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Thanksgiving?
Why?
We had Thanksgiving at MY house today. 13 or 14 people around the house, chatting, eating, playing with my son's new baby.
All of them smiling, happy.
I asked what we had to be thankful for. The Grand baby, my son's job, the weight I've lost this year (120 pounds, more or less, thank you very much!), the food, everyone was happy on the outside.
Except me.
My family barely tolerates me, though God Forbid they should show it in public. My son says I'm "disgusting. My oldest commands, "don't embarrass us."
So I plaster on the plastic smile I've saved in a kitchen drawer. Cook the turkey, make the dressing, mash the potatoes, make the gravy, and supervise everything else. Everyone's seated in this crazy L shaped table arrangement. Initially I'm at the end of the short leg, out of sight means out of mind, means I can't "embarass" anyone.
So, I'm a good little girl, though Lizzie and I are the only ones who see her. We say grace and everyone does homage to the Great American Pig Out, they're all happy and content, except me, and no one sees. No one really cares.
I'm trying really hard to make peace, to save the splintered shell of a family. My wife looks at me when at day's end when I confess it's been another day in hell, another day of a "life not worth living." She tells me "well you can spend the next fifty years making it better!"
I ask myself in my loneliness, "Better how?" Am I to live another 50 years as a man, living a lie?
My wife, bless her, blithely turns to head upstairs - I'm not allowed in our marriage bed, my amputated leg and Transgender reality are somehow "unclean" and I gently weep to myself as she turns away.
Three years ago, I promised I wouldn't hurt myself to a shattered 16 year old who didn't know which of us would die first after our rash statements of intended suicide. In tears the two of us promised we wouldn't hurt ourselves. Today the same son says I'm disgusting.
So, I eat through my plastic smile, quietly excuse myself and go to my room, my prison. No one asks why, no one comes to see how I'm doing.
I'm sorry I needed to rant, to vent, to contemplate promises made and the futures they hold. Don't worry, my promise still stands, I won't hurt myself.
Still, that's a laugh. I hurt myself everyday with the simple task of living; still that's not what my son made me promise, So I continue living, existing. My life has become an existential null. I continue to exist, but is this living?
I don't THINK, I'm that different than many of you. But on this Thanksgiving, I'm left with the question,
Why?
Comments
What can I say to you?
I am told that there are statistics that say when a person commits suicide, three others will follow them. There are times when that is the only reason that I do not do so myself. Still, there are tools we can learn to rescue ourselves from such dark thoughts. Today, unbidden the darkness swept over me, and I knew that I was in trouble. I contemplated calling one of those crisis lines, but I have to be available to pick up the girls at the airport tomorrow. I feared that if I told them what I was thinking, they'd pick me up shortly after.
Later, I found myself reading about Ferile children, and that somehow distracted me; making the darkness ease. I was alone this thanksgiving, but I also know what it can be like to be alone in the midst of family. I think that a lot of us here do too.
I think that I can not tell you what will solve your problems; ease your pain. I think that you are doing oh so many things right. But there are somethings that need to happen and I can not advise you how to proceed. All I can do is offer my support and love.
I did not have the courage to change my own situation. Providence or God sent a tidal wave into my life and wiped it out, making it NOT REPAIRABLE. For me, it had to happen that way, other wise I would never have done anything. I was prepared to stay with my family, hide who I was, and just prayed that I would die soon. And in a manner of speaking, I did die; at least Gwinn did.
Neither I nor anyone here can take the next step for you. We do love you and can empathise with you. My heart hurts for you. All I can do is pray and hope for your guideance.
I think you are doing a lot of right things. Inshallah, you can get healed up enough to get off the pain meds, because they cloud your thinking.
Much peace
Khadijah
it may sound dumb hon....
but why in heaven's name are you trying to please people who clearly don't give a dam about you? Just because they happened to share blood with you? You deserve better hon, but only you can say "I am being my true self, and if they don't like it, F**** them!" Of course, I am one to talk since i am doing the same dam thing.....
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Yep a hard choice but the alternative?
but I basically decided I had to side with myself or the alternative was suicide and all I could say to myself was 'bullocks' as to why I had to make them happy at the expense of not being myself.
Clearly Beth's family is unwilling to meet her half way, and if I were in her shoes I would tell them to F off. Unfortunately families have this way of getting one to feel selfish for doing something that would somehow 'hurt' them.
Kim