It never rains, but it pours. No sooner had I finished furiously writing out my years-belated and repressed grief for Loryn, than I found out that Faith had also committed suicide. On the second Friday in June. 12 years to the weekday after Loryn. I met Faith here on SitDiary, 18 years ago. Her username was silentears, and her favorite book was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Faith was a poet, an artist, a sculptor, an all-around creative. They were compassionate, loving, a little bit crazy, and absolutely gorgeous. I had the hugest crush on them from the pictures they would occasionally post. We added each other on myspace, livejournal, and eventually facebook, and against all odds, we kept in touch. Sporadically, since we both had our mental health issues and difficulty reaching out. When we were teenagers, Faith and I used to discuss our experiences with mental illness, processing our traumas together across the internet and writing notes and poetry back and forth. We truly understood each other's thoughts and ways of relating to the world. We would constantly talk on AIM, exploring our feelings and how to deal with them, Faith sharing their art that gave such beautiful creative expression to their innermost feelings of pain, hope, love, desire, and wonder. I remember one conversation where Faith told me they didn't remember all the details of some traumatic events, just that certain things had happened and been forgotten. I remember about 9 years ago randomly going to livejournal, though I hadn't in ages, and reading that Faith was pregnant. I remember being so scared for them during that pregnancy, as I knew that Faith had never had the opportunity to have a healthy and stable relationship, and that it would be harder for them to get out of the relationship with their baby's dad, a guy I didn't really trust. I never trusted anyone to be good enough for Faith. Maybe it was because I was secretly in love with them since we were 12 and 13. Faith never regretted having their son, a beautiful and wonderful child who inherited his Mama's love and compassion for others, and who looks so much like Faith. They were such a good mom, always putting in the work and effort to make sure that he felt loved and safe. Until the last few months. A few months back, Faith had a major mental health crisis. Some things in their life were going on, and triggered some of the other things. They got diagnosed with DID after a suicide attempt, and they were working so hard on trying to recover but facing so many obstacles. They still couldn't remember all the details of that trauma we had talked about so many years earlier, and they tried desperately to fill it in. They had a psychotic episode and fought hard to get through and out of it. They were trying to rebuild. Trying to be the Mom and artist and friend they knew they could be. But some part of them was always suicidal, always had been. And at some point, that part of them took control and ended their life. I haven't really had time to process this yet. I was just in the middle of processing this other catastrophe. I am so hurt and broken from all of it, and everything I am going through with all of this just hurts so much. My body physically hurts right now. I miss being broken together. Very few know the pain of dissociative amnesia and can talk about it, the way Faith did with me. It's a cruel and terrible process. The past is stolen from us, and we have to fight every day to hold on to the present, and that shimmering sliver of hope for the future. I am so unfathomably sad that they ended the fight where they did. Diagnosis is the beginning of hope, the beginning of a new era of recovery, but it is always darkest before the dawn. I can't feel any of my emotions right now except as physical pain, because I know it would be too much to bear emotionally. Faith, I love you. I miss you. I hope that I will find both you and Loryn again. I know that my soul knows where to find you.

