* Flashback to June, 2018 *
This post is especially hard for me to write. As someone who has been working in emergency medicine for 25 years, I’ve developed a…let’s just call it a “less than flattering” view of people who commit suicide. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I’ve done CPR too many times. I’ve comforted a screaming mother too many times. And I’ve definitely shoved a stomach tube down someone’s mouth way too many times so we could try to pump out the pills before they could be digested and possibly kill the host. I thought they were cowards, taking the easy way out. Until now.
My egg had indeed cracked. I see the significance of that statement now. I’ve described this as having a dam that had been holding back the water for forty years, and now a crack had developed. The water was coming, the crack was getting bigger, and any moment now, the shit was certainly going to hit the fan.
I had never truly experienced anxiety before, at least not the kind of anxiety that was life changing, crippling, and debilitating. Add to that the depression that seems to go hand in hand with the anxiety. Wow…where the hell had this anger and rage come from?
It is amazing how the simplest things that most people can just simply laugh off were now catastrophic. I’ll try to keep it short (too late?) with one example, which unfortunately wasn’t an isolated incident. My short term memory has always been horrible. I would often remind myself on my way out the door to grab my sunglasses, then I’d walk right by them and not realize it until 10 minutes down the road when the sun hits my face. In the past, I’d just blow it off…not anymore.
“You’re a f***ing idiot! How could you be so stupid?!” I’m screaming this at the windshield as if the idiot looking back from the rear view mirror had some sort of explanation, or at least would be able to say, “they’re in the center console, dumbass!” No such luck. This was quickly followed by anger, and RAGE. Rage so intense that I would pull over into a parking lot, scream at my stupidity and half-mindedness, pounding the steering wheel of my truck, yelling until my throat hurt. It sometimes took me 5-10 minutes to calm down enough to pull back on the road, but then I’d spend the rest of the day obsessing over my ineptitude.
My poor children. I have two wonderful loving boys, who were 9 and 10 when I was going through this, and my 10 year old has Asperger’s. I was such an ASS! I would yell at them with the kind of volume and timbre that would make a child’s joints ache. It still pains me to remember how I would leave my fragile 9 year old wailing after I’d dished out a verbal lashing that even R. Lee Ermey would think was too much. Especially when I wasn’t even yelling because my son needed it. I was yelling because I needed it, and he was an innocent victim. Even now, I cringe and get emotional when I remember the sound of his cry. It was the sound of pain, pain that I inflicted, and still haven’t forgiven myself for.
How the hell do you stop something when you’re not completely sure what started it? What’s the answer? Is dying the only answer? Is a bullet the only way to stop this torture? I couldn’t believe the thought had even emerged, but there it was. For the first time in my life, I actually contemplated suicide as an option. I can’t be transgender. I can’t put my family through this. My wife would be better off not seeing her husband become her wife. My children need their dad, my parents need their son, my brother needs his brother. If I can’t be those things for them, then what good am I? Right? RIGHT???
Thank God for my family. Thank God for my friends, and the friends I call family. If not for the love I have for them, and the love they have for me, the thought of suicide as an answer might have lasted longer than the few seconds that it did. By the end of the week, I had spoken with 3 different therapists over the phone, and was on my way to see the one I felt the strongest connection with. She literally saved my life, even though she told me something I wasn’t sure I was ready to face. I finally accepted what I’ve known to be true ever since the day I was so jealous of another girl’s dress in Kindergarten. I’m a Transgender Woman. As soon as she started to refer to me with she/her pronouns, I lit up. It felt so good, and so right!
If you ever feel like suicide is the answer, it isn’t!! Please contact one of the following organizations if you feel there is nowhere else to turn.
Trans Lifeline is a national trans-led 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to improving the quality of trans lives by responding to the critical needs of our community with direct service, material support, advocacy, and education. Our vision is to fight the epidemic of trans suicide and improve overall life-outcomes of trans people by facilitating justice-oriented, collective community aid.
US: 877-565-8860
Canada: 877-330-6366
The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25.
1-866-488-7386