broken toys
I just got off the phone. I was calling a wake.
It wasn't for anyone I knew personally. A friend of a friend of a friend, and the first link in that chain for me is a friendship that was only over the net until last weekend. The guest of honor killed herself.
I'd never even gone so far as to have a comment exchange in LJ with her. A few years ago she asked for crit on the VCL forums, when I was still active there, and I was pretty bitchy, because I was very kink-negative then, and generally full of hate. And her art was pretty kinky, full of sexy half-monsters along with the technical issues (which I did give advice on). That's the whole of my contact with her, ever.
But she ended up living with Jessie and Kristy and Tanya, working her hazy way through her gender issues, and she killed herself this past Thursday night. And the Posts and Diva and Onya knew them, and went to help them deal with it, and I had Diva's cel number from the con still, so I called, and I got handed around.
The initial shock and horror seemed to have passed; there was a sort of party atmosphere that I got over the phone. I suppose it's sliding into an Irish kind of wake, the kind where you have fun, and get a little wacky, and remember the good times with the deceased, tell funny stories, celebrate life.
I couldn't think of anything deep or meaningful. The only thing that really sprang to mind was a line from Pogo. "Don't take life serious, it ain't nohow permanant."
I'm not sure if the folksy down-South tones Kelly used for his strip make it more or less powerful. But that's all the consoling words that I had.
Now that I'm out about my transition, I sometimes feel like this journal paints a rosy picture of gender dysphoria. I'm through the worst of it, I think; some of the stuff people said to me at the con make me wonder if I'm pretty much done with being a thing-in-the-middle who can just get on with being a woman. I got called "beautiful" a couple of times. I don't think I ever need to worry about passing again. Done with dysphoria, living with an addiction to estrogen and dealing with the fact that I'm a social retard.
But this happy woman discovering herself isn't the whole story.
There were times I felt pretty close to suicide, when I was beginning to come to terms with my gender issues. There were a few nights, working a shitty animation job with a horrible commute, not knowing how to connect with anyone except through the bitter medium of a female online persona, where I had serious thoughts about just ending it all. It was easier when I'd finally let myself say "I am gender dysphoric, my body male and my mind female", and it was a lot easier once I started on hormones. It's helped that my mother's been accepting and supportive of it, once I told her; it's helped that my friends have been supportive and that so many people who knew me through online means before fleshy ones were so amazed to find I was ever a boy in any way.
Gender's a pretty scary thing to be fucked up about. It's deep down. It colors everything about how we touch the world. When it's broken in us, we're pretty fucking broken too, and it takes a long time to fix everything. I feel lucky that I've been able to get through it so far. When I die, it won't be because of that. It might be by my own hand and stupid decisions, but it won't be from gender dysphoria now.
There are people close to me I worry might die from it, still.
Near the end of the conversation I was informed that her family was going to be sending around an in-law with a dumpster. For everything. All her stuff, everything she treasured.
This is where we end up, if we're not lucky.
Goodbye, Alice.
Better luck in the next incarnation, if that's what we get instead of oblivion.
It wasn't for anyone I knew personally. A friend of a friend of a friend, and the first link in that chain for me is a friendship that was only over the net until last weekend. The guest of honor killed herself.
I'd never even gone so far as to have a comment exchange in LJ with her. A few years ago she asked for crit on the VCL forums, when I was still active there, and I was pretty bitchy, because I was very kink-negative then, and generally full of hate. And her art was pretty kinky, full of sexy half-monsters along with the technical issues (which I did give advice on). That's the whole of my contact with her, ever.
But she ended up living with Jessie and Kristy and Tanya, working her hazy way through her gender issues, and she killed herself this past Thursday night. And the Posts and Diva and Onya knew them, and went to help them deal with it, and I had Diva's cel number from the con still, so I called, and I got handed around.
The initial shock and horror seemed to have passed; there was a sort of party atmosphere that I got over the phone. I suppose it's sliding into an Irish kind of wake, the kind where you have fun, and get a little wacky, and remember the good times with the deceased, tell funny stories, celebrate life.
I couldn't think of anything deep or meaningful. The only thing that really sprang to mind was a line from Pogo. "Don't take life serious, it ain't nohow permanant."
I'm not sure if the folksy down-South tones Kelly used for his strip make it more or less powerful. But that's all the consoling words that I had.
Now that I'm out about my transition, I sometimes feel like this journal paints a rosy picture of gender dysphoria. I'm through the worst of it, I think; some of the stuff people said to me at the con make me wonder if I'm pretty much done with being a thing-in-the-middle who can just get on with being a woman. I got called "beautiful" a couple of times. I don't think I ever need to worry about passing again. Done with dysphoria, living with an addiction to estrogen and dealing with the fact that I'm a social retard.
But this happy woman discovering herself isn't the whole story.
There were times I felt pretty close to suicide, when I was beginning to come to terms with my gender issues. There were a few nights, working a shitty animation job with a horrible commute, not knowing how to connect with anyone except through the bitter medium of a female online persona, where I had serious thoughts about just ending it all. It was easier when I'd finally let myself say "I am gender dysphoric, my body male and my mind female", and it was a lot easier once I started on hormones. It's helped that my mother's been accepting and supportive of it, once I told her; it's helped that my friends have been supportive and that so many people who knew me through online means before fleshy ones were so amazed to find I was ever a boy in any way.
Gender's a pretty scary thing to be fucked up about. It's deep down. It colors everything about how we touch the world. When it's broken in us, we're pretty fucking broken too, and it takes a long time to fix everything. I feel lucky that I've been able to get through it so far. When I die, it won't be because of that. It might be by my own hand and stupid decisions, but it won't be from gender dysphoria now.
There are people close to me I worry might die from it, still.
Near the end of the conversation I was informed that her family was going to be sending around an in-law with a dumpster. For everything. All her stuff, everything she treasured.
This is where we end up, if we're not lucky.
Goodbye, Alice.
Better luck in the next incarnation, if that's what we get instead of oblivion.