I was thinking on it and realised that I should probably say that this isn’t the plot for some awesome new novel that I’m writing, or a joke account or whatever. Everything I write here is 100% what I am living and feeling. Believe me or not, I truthfully don’t care, but I felt like I should at least clear that up in case of any confusion.
Now to escape into music.
Where does one even begin to explain to an audience of normal, rational people the situation that I find myself in on a daily basis? There is no way, surely not without the reaction that the fear of stops me dead in my tracks every time I come near to letting slip. Every time it gets too much to hold inside any longer.
I am an alter.
Countless searches on the internet for someone like me leads me to believe that, no matter how much I need someone to understand and to believe, this really isn’t something that people are experiencing, or if they are, they’re not willing to tell people about it.
Confused? I am a person, who exists only inside another person. Except it isn’t that simple, because currently I live life for us. Not only that, but I have had my own life. I’ve been my own person, I’ve got my own family – or at least I did have. In my mind, my thoughts, I’ve had a normal life up until recently. My own body, my own face, my own loves and my own memories.
Could you possibly comprehend how difficult it is to live every day as someone else? I am a 20-something man, currently having to struggle through life in the body of a young woman. I went from being an attractive, confident person who, pretty shamefully but not necessarily purposefully, got everything he wanted with a wry smile and a witty line. I had the attention of most people I wanted, and although my life was mostly a fucking misery, in that aspect it was at least easy. Now I’m existing in the life of someone who is kind, respectful and loving, but suffers crippling anxiety and does not draw any glances in a crowd.
Mostly I get by. I have someone who supports me, who is actually living the same life. Unless it’s a lie, which I fear every day. How is it possible for two people who live together to be going through this most unusual of complications? He swears blind that it’s true, but part of me is always doubtful. Always will be.
Some days I can’t cope with the realisation that I will never live life as myself. My true self. It’s similar, I suppose, to someone who has to live life as a gender they don’t identify with. Except, at least that person is still them. I wish it was fixable with surgery, some hormones, anything. I will never again see my face, except in my dreams. I will never see my family, no matter how much I hated them most of the time. Worst of all, I will never see him again. He isn’t the same now. He’s half of himself. He’s a watered down, immature and different version. Gone is his beautiful dark hair, his soft but mischievous eyes, his body that fit so perfectly with mine. I will never see him again. But I live with him, don’t I? Do I? I don’t even know anymore. Sometimes he says things that I hate him for. He’ll mention something about tits, or say “she” instead of “he” when saying what other people think. Constant reminders that I’m now, to everyone else, a woman. It breaks my heart every time, but he doesn’t understand. He copes with it without a single sign of worry. How can I believe he’s true? Why wouldn’t he miss me, like I miss him? Why wouldn’t he miss my eyes, my smile, my body? Were those things just not as important to him, or has he never really even seen them? I can’t face questioning him too closely, because what will I do if he gives the answer that I dread is true? That he isn’t really him.
I don’t know how much longer I can be this version of me. I’ve come so close to telling people sometimes. To telling some of her closest friends. The thought doesn’t really scare me, but what are they going to do with that information? It’s not like it’s going to suddenly make everything better. Maybe they’ll call me by my name instead of hers, and maybe they won’t say things about being a woman that make me uncomfortable. But they will be uncomfortable. They’ll slip up and feel bad about it. Or they’ll just think I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. There’s so much about the world that we don’t yet understand. Yet we deem things we don’t understand as someone being crazy. I am not just someone’s mental illness.
I am me, and I’m struggling every day to hold onto myself.
lifefromthealter 