Mental Illness and Being a Hermaphrodite
i dissociated tonight without the use of weed or any drug... just my own mind. Sometimes dissociation brings clarity... memories of when i was a kid.
i have been very sick lately. i have been way too open to the power of suggestion.
i was mad at my godmother because ever since i have gone through my gender transition, it seemed like she wanted nothing to do with me... but i have to accept that gender transitions are not easy for family and friends of the person going through it, just like it is not easy for me.
You see, i was born intersex. What that means is that i was born a hermaphrodite. I still partly wonder if i had been born with a penis and if the doctor cut it off. I always felt like i was supposed to have one. But maybe that is the power of my mind as well. I don't know. No one does.
I took a test in the hospital one time, and i was supposed to answer true or false to a bunch of questions. This was years ago, and one of the statements said "I have traveled to Europe 15 times this past year" and i remember thinking how weird of a statement that was. I remember thinking "who in the hell would really believe that they did that?.... Why would they even put that on a questionare?" But they told me that some people are sick in different ways. The reason i mention that now, is that if i had taken that questionare this past month or two that i have been so crazy, i may have answered yes. Not that i actually remembered traveling to and from Europe 15 times, because i have not been to Europe since i was 18, but i SO believed that i was under some sort of hypnosis, and i believed that i was working for the hospital and the marines and the military... and all this other crazy shit... IF i had read that statement this past month, i think i would have thought that the people who made the test were trying to tell me what really happened to me. I would have answered yes, because i really believed that i was not sure of anything anymore and that i was hypnotized or brainwashed.
I've always had weird beliefs. When we studied pilgrams in 3rd grade, i was so sure that in a past life, i had been a pilgram... and maybe i was. In the 4th grade, i thought when we studied vikings, that i had been a viking.
I also believed, that the night my wife left me, i was raped by my friend. I dont know the full on truth of this, because part of me remembers telling him to stop... but we were both under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and i don't think i was very firm in saying "stop" even though i really did wan him to stop, i cannot any longer blame him for not stopping. I mean, i could, but i want to forgive him. He was a nice guy with a lot of issues. But he was a good person.
The other day, i was reading one of those memes we all do on LJ. Mrshannibal listed 3 things she had done, that she didn't think anyone else had done. One of the things she said was that she held a piece of the great wall of china. I responded that i thought i had done that too... but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that i had not actually held a piece of the great wall of china. I just remembered learning about China in the 1st grade, and her suggestion lead me to believe that i had also done that. We did get to eat rice cakes and Chinese food and we made paper cranes and heard Chinese folk stories, but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that it was the power of my mind that thought i had held the great wall. I WANTED to hold the great wall of China. I even wanted to be Chinese, but i was six.
I am sorry that i accused my Godmother of the terrible things i accused her of, and i feel a little embarrassed that my mind had gone to all those crazy places. The mind is a mysterious thing.
I once met a woman in the hospital who believed so strongly that she was a lawyer for the hospital, and every day she would talk as if the hospital had made a mistake in putting her there. She was SO convincing that sometimes i almost believed her. Part of me thought she was completely nuts, but the things she said to explain her delusions were so convincing because she was so convinced. It was weird. I have thought of her a lot lately. I hope she is better.
I have been praying at night and sometimes during the day, to try to get the "bad" part of me well. I have been like a split personality. Everyone who hurt me or whom i perceieved to have hurt me became the enemy to me. I wanted to hurt everyone who i thought had hurt me, and i feel very bad about this now, because i can see that i was no better than any of the people i was accusing of being bad. I felt so guilty every time i did something bad, but i could only see the bad in others.
I am just praying that i will not be doing this anymore. I know how sick it made me to be so full of guilt and anger and shame.
Like i said in a previous post: Evolution is war and Revolution is love. I want Revolution. I want love. I can only acheive this by loving others and forgiving them for being human.
I also would like to educate my extended family about my intersex condition. Maybe it will help them understand that i am not rejecting being a woman. The truth is, i dont really feel 100% male either. Going through this transition has been hard because i have been trying to be what a man is supposed to be, but i'm not really a man... just like i'm not really a woman. I am both. God made me both. This is not a crazy thought, BTW... it was found out in my adult life that i do not have a cervix. I also had unusually large amounts of testosterone in my system, even before i started getting my T shots. I have been shaving my face ever since i was 17 years old, while i had gigantic boobs and a period.
Some people are just born both. Not many, but more than people think.
Its hard to be both genders in society though. People do not understand intersex people and they want or think they need us to be one or the other. I've decided that trying to be tough and manly is just not me. So if people think i am a gay man, or they think that i am only 20 instead of 30 because my voice is so soft, then so be it. I know who i am. I am both male and female. I was raised to be a girl, and there were many things i hated about what that meant i was supposed to be.
