Interpret this

Heatstroke. I get heatstroke from the inside. Do you know what that is like? It feels like I'm on fire, but I'm not. I ate too much yesterday, so I have to go to the gym and work out a little extra with the cardio exercise. Just want to work off bad conscience and guilt. I buy fitness magazines and try to get some advice. Don't know if it's any good advice though. And I know I'm doing it wrong by starving and exercising at the same time. But I do it to lose weight fast.

They say you shouldn't starve because you'll gain the weight again when you go back to eating normally again. Bwah, they are so generalising! I won't go back to eating "normally" since I don't want to and I never have. Even if I would I wouldn't do it over night, but slowly eat more and more, careful as fuck not to gain the weight again. I will never allow myself to get that fat again. Ever.

I wonder what it's gonna look like when my nipples fall off. Whenever that will be. The part of the scar I can see around them is about the same colour my nipples were in before the surgery. They will of course become paler with time, the scars, so maybe I'll tattoo there or something. I don't know. Gonna meet my surgeon again sometime in the summer, so I'll see what's the verdict.

Ugh, I have this feeling that someone's watching me right now, since I got back home from my family's place. Not with video cameras, but sort of magically, or astral somehow. It's weird. Anna says I'm just crazy and that only schizo's believe that stuff. It's a nice interpretation coming from an imaginary person...

I've had a few rough days with mild symptoms. I've seen messages directed to me (from car registration plates, street signs and in magazines), felt watched and that people are reading my thoughts. Shadows in the corner of my eye, something strange in the air, like ghosts or something. No voices other than Anna's and no real hallucinations though. I've been balancing on the edge between sanity and insanity again.

Oh, by the way. Sex change happening in the autumn!* Then I will (hopefully) be reassigned to legally male and get my new personal identity number and all that. My dream come true. Get a new ID-card. It's about time, it's broken and all already, even though it has one more year before it expires. Last time I got a new ID-card was right after my name change. Didn't think it would take four more years until I had to get a new one again... kinda hoped it would be sooner.

Don't know how I could have forgotten that was said during my meeting in Huddinge before. I've been thinking so much about K that I hardly think of or remember anything else. My mind is a mystery...



*I know I shouldn't use the words "sex change" because my gender has always been male, even though I was assigned female at birth, it's just that I find it simple to say.

1998

I just realised that I don't remember anything from year 1997. Maybe because everything happened during the year after. When everything changed, forever. Did you know I was raped twice? Though it's hardly a record and nor should it be. It just popped up in my head right now, as I was thinking about the number 97 which is one of my favourite numbers.

Rape, sexual assault. It changes you. And I was so young in 1998. Just nine years old. Did I ever have a childhood? I ask myself. I's almost like I was born unhappy and then people went and made my life even crappier. It's not so strange I hated elementary school. But my hatred towards it wasn't actually directed to schools as such, cause I really liked going to other schools later on. I guess I just hated my class and school mates back then. They weren't so friendly.

They did that to me. Children, younger than I was. Though I can't even remember all of it. Don't remember how the rest of that day went by, how I felt directly after. I don't remember the rest of the day my second rape happened either. I wonder why. My mother remembered it though. Apparently I was kinda upset.

I guess I just like ranting about the horrible things I went through. Maybe it's a way of facing it, of dealing with it. Maybe I am just crazy and find pleasure in reliving the truly unpleasant. I fantasise about it, how it could have gone differently. For the worse and for the better. Trying to get some perspective. Trying to understand what actually happened, why it happened. How they must have thought and felt. What went through my rapists' minds when the did what they did? Did they think they didn't harm me, or were they cruelly aware of it?

Wonder why I didn't defend myself the second time, in 2007. I knew karate for fucks sake. And I just lied there and took it. I don't understand why. Maybe my fear just paralysed me. So much for learning self defence.

And it just brings me down. How fragile I am, so easily broken. And I wonder if it could happen again, cause I have a feeling that it will happen again someday. I don't know why, but it's like I think the world isn't done fucking me around. At least it gave me Anna as a sad act of forgiveness or something. Cause I still think this is why she came to me. PTSD with dissociation, or DID. My best bet so far as to why I have a split personality. The whole of me split into two people. And most of you only know half of me.

Don't be your own therapist, you just end up getting more entangled in the memories of your traumas. But they're just memories now and they can't hurt me. My scars that will never fully heal. I don't think I've ever heard of another rape victim who's moved on completely from their experience/-s. Cause maybe it just isn't possible.

Open

I'm bored and can't think of anything to do or write about. Should look into my autobiography again. Been starting to write about last year. Since a lot of shit happened then I put it in a chapter for it alone. Dreading when I'll have to read it all (all of it) through and edit things, put the chapters in a decent order and see if I've missed something important or of there's something I want to delete. Probably gonna take me days. But I will finish it someday, I promise!

I don't intend to shock people with my story, but it might appear that way cause it's gonna be pretty graphic. I just want to get my story out. Though I'm not including absolutely everything, just as much as I'm comfortable with, and that is a lot.

