The ultimalte curse?

[Carolynn]

Ever hate yourself because you struggle with Gender Dysphoria?...wonder why you drew the "short end of the stick" in the gene pool of life? I am sure that your answer is "YES"...we ALL have feelings of bitterness, low self esteem, rejection, loneliness and despair at one time or other....and many times have all these feelings at once.

The road to acknowledging the person that you are, or were supposed to be... being a crossdresser or maybe a transsexual...is rough. The ups and downs, the untruths, the twists and turns would be enough to discourage anyone. You look around and see others living what appears to be normal lives and wonder...Why me?? What did I ever do to deserve this? THIS has got to be the ULTIMATE curse.

But is it??

Most people struggle with the usual problems in life; family issues, financial problems, matters of the heart and the spirit...crossdressers and transsexuals must deal with those issues AND their gender problems. Sometimes the gender problems seem to take precedence at some stages of ones life, and depression can be the result.

But is being gender dysphoric the WORST thing that could happen to someone? We know it isn't......but most times we simply forget. Our pain and misery tend to make us forget about the unfortunate problems that others must endure....

By acknowledging the other horrific conditions that befall many of our fellow human beings....maybe we can learn to not be so hard on ourselves.

Lets share some thoughts to emphasize what I am talking about.

HUNGER

Imagine a life where you must struggle each day to find food...suffering with the pains of constantly starving..no food, no water...you are weak and your ONLY desire in life is to find food. How would you feel if it were you?? Imagine how much worse you would feel if it were your child?? What would be your choice if you had to decide if your helpless child would eat and live for awhile, or you would live if you ate? There are people who have to make those decisions daily in the Sudan, as I write!

HOME

Most of us take our comfortable homes for granted. What if you had no home at all? No protection from the heat, the rain or the bitter cold? You would also have no transportation, no communication with your family, no care for your medical needs, no entertainment and probably few if any friends...you simply survive life.....one day at a time.

JUSTICE

Ever do something you regret?? Something that you may have to spend the rest of your life repaying your debt to society?? Sometimes unfortunate circumstances that are completely out of our control force situations like this. What if you were falsely accused? Your life is no longer your own. Perhaps you simply live in a country where what we would take as individual freedoms are unlawful, and you live with the knowledge you could be arrested or summarlily executed if discovered.

GRIEF

We all eventually die. But the loss of someone we love....a close family member....sometimes feels so unfair. Grief can be crippling to your soul. An unexpected death can feel so unfair.....especially when it is your child, spouse, sister, brother......

FAMILY

Stress in families can be unbearable at times. Constant bickering and fighting can tear a family apart. Where do you turn when your family is crumbling?

DISFIGUREMENT

Either born with a disfigurement such as cleft palette or no arms like a child affected by thalidomide, or disfigured through accident, such as the woman who had her face torn away by a pet, or in an automobile accident, fire, etc; regardless, such a person is judged by our society and often harshly and unfairly over their appearance.... Which may lead to

LIMITATIONS

Being unable to participate in such social activities as play sports, rock climb, swim, run, drive a car, make love, dance?? Whether there is a physical capacity to do these things or not, one's appearance may be just as limiting.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Look at a 7 years old child, lying in a bed in a cancer ward, suffering from chemotherapy, unable to participate in the pleasures of her peers, putting bows in her hair lost long ago, no strength to walk much less run and play, wondering what she did wrong.......

Am I being over dramatic? I think not.

Every human being on this planet is faced with serious problems, obstacles in life. Many times the problems cannot be seen at first glance. Some people are born into bad situations and are never able to overcome them. Others encounter their major hurdles later in life....some win, some lose.

Not only do people endure major obstacles and problems every day....most people have to deal with several problems at once...and once one problem is fixed another arises. It's the way the world works.

The next time you are feeling down and out, depressed and hopeless about your lot in life....look out....look around. Who do you see? What are THEY dealing with?

Do they need help? Are you possibly the one that can do something to help them?? Maybe as simple as finding resources to help, not an easy task I can tell you.

And that can be another problem. Social conscience can sometimes do only so much, and might be best served on an individual basis rather than trying or worrying about many people like the starving peoples of the Horn of Africa, and the petty dictators who make the starvation work for them to enhance their power. It takes an organized effort to deal with that, and even then it is made moot by people of bad conscience.

I dunno. Maybe we can do what we can on an individual basis and see if "Pay It Forward" can make a difference, even if its one person at a time?

[Paula G]

When you are miserable, it doesn't cheer you up to know that other people are more miserable. Better to count your blessings, and maybe share them around a bit.

There are a lot of causes worthy of support, indeed more than most of us can support so we have to be selective, maybe one individual cannot make much of a difference, but a lot of individuals acting together can

[Carolynn]

I wrote the post in response to the several posts essentially asking the question of why or why me from within their various titles. There seems to be no answer that anyone can give to the question, as the supplicant wallows in their poor little me party. I am very familiar with the feeling, as it was a frequent visitor before I recognized I had only one solution that was viable, and I had lived a lifetime with the struggle before that happened.

Actually the post was saying exactly that we need to "count our blessings", and one way is by comparing ones troubles to those around us so that we can see that if they can surmount their severe problems, we too can survive.

Yeah, gender dysphoria is a difficult thing to deal with, and I know this as well as you, maybe even better, as I struggled through dark hours through the years looking down the barrel of a shotgun or pistol, or tried to eat myself into a coronary, or smash my body to bits in a single car wreck.

But even at my darkest, I knew as well that other people had even more severe troubles than I did. It was just that for a time at the darkest, I was unable to break my mind from my selfish preoccupation with my problem, enough to put it into perspective. At length I was always able to move beyond the dark ever so slightly, and struggle my way into at least twilight where I could think again.

The awareness that others were dealing with life threatening troubles and yet living always helped. It can be soooo easy to fall into the downward spiral. It takes courage to work your way out of it however briefly, and maintain a semblance of "normal" life. Sometimes, doing for others, or just one other, can help dig one out of that hole.

Just sayin'.
Carolynn

[Anita]

That is a very well-written post at the beginning of the thread, Carolynn, and thanks for taking the time to put it together.

I occasionally do look at those worse off than I am, but as Paula pointed out, it takes energy to do that, and when I'm really down it's hard to have any extra energy for looking beyond the self.

Your post reminded me of something. Trans women are the best friends I've ever had, and part of the reason is because they've been forced to look deep within, all of their lives. There's a strength that comes from this that can't be gotten any other way, and it is something I recognize in them. I can trust them with a lot of thoughts and feelings that I've had, because I know they've been there. They know how to handle my vulnerabilities. This is so valuable to have in my life!

[Anthony Simon]

I also thought that was a very good post at the top of the thread - and I wouldn't have thought terribly easy to write. So thanks. There's a song called "That Kind of Love" sung by Alison Krauss, where she says when you discover "that kind of love" then you find out what life is about. She's a Christian, so I think this is a kind of selfless love in the imitation of Christ. But being an atheist I transcribe it to me and still think it has a validity - something to do with Grace. Maybe your post has stuff in that area.

[Absaroka]

Thanks Carolynnn, all very good things to be reminded of.

As for the why me question, I've always liked the answer "why not me?"

As your post shows, why have we been so blessed as to have enough to eat, a place to live, and so on? Mostly through accident of birth.