the middle of March, snow piling the ground around the vehicle as I sped past mounds of it. I had just been homeless—escaping from the house to couch surf with a couple friends of mine. With help from other friends, myself and my newfound family were able to scrape together enough to rent a house. It felt surreal, being offered this chance at a new life, an ability to start over. It still doesn’t feel real, like a dream I’m going to soon wake up from. I couldn’t really imagine being home free like this ever in my life.
Eventually they were thrown out of the house due to the fact that they didn't take care of it, couldn't pay for it, almost had it condemned, and had started to transition again, and so they leeched off their friends for a bit until someone took pity on them and offered to be roommates. The feeling of traveling to a new place, with a new atmosphere, surrounded by friends who they only know the 'positive' side of, far away from the family they blame for all of their own faults, causes them to be ecstatic and believe that they're about to start a new chapter in life where everything is good and nothing will ever be wrong again.
I watched the car zoom past trees, gradually shifting from a snow-covered climate to one of bright greens. License plates shifted from Pennsylvania to Maryland to West Virginia to Virginia, Google Maps going in tandem, showing each progressive new state being entered. I was watching the old life I had lived, the trauma I had faced, fall into the distance hundreds of miles behind me. I was somewhere new, somewhere I could start over. I was actually able to be myself, and could just exist for once in my life.
They are still in the honeymoon period of moving to a new location, with a new environment, different weather patterns, and around different kinds of people than they've ever been before. They think this means that they're now happy, free from all the things that once held them down and ruined them, and they think the reasons they were unhappy were their family and their male body.
In reality, with in a year or two the shine of their new life will begin to wear down, the friends will show their real faces, and the real world will force its way back into their perception once more. They will then blame the friends around them for being two faced and unreasonable, and attribute their unhappiness to the fact that they haven't gone
more extreme in transitioning, and blame their friends, their family, and the world at large if they cannot afford those surgeries immediately.
They will follow this cycle forever until they run out of excuses and people to blame. At that point they will either realize they are the one at fault and address the root of the problem - including shifting their expectations for life away from the tv shows they watched as child - or as Megaton Punch said, they'll refuse to cope with it and kill themselves when they cannot cope with the realization that they're at fault or go too hard into 'the world is against me and there is no hope'.
They could also go on a violent rampage blaming other people, but that seems unlikely unless they're omitting other violent tendencies in this story.