Some people might not realise that, that I'm comfortable with sharing even my darker thoughts and things that I'm apparently supposed to be embarrassed over. I've always been like that, even when I was bullied I wasn't afraid of making a fool of myself. There are very few things that are too personal for me to discuss openly, or at all, and I can easily count them on one hand.

Some things that I've done, thought or felt. Things no one would even want to know about, or even if they would want to know they would most definitely not like it. Most of what I carry around is darkness with a few exceptions, but those things that I hide... they're pitch black.

Maybe that's just the way it is. That if I was more inhibited or cautious about how open I am, I would have less to hide, and the other way around. That maybe because I'm so comfortable being open about my trans identity, the rape I went through, self harm, mental illness, the bullying, suicide attempts and so on; I have to hide even darker things. Like no matter how open you are about your bad sides, you still have something that is even worse inside you that you don't want anyone else to know about.

No one is completely open because of this. We all have our levels of tolerance, like how much of our insides we can tolerate for the world to see. I happen to have very high tolerance, but I think that is only because I know I can draw the line further to easier hide what is really worth hiding. I'm not just talking law breaking, I'm talking really awful things.

Yeah, there is something that is nagging at me there, wanting to tell but it's like I just can't. Want to push that tolerance even further, be open about exactly everything. And then that crap just showed up from deep in my memories last summer, and I suddenly understood why I've always been a bit uncomfortable around cops. I've been good these last few years at least, so I don't have anything to hide from then on... So yeah, that recent. 2011 I think. My god, what the fuck was up with that year!?

Some years of my life, just saying. Those are: 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. I'm starting to see a pattern... so what atrocities are gonna happen to me next year then? There's always something new that sort of strikes me like a lighting from a clear sky, so with a little anticipation I'll look forward to 2015 to see what more crap I'll be getting. Yes, I said anticipation. I'm ambivalent about my future.

But as I said, I'm open about almost everything. I'm comfortable talking about things people don't want to hear. I discuss deeply personal stuff at the dinner table. I'm the one who opens up at a party even before I get my first drink. The only reason I've been holding back IRL lately is because I know people become uncomfortable with me sharing absolutely everything like it's perfectly normal. I'm trying to add in some decency in my life, though I'm not a very decent person and I don't live a very decent life.

Wow, this became a very long entry about openness. The bottom line is that I don't know where to draw the line. Of what is okay or not okay to share about my life. I never tell other people's secrets or even things that I don't know if they are secret or not. You just have my trust completely even if we're just acquaintances. I will take your secrets with me to the grave.

It's when it comes to myself that I just can't keep my mouth shut. It shouldn't be a problem - cause how the hell can being so very open about oneself be a problem? - but it is. Not necessarily a problem I'll take into consideration, but still. People can be embarrassed because of me or even ask me to shut up. Sorry guys, but it's my fucking life and if you don't want to hear it, just shut your fucking ears.

Worth living for

I wish the crew would stop complimenting my hair. Seriously, they've been doing that almost constantly from when I started bleaching it in January. Sure I like getting a compliment every so often, but this is getting ridiculous. What are they trying to achieve? Making me indescribably happy?

I started to scratch myself uncontrollably under the bandage early this morning, half not aware of what I was doing. Not supposed to do that, and I know that in an awaken state, but it's different when I'm half asleep.

I do all sorts of things that I wouldn't normally do then. It's strange, but also understandable. That I'm less inhibited in a way. But it's annoying when I do things that might interfere with the healing process.

My muscles are sore after yesterday's work out. It's annoying and the part I dislike most about exercising. Not quite enjoying it the way most people seem to do. So I'm gonna take it easy today, just gonna have a little walk soon enough. Need to buy vegetables, bread and cigarettes. Mostly it hurts in my shoulders and arms, so a walk couldn't possibly hurt. Not that it would either way though.

But despite the pain it still feels good to finally have gotten myself to the gym. Only took me about three years... Seriously, I think the last time I set my foot in such a place was in Gottsunda during 2011. But then I lived in my parents' house for a year after that, and there were no gyms or likewise facilities nearby. And then I just talked about it for almost two years.

I really hope I'll keep this up now and not get lazy again. As of now my motivation is on top, but of course it can change with time. So hoping it won't. I just won't allow myself to give up again, cause I so need to live now. More than just being alive, I need to actually live my life. It would be so pointless otherwise. Like just wasting air instead of using it, or taking up space instead of needing it.

Living without hopes must be the most painful thing I've ever experienced. What people say isn't possible, that you'd always have hopes left if you're still breathing, but it's not true. I'm living proof that isn't true. But now I have hopes, lots of hopes and dreams and goals in life. Still scared to fail them, still overly cautious about them and always watching my step so that I won't shatter them. But they keep me alive, cause now I depend on them.

Can't just leave it alone

I've noticed something. When people don't understand what someone is saying they rather maim them than try to understand. I'm reading up on some threads in a favourite online forum, and there's a new member there. That doesn't happen every day, it's still a rather small community. I say "still" because I've been a member there since just a few months after it was created, somewhere in either 2009 or 2010. Can't remember exactly.

