Just a name

I still can't say my old name (the one I was given at birth) in my head. Can't even think of it. And still, if I meet someone with that name I react to it. Like ice through my back. I'm not comfortable telling it to anyone who didn't know me already from before I picked the name I have now. I did once and I regret it, but it just slipped out cause I was pushed to tell.

Friendly, jokingly, but still pushed. If any of you think that it's okay to do that, it's not. It's not okay to force a transperson to tell the name they were given at birth if they're not comfortable with that. No matter how damn curious you are. It can cause tremendous anxiety and it can be very triggering. I don't want to be associated with that name. It's like a curse or something.

Like what's the big deal, it's just a name, right? I honestly don't know, to tell you the truth. It is just a name, but there's something more to it, something I can't really put my finger on. To me, it's a bit like I think if someone knows that name they would think of me as a girl. That they would think that's who I really am. But I'm not that person.

I hated that name always. I hated my parents for giving me it. I was uncomfortable with it throughout my childhood and teens. Wanted to change it, so eventually I came up with another female name: Kazanndra. That was the girl I tried to be. The girl in drag that was supposed to be me. I could be Kazanndra for a while, but the name I was given at birth, I never was that person. Ever.

So maybe it sits a bit deeper for me, that I can't even breathe my old name in syllables on a piece of glass without getting anxiety. Cause I hated it all along and it wasn't just because I'm trans. My parents told me that I was that name, no they implied it, but also literally.

It was a bland and boring name without any sort of feeling to it. It was like air, any girl or woman in the entire world could have it. Everyone but me and I was the one who was it. I did not want to be my name, so one of the reasons why I picked my name was that it was an act of rebellion that I took a name that is also a bland name that any guy could have - because it is just a name.