I never got to tell you I love you. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. You have the only smile I will ever need to see. When you kissed me on the swings with your slightly crooked mouth that so perfectly mirrored my own, it would have been my sexual awakening. But I was being molested at rhe time. The feeling I had in my nether-regions triggered what I didn't know then was a PTSD flashback. I associated sexual pleasure with being taken advantage of by wicked men. I didn't know how to act or what to say to you. I was sure we were both too young to be interested in sex and romance, and you were 3 years younger than me. I wish I had said, would you wait for me? I wish I had said, someday I will be ready to be loved by you in every way. I wish I had said that I fell in love with you the moment I met you, even though at that time I had no idea what sex or romance were. I wish I had told you that one of the top reasons on the list of why I wanted to be a boy when we were little was so that someday I could grow up and marry you. I didn't know about lesbians yet, back then. But I couldn't get any words out with any meaning, so I rambled dumbly, clumsily pointing out that we are too young and I don't even know if I like girls or boys or anyone that way yet. And you cried and ran away. And I came back, either later or the next day, because you were my best friend and I loved you and I was going to tell you about being molested and I was going to ask you to hold my hand and help me tell your dad so he could protect me, since my family had failed. But you had locked yourself in your room and you wouldn't talk to me, and your dad didn't let me go up and see you, even though I begged him and I told him it was important. He said you told him to send me away. And I kept being molested, every time I visited that house where we were neighbors. And I never got to tell you, that's why I stopped coming over. It wasn't because I didn't want to see you. I got so dejected and numb and shut off to the world that I forgot anything existed outside the hell that was home and the hell that became of my second home, the place where I felt safe and alive, the place where I got to see you. And I never undersrood why I so clearly remembered my aunt asking me if I was gay, as we drove past your house. At the time when she asked, I had forgotten that you had kissed me that day on the swings. Everything from that time was so jumbled. I didn't even remember that you lived in that house. I didn't remember that I had a friend who I loved and who loved me. And I told her I wasn't gay. I didn't think I was, anyway. Not at the time. I never got to tell you that our chance backyard meeting, when you were at your grandma's house and I was at some relative's house, just on the other side of the fence, was the happiest moment I had had in months, and having to say goodbye so quickly was the worst I had felt in years. We didn't even have time to exchange phone numbers. Or maybe I gave you mine. But I can't remember if you ever called me. Until you did. And when you called me, I still didn't remember that we had kissed, but hearing your voice flooded me with excitement and then dread. I was so happy to hear from you, but it was so out of the blue, and I had taken a suicide prevention training class in high school because I knew how it felt to want to die and I wanted to help other people survive long enough that we could all get out of our parents houses and start our own lives. When you called me I still lived with my horrifically abusive grandma. I was 19. I must have been 19, because I recently found out that's how old I was when you died. It must have been that night. Because I remember now, though I'd forgotten for many years. I remember hearing so many of the telltale signs, so rapidly. I remember you asked me if I remembered something. I bet the question you asked was if I remembered the time we kissed on the swings. I couldn't remember it then, it would have been too traumatic - I had so suppressed and stuffed and pushed aside my reactions to the sexual abuse of my childhood that anything that reminded me of it in any way had to be locked out of my conscious memory, so I could survive. I remember that I started to tell you, I was going to let it all flood out because I needed to keep you on the phone. I had missed your voice so much. I missed you so much. I said, "to be honest, I can't remember much of my childhood, bec--" and I think you were crying and I tried to say wait please hold on I need to tell you something I need to talk to you I need you I love you but again you ran away and said goodbye so soon. And I ran to the living room and I said, "Grandma I need to borrow the car, it's an emergency" and she said no, and I said "I think my friend is going to commit suicide." And I told her about the warning signs that I recognized from training. I don't know how she stopped me. I was ready to grab the keys and yell "call the cops I don't give a fuck" and sprint out the door to you. But I can't remember what happened. I don't know if I ever had the keys in my hand and if I ever did I don't know how she could ever have stopped me. Maybe I couldn't find them. Or maybe I did find them. She minimized the situation, she said you weren't going to do it. I don't remember how she stopped me. I know I didn't believe her. I remember laying in bed awake all night, scared. I think I tried to *69 you but it didn't work. I didn't have your number. I didn't have your address. I don't know if I called 911. I could have. I might have. I don't remember. I didn't know your address, but I knew the address across the street from you. I don't know what happened. I don't know if I could have gotten there in time. I don't know how you did it. I do know I never heard from you again. I do know you were 16 when you died. It was a Friday the 13th. I don't know why I wasn't at work. I worked on Fridays when I was 19. If I had been at work and missed your call, would your need for closure have prompted you to wait another day? Would you wait for me? I remember not remembering. I don't know when I forgot the terror of that night. Was it when I finally, exhausted, fell asleep under the grey dawn skies? Why didn't I go to your house that night? Why didn't I try to go check on you the next day? Why didn't I find out what happened until 12 years later? I went on living as if it had never happened. I probably went to work the next day. I probably studied for finals that week. Why didn't I look you up, all those years? I mean. I did. But I didn't remember your last name. I didn't remember how you spelled your first name. Even though at your birthday party at the bowling alley I listened to each of your parents explaining the spelling to people and why they chose it and why it was meaningful to them. I remember my aunt making some comment belittling unconventional spellings of common names, but I thought it was cool. I didn't even remember that you were 3 years younger than me, even though I must have known how old you were turning each time I went to your birthday parties. I never got to tell you those were the best parties I have ever been to in my life, to this day. I never got to tell you I wanted to spend every day of my life eating cake with you and showering you with gifts and decorating easter eggs and swinging on the swings even if it was raining and laughing together and admiring your perfect dimples when you smiled. I never got to tell you that you set the foundation for my taste in women and men for my whole life, and I'm pretty sure it's because I always only ever wanted you. I never got to tell you I'm sorry I didn't steal the car and speed directly to your house. I don't know if I would have made it in time. I don't know how you did it. I don't know if it was fast or slow. I know you didn't know I loved you. I think you thought I didn't. I'm so sorry you ever felt that way. I never got to show you I loved you. But I love you. From the moment I saw you I have loved you and I will love you until the day I die. I have missed you since I was about eleven, even when I didn't know it was you I was missing. And I will miss you until the day I die. I stopped being a Christian long ago, but from what I have read, you were Christian when you died. So I prayed to the Christian God and I asked for us to be together in the next life. I begged, and I cried, and I finally started to grieve. Because I remember. I remember now and I hope I never forget again. I love you, Loryn Nicole Anderson. The world has been without you for 12 years and 9 days. I have been without you for about 23 years. I will never stop missing you. At least not until I can see you again. Would you wait for me?