Anyways, this new member seem to have a rough time trying to "fit in" with the established group and jargon there. (Maybe this is why there comes new members so seldom there?) I think I understand her just fine, but everyone else are so mean to her. I don't know what to say, cause I don't think I can explain what it is that I understand that the rest of the members quite obviously don't.

They are always so sensitive there and seem to have a hard time accepting new ideas and thoughts about things discussed there. I won't say which forum it is, but maybe some of you know which it is that I'm talking about. I like that forum, I really do, but sometimes it tends to become a little... elitistic.

I've obviously learned the jargon there since I'm one of the veterans, but I get tired of it sometimes. That I have to keep certain things to myself because I'm afraid they will start hacking on me too. Some subjects are just to be avoided in some situations, and some are to be avoided in all situations.

Many of my friends seem to think alike, and maybe cause that was the way I thought back when we became friends. Heavy on the "was" there. I change a lot and quicker than most people around me. I'm a like a sponge to new information and leave a lot of my opinions open for discussion, open for change. Thus, my personality is not fixed as would be the general way to exist.

I would not say it's hard to keep the friends I've had for a long time, it's more that I get more and more careful with what comes out of my mouth. Even when I'm drunk. Cause I don't want to create fights over my changed opinions and let them know that all of a sudden we're not so alike anymore. Cause I don't care about that. Being alike is not an important thing for me when it comes to friends. Keeping good friends is important.

Like my mother I encourage differences, cause that can make you grow as a person and you have something to discuss. But I also know that most people don't seem to share that opinion. Not really, not when it comes down to it. People want to have the same political views, the same religion or the lack there of, the same taste in music, same style of choice and so on. I can take a little battle over why I like a certain music artist that I'm not "supposed" to like. I can explain why I don't want to be a vegetarian and that's okay too and even kinda necessary. And I'm willing to talk about why I'm a Satanist and why I don't like Christianity as well. But I am open minded about religion, I really am.

But what I don't want to go into all the time is why I dislike the general idea of feminism, why animal rights are so boring to listen to, why I don't believe in a criminal justice system and so on. Things like that are just too exhausting to go into a battle with. And what's the point? Why would I feel a need to justify my beliefs? To get followers? I know there are people who agree with me somewhere out in the world, however insane or criminal they are, I'm not alone with my views. And even if so, what does it matter? Wouldn't that be sign of insecurity? And I'm not insecure, I'm just careful. Could be killed for less, you know.

Nah, I don't feel a need to bring it up. Not really and not all the time. Though sometimes it can be important to speak up if I feel a bit suffocated in a room full of people all agreeing on something I do not. Because my opinions are allowed to exist as well.

Well, back to the topic. I sense that that new member in that forum is a bit like me in a way. That she too has opinions that are a bit obscure or simply just different from the forum's jargon. And she gets maimed for it, because people refuse to understand and continuously reed between the lines and get offended for no good reason. They are so easily offended, it's tragic. I believe they have all right to be, but come on, you're human beings just like everyone else, you don't have to take everything personal all the time.

She has strong arguments, opinions that she has the right to have, but keeps getting misunderstood and I don't know if I should try to "rescue" her from the crowd. I'm not good at that, but I have done so a few times in previous situations. My motivation is that I simply care for outsiders, because I was like that too not so long ago, and I know what it's like to feel everyone is against you. 

I guess my reputation on the forum is important as well and I also guess I'm a bit afraid of becoming misunderstood myself if I do so. I have to think up a good argument that will be as solid as I can make it, without offending anyone. Wish me luck...

Changes

Slept fairly well tonight. Apart from the dreams about embarrassing conversations, illegal immigrants, molested nuns and a guy torturing someone.

So how long am I gonna have nightmares for? It feels like I don't really get any rest from sleeping, like I wake up exhausted in need for some real rest. Though I know that they reflect the fears that I carry. Fears for the present and the future.

What are my fears? I'm not sure. But I think it's about the complications after my surgery, of not passing, of never being able to be anywhere close to happy, about dying. Those are the general, I suppose. The biggest fears that haunt me today.

Anxiety about what may or may not happen. How things will turn out and how long it's gonna take, what is out of my power. I rarely fear what is in my power to change, things that I can change. I'm willing to change now, just give me the possibility to do that.

It's like I think I have the means, but not able to use them. Like I know what to do but have to wait until I can do it. The thought has occurred to me, that maybe I'm willing to take the risks and start anyway, without waiting. Cause I've waited too damn long already.

We'll see what I'll do, if I can figure it out. Cause I've gotta change, while the energy is still in me, before I collapse and give up again. I don't want to allow that to happen, but it's not that simple. It just happens, you know. And I want to remember this year as the year when I finally turned things around. Yes, this year, not the next or the one after that.

If that means beating odds or risking things, I don't care. So be it. There are always risks, with everything that is worth fighting for. But is my life worth fighting for? Well, technically it's the only thing I have to fight for, and that's enough of a reason. I'm done waiting.