I dont know. transgender experience ramble

its on my mind. im supposed to be mad. or maybe just i was mad and i think i should still be mad about it but. i dont think i do that very often. but theres a problem with it, if i dont stay mad im not gonna feel motivated to fix it, yea? ill just. do what i have always done. i dont know

i wish i was myself to you

i gave you a chance. a choice. three times. but you.. and i was so young and unassertive and scared ...you dismissed it. never even acted like it bothered you again. actually. and you called my name bad. you didnt try very hard at all. it mattered to me. but it didnt matter to you at all. and i guess.. i guess i gave up so quickly. it hurt. i guess i gave in, thinking, if it doesnt matter to you then it must be because it doesnt matter at all. and you arent listening. and you dont care. it must not be a true big deal. im just having fake emotions. and so who cares. i submitted to the idea that i shouldnt bring it up. i gave up like it was nothing. i didnt feel supported by you and i felt alone to deal with it myself and i decided then that you just didnt care.

i dunno. why didnt i say anything until so many years after? maybe i couldve made a difference. i was thinking that maybe, maybe... it was just wrong. how you responded was dismissive, but more importantly, how you continued on like nothing changed, but for me, many things changed. and you just.. acted as though nothing happened. but i cant. i cant. convince myself of it. i had a chance to say something. but i thought you didnt care. so i didnt. i didnt have the gall to stand up to it. it all hurt, i was uncomfortable, it was weird, i felt so alone beside you, i felt like you never saw me, i felt like someone else to you, and you didnt want anything to do with the real me. ...but i didnt say anything. for the longest time. maybe you just got used to it. maybe you forgot. it didnt bother you personally, it seemed, because you could just pretend it wasnt happening. maybe it did, you never said anything. neither did i. i didnt... i didnt press what i needed. i didnt, consistently, make it known how i felt. maybe then, when i told you again so long after, you couldnt look bad and think about all the times it had happened, because i never mentioned them.

i worry that, in it all, i let myself deteriorate. my sense of self withered, completely unacknowledged and suppressed by myself, and somewhat by others, left unstood for. i became so detached from the person people saw, i didnt correct them. i just let it continue. i figured they didnt care about how i felt, what was going on. they would brush it off like you did. i wish i had the confidence to say something despite it. some sense of self, not directly permitted by how other people saw me, if they allowed it, if they agreed. it did not exist when i first brought it up. and i didnt let it grow when it tried to. only now do i try to nurture it.

but.

...but.

when i told you the second time.(or was it the third.. oh man, i dont remember). it was different. i made it clear. it hurt. i told you outright. it hurt. we argued about it.. shouting. crying. it couldve gone better. i guess it doesnt help, when i am trying to express years of hurt, still repressed, and you didnt fucking care.

i gave you a choice, not explicitly. i shouldve been more explicit.

i feel a little guilty. you were talking about your feelings. and maybe i was being selfish about it. i was, i think. its hard to see why i should care about how my NOT A CHOICE was hurting you, versus how your CHOICE was hurting me. it frustrates me. i want to be sympathetic to your hangups. i want to negotiate. but you know whats so fucking funny? i just. i let it slide really. there was no negotiation. i just accepted how it was. and yet there was no righteous anger. you got exactly what you wanted, and i got nothing. there was no compromise

it creates an anger in me now. my throat closes and my chest burns but i feel my shoulders tense. i wish i could scream. i wish i had some release. but i feel like i shouldnt have it. i try to navigate my emotions better these years, but it is difficult when they clog my mind with this fury i feel almost ashamed of. its just an emotion. but its also not just an emotion. it changes things, i fear if i let myself feel it, it will make me a worse person. a biased person. a selfish person, for not seeing both sides clearly. i dont want to be turned into those things from my own...

but at the same time. i am so sad. i am so frustrated. i dont want to be. i wish it was some other emotion like disappointment. maybe i will get there another day

no compromise. i chose to keep suppressing my feelings about it. i knew you didnt care, now, and now, i knew too you wouldnt want to hear it. you get to continue like nothing happened. god it hurts (currently as i write). it brings up so many things that i wish i could shout, yet at the same time, wish i didnt feel. they feel so selfish, and stupid, or childish, and unthought. i hate wishing you would change. i hate the hope, that some day, you would change. that you would respect me. that if i just worked a little harder, if i proved myself, if i was GOOD ENOUGH, you wouldnt treat me like that. i wish you would accept me

i hate my wants. i want to be loved and wanted AS I AM. this part of me i cant change without bringing so much pain back into my life. it brings me fulfillment and happiness and a sense of myself, makes me feel free, and to have it, to decide to let myself have it, to not suppress it, a sense of pride, a sense of maturity, of choice, of direction. agency. and you wish i didnt have it. you want to pretend like it never happened. you would be happiest, YOU WOULD BE HAPPIEST, when i am not myself. when i am back there. depressed and dissociated and away from myself, unable to connect with the ground, disgusted with myself, so gone and so lost and so out of it. to look at myself in the mirror and feel no connection, almost repulsion, that something is so woefully wrong. you would be happiest if i just. submitted.

i just. i dont know. i dont know why i let this happen. why i let it continue. why i love you, why do i love you?? you dont even want me as i am. you want someone else, you pretend you have someone else, you dismiss this part of me that is so integral to my being just so you can pretend its something else. act as though i dont change and dont grow and that, if i was that way once, that i would always be that way. you dont allow me the beauty of life, the beauty of change, in your mind,. the way you see me is not me, the way you refer to me as if today was 10 years ago, and you make no effort to change when i tell you how often it hurts. WHY? WHY? why am i not good enough for you. why do i need you to love me. why do i want you to accept me why do i let it continue just to HOPE. im so. im so tired of hope

im so tired of dragging myself through the mud and snow hoping and wishing and thinking that some day it will change. why do i let it hurt so much KNOWING YOU DONT GIVE A SHIT!! YOU DONT CARE! YOU WONT CARE. im so tired of GIVING YOU ANOTHER FUCKING CHANCE TO TRY. you dont try. you havent been trying. you dont want to change. you dont care what it will do to our relationship. thats what matters most. you dont care

and yet i do

and yet i think that someday you would

i hate it. it makes me.. feel so sad. i know why i want those things. i just. i wish i was enough for myself, for just me, so i wouldnt feel like i need to be accepted by people who never will, just to be worth loving. to be worth it, ever.

it wasnt okay. what you did wasnt okay. maybe it was understandable the first time, even when it hurt. but i did not revert back, it continued to be like this. but when i told you. i told you fucking straight. that it hurt me, that you were hurting me, and you didnt.. you didnt care. when i gave you the choice to care and you chose not to.

it wasnt okay.

and in normal scenarios, when people do that, i have to make the choice. do i want to stay in a relationship where i feel constantly unseen and unlistened to and hurt because its just easier to keep hurting me? the answer is fucking no. you being my mother should not change that.

it wasnt okay. it wasnt fucking okay!!!

i keep saying that, because part of me feels like im not allowed to believe it. like i need some universal permission to have a goddamn boundary and feelings.

but also because, if i believed it, if i stood up for myself in my mind, i would have the gall to change. and that righteous anger that gives me permission to exist