I finally learned the chords to my song The one this journal is named after It only took like 18 years from when I first became obsessed with it Life is strange

The situation: Lost job Held at knife point Fled domestic violence Moved back in with original abuser from childhood Can't afford to declare bankruptcy All accounts in overdraft Still owe student loans Have to return car to bank Can't afford the repossession fee To get it there I will have to drive 80 miles without insurance (canceled as of today due to lack of funds) Denied unemployment Options: Move in with molester instead of abuser Move into a shelter Try and fail to get on disability

I feel like I have to pee, but through my eyes

I get antsy when I think about the fact that I have not yet contribute anything to society or the world at large. It stings more and more the older I get. #27 #27club

I do not want to submit to this capitalism But I do and do and do Social capitalism, socialist capitalism, exile and ostracism You are standing at a railway switch on a platform. A train is coming. It is quickly approaching five people standing on the track. As you realize that you can divert the train, a person falls on the other track. The train will certainly kill anyone it hits. Do you pull the switch? You are standing at a railway switch on a platform. A train is coming. It is quickly approaching five people. They will each lose a toe, and could die. If you pull the switch, a person on the other platform will lose two arms, and you aren't sure if they'll survive. Do you pull the switch? The five people are children, the one person is elderly. The five people are all fat. The one person is an infant. The one person is disabled. The five people are republicans. The one person is your mother. The five people are on your daughter's soccer team. It is illegal to use a railway switch without being licensed and employed by the railroad. You are one of the five. It's now 5 vs 10 people (5 with using the switch). You are one of the five. The one is you. The one is you. The one is you.

in this context, this particular one and some that are mildly qualitatively different, uncertainty is the most terrifying of fears

Immensely.

I lie awake nights thinking of an injection directly to my spine that numbs my pain and creates euphoric oblivion.

Maaaaaajor trigger warning for rape, sexual assault, and child molestation. Sex Acts That Were Imposed Upon Me Without Consent The First Time I Experienced Them: - Kissing - Dry Humping - French Kissing/Making Out - Giving Manual Sex (Handjob) - Giving Oral Sex (Blowjob) - Receiving Manual Clitoral Stimulation - Receiving Oral Sex - Receiving Manual Vaginal Penetration - Receiving Oral Nipple Stimulation - Receiving Tool-Assisted (Vibrator) Clitoral Stimulation - Receiving Foreign Objects Into Vagina - Receiving Anal Penetration By A Penis - My First Orgasm NOTE FOR THE VICTIM BLAMING/DENYING FUCKERS OUT THERE: ALL OF THESE WERE BY AGE 12. Sex Acts I Actively Consented To The First Time I Experienced Them: - PIV Sex So case anyone was wondering, that's probably why I enjoy PIV Sex not leading to my orgasm the best out of all the kinds of sex.

It's the turnaround of the turnaround that I thought the turnaround was. .. Energy increase is irregular, but energy decrease is regular. .. "My pizza guy looked like a hotter Wayne from Wayne's World."

Today during a training at work I had a surreal moment. There were four people in the room, sitting on couches around a small coffee table laden with snacks. It was, basically, a pretty informal setting. Getting comfortable, I noticed that the best way to sit on the old and awkward couch was with my feet tucked up under me. Then I realized it's rude to put your shoes on the furniture. So I decided to take them off. Then I realized it's probably rude to take your shoes off during a work meeting, even if it's pretty informal as work meetings go. So I asked if everyone was comfortable with me taking off my shoes. One person seemed pretty uncomfortable with the idea, and said the same. I explained my reasoning and she relaxed a little, but probably still didn't want me to take my shoes off. I just said I'd go ahead and not put my feet on the couch. Even though it was less comfortable that way. I didn't say that last part. Anyway, a few minutes later I noticed she was wearing flip-flops. I could basically see her whole naked feet. Even if I had taken my shoes off, my feet would have been completely covered by my socks. So clearly foot nudity level wasn't the issue. What was? I certainly don't know. tl;dr social conventions make no fucking sense.