For instance, because i was raped, and because i was treated as a teenage whore, i really really rejected being a woman. I saw it as my weakness. But expecting myself to be all that society expects a man to be is setting me up for failure as well. I don't want to be a failure and i don't want to be what other people expect me to be, just because of my apparent gender. If i am both (which i medically and spiritually am), then i should be myself, a little of both. I am not a tough guy and i am not a princess. I'm a soft spoken, kind, gentle hairy person with a semi male name. I like the name Jymi because it was a nickname given to me in high school by some people who loved me for who i was. They didn't know i was intersex, but they did not treat me like a whore or a princess. They treated me as me. They saw God in me and the nickname they gave me was the name i chose when i went through transition. If i were really manly, i would have changed the spelling to Jimmy or just Jim, but i like Jymi. It is a little bit like Keri in the unique way it is spelled.
I have also decided that my family can continue to call me Keri. There are men named Keri, and it does not make me look like a freak to answer to that name, whereas if my name were Sally or something, i would feel a little weird still, answeing to that name in public with a beard. I guess i still have some gender specific ideas. It's just that i dont want to be a freak. I may seem like a freak, but i'm just a little eccentric and i am androgenous. So what?You know?
My mother actually has used the term "genderqueer", a term i used in the beginning of my transition. I did not think that my mother would ever understand me being both, but she now knows that i was born both, and keeping Keri has been very important to her. She does not want to lose her daughter, and because of societies pressures, i almost let that happen. I want to learn to embrace myself for being intersex/genderqueer, not hate myself for it. God made me this way for a reason. So now i thank God for giving me a special gift, and it has helped me to gain a lot of clarity.
Again, i am sorry for all the crazy shit i was saying. I really did kind of lose it for awhile. I just didnt think anyone would ever accept me for being who i am. But now i see that accepting myself is the 1st step, and if i accept myself for who and what i am, others will come around as well.. or they won't and if they don't, its too bad for them. Cuz i'm a good person. Not accepting the fact that i am both genders is like not accepting a person cuz they were born with one arm. If people are gonna be like that, i don't need them anyway.
I am very lucky to have a lot of people who love me. Some people backed away when i started on all that hate shit, but that is because that was not me... that was my illness and they did not recognize me anymore.
I didnt get the cover up tattoo today. I decided i want to put more thought into it before i get more ink. The tattoo on my back was not well thought out, and done in a bad state of mind, but having it inked over with a Celtic cross was just a way of trying to cover up something i have guilt about. I dont want to scare anyone with the tattoo that is there, so i will wear a tank top at the beach until i run into the water. Besides, i am supposed to go to the beach in less than 2 weeks, and i know i cant have my new tattoo in the sun, so the timing would be bad anyway.
Sorry for such a long entry. Thank you for reading if you did.
Peace
i have been very sick lately. i have been way too open to the power of suggestion.
i was mad at my godmother because ever since i have gone through my gender transition, it seemed like she wanted nothing to do with me... but i have to accept that gender transitions are not easy for family and friends of the person going through it, just like it is not easy for me.
You see, i was born intersex. What that means is that i was born a hermaphrodite. I still partly wonder if i had been born with a penis and if the doctor cut it off. I always felt like i was supposed to have one. But maybe that is the power of my mind as well. I don't know. No one does.
I took a test in the hospital one time, and i was supposed to answer true or false to a bunch of questions. This was years ago, and one of the statements said "I have traveled to Europe 15 times this past year" and i remember thinking how weird of a statement that was. I remember thinking "who in the hell would really believe that they did that?.... Why would they even put that on a questionare?" But they told me that some people are sick in different ways. The reason i mention that now, is that if i had taken that questionare this past month or two that i have been so crazy, i may have answered yes. Not that i actually remembered traveling to and from Europe 15 times, because i have not been to Europe since i was 18, but i SO believed that i was under some sort of hypnosis, and i believed that i was working for the hospital and the marines and the military... and all this other crazy shit... IF i had read that statement this past month, i think i would have thought that the people who made the test were trying to tell me what really happened to me. I would have answered yes, because i really believed that i was not sure of anything anymore and that i was hypnotized or brainwashed.
I've always had weird beliefs. When we studied pilgrams in 3rd grade, i was so sure that in a past life, i had been a pilgram... and maybe i was. In the 4th grade, i thought when we studied vikings, that i had been a viking.
I also believed, that the night my wife left me, i was raped by my friend. I dont know the full on truth of this, because part of me remembers telling him to stop... but we were both under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and i don't think i was very firm in saying "stop" even though i really did wan him to stop, i cannot any longer blame him for not stopping. I mean, i could, but i want to forgive him. He was a nice guy with a lot of issues. But he was a good person.
The other day, i was reading one of those memes we all do on LJ. Mrshannibal listed 3 things she had done, that she didn't think anyone else had done. One of the things she said was that she held a piece of the great wall of china. I responded that i thought i had done that too... but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that i had not actually held a piece of the great wall of china. I just remembered learning about China in the 1st grade, and her suggestion lead me to believe that i had also done that. We did get to eat rice cakes and Chinese food and we made paper cranes and heard Chinese folk stories, but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that it was the power of my mind that thought i had held the great wall. I WANTED to hold the great wall of China. I even wanted to be Chinese, but i was six.
