This post might not be for the squeamish. I hit rock bottom, and tales of attempted suicide are never part of polite dinner conversation. I pulled myself out of it and here I am, so there. Well here goes. During high school I convinced myself that as long as I kept moving and striving for maleness eventually it would come to me. Oh, I can play the part of a man really really well, years of copying the behavior of others will do that. Humphrey Bogart has nothing on my acting skills.
The maleness I was seeking never materialized, the trying just left me in pain. After i graduated high school, I moved on to college. with several school vying for me to play football for them I had some options. I ended up going to Ferris State. At the time it was a division two national title contender. I could have played at a major program, but I wanted to be the big fish as accolades from others were the only thing holding me together by then.
College sucked. There was nothing wrong with it, there was something wrong with me. When not practicing and going to class, I was left alone in my room with my thoughts. My family and Jamie were back in Muskegon, and I could just not shake the thought in my head when I was alone. I fell into a pretty good funk. I would play on the Internet in the computer labs (oh yeah, Netscape was my friend). Sitting in the back near the wall so no one could look over my shoulder, I looked into what the net had to say about me. It was enlightening, but every time I was in a chat room (hehe remember those things) talking to people about transgender stuff, I would always hate myself when I was done.
Eventually this let to the biggest shame purge ever, well for me anyway. College football must not be manly enough, so I quit. I still have minor regret about this, I was a good ball player, and now I will never know just how good. Don't worry, it doesn't keep me up nights. I quit football. I quit going to class. I failed every class but one. I got an A in intercollegiate athletics somehow.I quit my life. I needed to find something super manly, I needed to fix myself. I joined the army.
Not just the army, I joined the infantry. To get into the army you have to take a test called the asvab Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). I think I missed one question. Every single job in the U.S. Army was available to me. I chose the infantry. I wanted to be an elite ranger, jumping out of planes and all that. Surly this was manly enough to fix me.
Basic training was a breeze, I finished top in my class, got a promotion on the spot. Did I get a cool ranger training post, or maybe SF? Nope. It was off to Ft. Irwin CA for me. hottest place on earth, seriously it is, it shared a border with Death Valley. It is in the middle of the Mojave desert. My job was to be part of the force that trained the rest of the army in large scale battles. I think the desert baked my brain, I was there 3 1/2 years.
I wasn't long after I got to Ft. Irwin that I came to realize this plan had failed too. Unlike football however, the army just don't let you quit. So I'm in the army, still feeling like a girl, only this time there are room inspections, so I can't even cross dress much. Instead I started drinking.
A typical day started a 6:15 with roll out formation for PT. push-ups sit-ups and a 3-5 mile run. go to work in the motor pool and get done at 1700h. I go to the class 6, military for liqueur store, but a case of beer, rent a movie and start drinking. Everyday. when I wasn't drunk I would do drugs. The army piss tests all the time so my drug of choice was LSD. I got into the rave circuit in LA and Vegas pretty good. guess what? Yeppers, it didn't work either. A bunch of my friends got real messed up from the drugs and alcohol, most got caught and either kicked out or lost rank and received extra duty.
One night when I was feeling partially puny, I drank a case of beer, a pint of vodka, and a handful of pain pills. I laid on my bed and just waited to die, then all the pain would be over. I woke up the next day with a nice headache. My go at killing myself failed, but it got me to thinking about life. Why the hell would anyone want to live with as much emotional pain as I felt? I spent a lot of time thinking about my life and the things that cause me pain. The first to go was my religion. I dumped Christianity and became Buddhist. A very nice religion by the way. I really tore into it. I learned to meditate, I did research on intellectual topics, like the meaning of life and suffering.
Buddhism played a huge role in my accepting myself. Suffering is caused by desires conflicting with your state of affairs. My suffering was because I was a man that needed to be a woman. I worked my way through to self acceptance. It was okay to just be me. I'm not Buddhist anymore, but Buddhist teaching continue to shape my life. I don't really do religion and other superstitions anymore.
I was still stuck in the army for another year, but at least I didn't hate myself anymore. real quick, after I got out of the army, I went back to school. Had to go to a community college as I had all F on my transcripts from Ferris. after two years I transferred to Michigan State, got a degree in philosophy. Made a lot of friends and am quite happy.
I married Jamie almost three years ago, she is the most supportive and loving person I have ever known. She is my rock. I'm taking a few years off to finish transitioning, or at least most of the way, before grad school.
This is my story, and I'm sticking to it
Alex
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