Child abuse has been foremost on my mind lately. Namely, how utterly fucked up I am from it. I want to become a specialist in child abuse. Advocacy, teacher intervention, and counseling with adolescent and adult survivors. I want to educate people on the subject. I want to write memoirs, and self-help guides, and academic works on the subject, and perhaps most of all, fiction that kids and teens can read and know that they are not alone. I have recently learned (a little - basically the Wikipedia version) about complex ptsd. It's not like typical ptsd. It's a totally different diagnosis, stemming from chronic trauma, and can present without full-on flashbacks. So.... Yeah. I totally have that. I noticed the other day that I was having kind of emotional flashbacks. I often get completely emotionally overwhelmed at the thought of ding housework. Cleaning house was a huge issue for me in my childhood. I didn't pick up on it as quickly as reading or math, and my grandma didn't have any patience to teach me. But she had plenty of energy for punishment. If it wasn't perfect, if it wasn't done exactly right or exactly on time, I was in for a session of severe abuse. Flash forward to the present day: I am an absolute perfectionist. If I cannot be absolutely certain that I can complete a task perfectly, and (this is important) without interruption, I will not begin it at all. I focus in on absurdly small details. I can spend hours cleaning the refrigerator. I use up every bit of energy in my body. By the end, I am frothing at the mouth from dehydration. And very little has gotten done. It is physically and emotionally exhausting. I can only do this once a month or so. It is impossible for me to keep up with the messiness of everyday life. My social skills, too, have suffered. I confuse deference with politeness. I wait and wait and wait on people. I don't express opinions unless someone has already expressed that opinion to a favorable response. I appear to be a follower or a parrot. I am so afraid that people will reject me, that I lead them to do so. It is also exhausting. I have lost so many friends. It hurts to make more as I try to improve my social skills. It hurts because I know there is a chance that I will lose the next batch, too. It greatly discourages progress and practice. That's another thing. I don't like doing anything I am not already good at. I have never been exposed to patient, encouraging tutelage. I don't even know how to take encouragement.

No one at all shows up to my birthday party, I look like an asshole taking up a whole 8-person booth for six hours with dwindling, bittering, stubbornly undying hope that someone, anyone out there actually wants to spend time with me.

The closest I came to telling anyone about being molested was with my other two molestors.

- get back in touch with, apologize to, and come out to Morgan - get my first tattoo(s) - grow an impressive beard - have less boobs - have more social confidence - be able to sing well in public - practice and improve skill at off the cuff humor - have one proud career accomplishment - grow literacy in activism & make some conversational material to share - work toward building the anarchoqueer commune foster home school subsistence farm of my dreams