I am sorry that i accused my Godmother of the terrible things i accused her of, and i feel a little embarrassed that my mind had gone to all those crazy places. The mind is a mysterious thing.
I once met a woman in the hospital who believed so strongly that she was a lawyer for the hospital, and every day she would talk as if the hospital had made a mistake in putting her there. She was SO convincing that sometimes i almost believed her. Part of me thought she was completely nuts, but the things she said to explain her delusions were so convincing because she was so convinced. It was weird. I have thought of her a lot lately. I hope she is better.
I have been praying at night and sometimes during the day, to try to get the "bad" part of me well. I have been like a split personality. Everyone who hurt me or whom i perceieved to have hurt me became the enemy to me. I wanted to hurt everyone who i thought had hurt me, and i feel very bad about this now, because i can see that i was no better than any of the people i was accusing of being bad. I felt so guilty every time i did something bad, but i could only see the bad in others.
I am just praying that i will not be doing this anymore. I know how sick it made me to be so full of guilt and anger and shame.
Like i said in a previous post: Evolution is war and Revolution is love. I want Revolution. I want love. I can only acheive this by loving others and forgiving them for being human.
I also would like to educate my extended family about my intersex condition. Maybe it will help them understand that i am not rejecting being a woman. The truth is, i dont really feel 100% male either. Going through this transition has been hard because i have been trying to be what a man is supposed to be, but i'm not really a man... just like i'm not really a woman. I am both. God made me both. This is not a crazy thought, BTW... it was found out in my adult life that i do not have a cervix. I also had unusually large amounts of testosterone in my system, even before i started getting my T shots. I have been shaving my face ever since i was 17 years old, while i had gigantic boobs and a period.
Some people are just born both. Not many, but more than people think.
Its hard to be both genders in society though. People do not understand intersex people and they want or think they need us to be one or the other. I've decided that trying to be tough and manly is just not me. So if people think i am a gay man, or they think that i am only 20 instead of 30 because my voice is so soft, then so be it. I know who i am. I am both male and female. I was raised to be a girl, and there were many things i hated about what that meant i was supposed to be.
For instance, because i was raped, and because i was treated as a teenage whore, i really really rejected being a woman. I saw it as my weakness. But expecting myself to be all that society expects a man to be is setting me up for failure as well. I don't want to be a failure and i don't want to be what other people expect me to be, just because of my apparent gender. If i am both (which i medically and spiritually am), then i should be myself, a little of both. I am not a tough guy and i am not a princess. I'm a soft spoken, kind, gentle hairy person with a semi male name. I like the name Jymi because it was a nickname given to me in high school by some people who loved me for who i was. They didn't know i was intersex, but they did not treat me like a whore or a princess. They treated me as me. They saw God in me and the nickname they gave me was the name i chose when i went through transition. If i were really manly, i would have changed the spelling to Jimmy or just Jim, but i like Jymi. It is a little bit like Keri in the unique way it is spelled.
I have also decided that my family can continue to call me Keri. There are men named Keri, and it does not make me look like a freak to answer to that name, whereas if my name were Sally or something, i would feel a little weird still, answeing to that name in public with a beard. I guess i still have some gender specific ideas. It's just that i dont want to be a freak. I may seem like a freak, but i'm just a little eccentric and i am androgenous. So what?You know?
My mother actually has used the term "genderqueer", a term i used in the beginning of my transition. I did not think that my mother would ever understand me being both, but she now knows that i was born both, and keeping Keri has been very important to her. She does not want to lose her daughter, and because of societies pressures, i almost let that happen. I want to learn to embrace myself for being intersex/genderqueer, not hate myself for it. God made me this way for a reason. So now i thank God for giving me a special gift, and it has helped me to gain a lot of clarity.
Again, i am sorry for all the crazy shit i was saying. I really did kind of lose it for awhile. I just didnt think anyone would ever accept me for being who i am. But now i see that accepting myself is the 1st step, and if i accept myself for who and what i am, others will come around as well.. or they won't and if they don't, its too bad for them. Cuz i'm a good person. Not accepting the fact that i am both genders is like not accepting a person cuz they were born with one arm. If people are gonna be like that, i don't need them anyway.
I am very lucky to have a lot of people who love me. Some people backed away when i started on all that hate shit, but that is because that was not me... that was my illness and they did not recognize me anymore.
I didnt get the cover up tattoo today. I decided i want to put more thought into it before i get more ink. The tattoo on my back was not well thought out, and done in a bad state of mind, but having it inked over with a Celtic cross was just a way of trying to cover up something i have guilt about. I dont want to scare anyone with the tattoo that is there, so i will wear a tank top at the beach until i run into the water. Besides, i am supposed to go to the beach in less than 2 weeks, and i know i cant have my new tattoo in the sun, so the timing would be bad anyway.
Sorry for such a long entry. Thank you for reading if you did.
Peace