(Trigger Warning! Severe self-harm, dysphoria, suicidality, media misrepresentation, menstruation, forced compliance to gender norms): Dear Mom, I'm not a lesbian, but I am gay. My short hair is not a marker of my sexuality, but of my gender. My attraction to gay men is no coincidence, but a direct consequence of who I am. I am a transgender man. I always have been. The discomfort I have felt around the feminine has been there, omnipresent in the back of my mind. Dressed so frequently in drag - as a female - I have spent years afraid to be myself. The denial years. From age 13 to 24 I held myself in a deep denial. Suffocated and suicidal, I pushed myself away from the truth. The only representation of the transmasculine to which I had been exposed was in a Discovery Channel documentary. He had taken razors to his chest, mutilating himself with scar tissue in an attempt to divest himself of the burden of breasts. While I too did not like my breasts, I did not have it in me to self-mutilate or attempt self-surgery. So I pushed it to the back of my mind, consoling myself with the thought of a someday-breast-reduction. I concluded that due to my lack of desire for DIY surgery, I must not truly be transgender, and put it out of my mind. I pretended, in the following years, that my discomfort with my body was due to being overweight. I pretended that my desire to be included in male friendship circles was the boy-crazy antics of a teenage girl. I pretended to be comfortable talking about menstruation. One Christmas at (aunt's) house, I had awful period cramps, and after hours of suffering confided this to her in the hopes of getting some pharmaceutical relief. She told everyone. (Her sister-in-law) came up to me and sympathized, and I wanted to die. Completely mortified, I withdrew into my thoughts. Internally, I screamed, "but you're a WOMAN! You're SUPPOSED to have periods!" And I thought to myself, "If she's a woman, then by contrast, who am I?" I pretended it was that I felt I was still a child. In my dreams, I was always disconnected from my body - unless in those dreams I was male. In my daydreams, I pictured my future - as a rock star, a comedian, or an actor - all male. I saw myself shirtless, singing to a crowd in a deep voice. In choir, I tried to get Mr. (Choir Director) to let me sing tenor with the boys. I would sometimes do it on a whim if I felt I could get away with it. I wanted to be in the men's chorus. I wanted to wear a tuxedo. I didn't use the word transgender for myself, but I longed to be one of the boys. In all-state jazz choir I desperately tried to fit in with the boys. I told myself it was because we shared interests, like classic rock and raunchy humor. Way back in elementary school, I did the same thing. I wanted to play kickball, but I never got picked. I spent my bus rides telling dirty jokes with the boys. I only liked books with male protagonists, and usually male authors. I felt more at home in those stories than in my own skin. Every time my hair was forcibly put into a ponytail, I hated it. For evidence, see my 4th (or 5th?) grade school picture. The previous year I had taken my hair down, so this time my grandmother shellacked it into place with great gobs of hair gel, so that none of it would move from its place. I tried to remove it, but it was too physically painful. I requested a gray background to match my mood, and gave the camera a death-glare. In high school, I cut my hair (just the part that one might consider "bangs") to look like Chris Klein from American Pie. I wanted to be him. I wanted to be Steven Tyler and Freddie Mercury and ZZ Top. I was always so afraid to express myself, because every expression I liked was looked down upon by my family - goth fashion, writing out my demons, dark music... So I wore the clothes that were given to me. I wore eyeliner, but only that. I took comfort in the "emo" trend, which had a number of boys wearing eyeliner during that period. Whenever (aunt) took me clothes shopping, she would stop at the dress section and relentlessly pick things that she thought were cute. Every time, I ended up trying on a couple, and eventually saying I liked one so we could leave the store. Then it would rot in my closet. When I was 19, I went to a friend's wedding. As I assumed was appropriate, I tried to "dress up" nice for the occasion. I wore my homecoming dress, with full makeup. The entire time, I felt like I was in drag, inappropriately, an exhibitionist flaunting my false facade. I was complimented on my appearance and found myself at a loss for words. All I could think about was how wrong I looked, how much I was a liar and a fake and begging for attention with my looks (while my mind begged for my looks to be ignored). I tried to make friends in college, but found that I couldn't relate to anyone. The girls all had their "girly" things, and the boys their "manly" things. And here was I, stuck in the middle. At (university), my fellow psych majors all felt somehow distant and different from me. I couldn't figure out who I was - I think that's what made me different from them. For so many years, I had defined myself by the external. In those get-to-know-you games that ask "what's one interesting thing about you?" I would answer that my mother has a mental illness. And I was drawn to the abnormal mind - I told myself it was because my mom had one. I had worn my disguise so long and so thoroughly that I had lost myself in it. It wasn't until I met a collegiate trans man that the sparks of self-actualization began to coalesce. I applied for and got a job at his workplace, to see if I could learn anything from him. At this job, meetings began with everyone stating their name and preferred personal pronouns. This was the first time since a brief mention on a late-night TV show (non-mom readers: it was The L-Word, hahaha) that I had heard anyone use gender-neutral pronouns. When I worked at Dairy Queen, I confirmed a customer's order to him, and he said, "Yessir! ... I mean, ma'am. Yes ma'am. Sorry." And my thoughts were, "Sir is fine! Sir is great!" It was the best moment of working at DQ I ever had. Every time someone has called me a girl, or said, "What's up, girl?!" I have felt uncomfortable. For my whole life. I have felt uncomfortable for my whole life. I can't listen to the sound of my own voice recorded. It sounds wrong. It takes constantly talking out loud to myself to keep me used to the sound of my voice, so that it doesn't startle me into a spiraling depression. I know now what I never knew before: there are resources for me. There are ways to become who I've always wanted to be, who I've always seen myself as. It is not impossible to ever be happy. It is hard. But not impossible. "Can anybody hear me?I just want to be... meAnd when I can, I will."~ Smashing Pumpkins, Mayonaise

I feel safer walking the streets at night than in the bedroom I painted espresso brown. I feel safer taking drinks from a stranger than lying in this cold hard bed at night. Though the darkness is safer, I never turn off the light. I have longed for life in the violent worlds of favorite novels, for in them everything happens according to some divine authorial plan. Though I may feel safer on the street... I own things, and care for the things of a loved one. I cannot abandon my post. I am going insane.

I always wanted to be a boy so much more than I ever wanted to be a man.