Atypical Transgender Late Bloomer

We don’t do that, which became: We don’t allow ourselves to do that. And be “we” I mean my family, and by family I mean my parents and siblings. Sidebar on “family” How Family Is Used to Excuse the Inexcusable Family is a construct, and like all constructs, it covers for something darker, and more complex, than we’d like to admit. Many families use words like “love” and “loyalty” to mask all matter of toxicity and aggression, both passive and overt. … invoking “the family” becomes a means of blunting anger, of sublimating resistance. When an authority invokes the family, it’s often to subjugate the subordinates and get them to willingly conform with “less”. I was raised believing that WE don’t do THOSE THINGS. Drugs, children out of marriage, major crime, blasphemy, second families, divorce, homosexuality. And yet, my cousins, aunts and uncles did those things, but we believed WE didn’t do those things. I thought it was a statement of virtue. I didn’t think we were elite or...

Assignment: describe yourself before and after your Dad and your Priest. Before my Dad and the Priest. I would place this at when I was age 2.5 years, because that’s when the beatings started. I was happy, enthusiastic, and curious. I had a big mop of curly hair like Harpo Marx; I greeted days and people with brio. I was happy in the house and out of the house. After my father started beating me, I was careful and wary. He started calling me Crisco (fat in the can) which I hated. He cut my hair short at home when my mother was out. Decades later, he told a sibling: when [me] was two and a-half, he had beaten me like he beat prisoners in the station house. He was a cop. Being outside was better than inside, being with others was better than being with my parents. I learned my block and my neighborhood. I still had most of the core of myself when I was out. I became a reader because he respected reading. Years later he’d say I had my head in the books too often, and why did I ...

I've been on SSRI anti-depressants for 25 years and continue to take them. I've been on SNRI anti-depressents for 1 year and continue to take them. I've been on a a benzodiazepine for almost 1 year and continuing. I've been on an anti-psycholtic for almost 1 year and continuing. I finally realized that I'm not dealing with a multi-issue phase ; I've been doing this for 25 years. I got rid of my guns in the last year, because I knew when I started hallucinating that it was prudent to not have them. You read newspaper stories and you think, why didn't somebody take the guns? My psychiatrist says I have major depression, anxiety, and mild psychosis (I hallucinate). My psychologist says I have C-PTSD from beatings and priest rape, and sexual orientation confusion. My doctor explains that I have anhedonia which robs pleasure from normal experiences. When we took a marriage angry-problem to our marriage counseling psychologist, he suggested the problem w...

NY Times : Brooklyn Diocese Identifies Eight More Abusing Priests. That's one of five dioceses. The story focuses on James Lara, who was a priest from 1973 to 1992, was de-priested, and then changed his name and pivoted to academia: Over the past 25 years, a university professor named Jaime Lara built an illustrious career in the academic world of sacred art history. He was a professor at Yale University for more than a decade, wrote five books and won more than a dozen prestigious awards and fellowships. Since 2013, he has been a professor of medieval and renaissance studies at Arizona State University. Mr. Lara did not respond to a request for comment. The other priests listed were Joseph P. Byrns, who served from 1969 to 2002; William E. Finger, who served from 1962 to 1980; Stephen Placa, who served from 1995 to 2002; Thomas O. Morrow, who served from 1971 until 1987; Romano J. Ferraro, who served from 1960 to 1988; Charles M. Mangini, who served from 1968 to 1993; and Chr...

Sometimes I remember things that I've forgotten or suppressed. Today I remembered: On the evening news (Channel 7, ABC) Roger Grimsby talked about how people can report child abuse by calling the operator. That was just a setup. I was in our house on East 48th, it was daytime, and I sneaked into my parent's bedroom to use their phone. I was young, and this may have been the first phone call I made. It was a rotary phone. I called the operator. I remember how long it took for the dial to rotate through all the digits. "Operator" . I told her, I wanted to report my father for child abuse . She asked a question and I said, he hits me a lot . Then I heard my father come on the line, using the kitchen phone. He was a shift-worker; my mother was out. He said, who's on this phone? I said, I am. That was an insufficient answer because he said, Who are you talking to? The operator identified herself. Over the phone line my father asked, what are you calling t...

Today's news headlines are about Manafort, Gates, and Popodopolous, and I think the media aggregators are missing the story of the day (as far as I'm concerned): Anthony Rapp's report of Kevin Spacey attempting to seduce him in 1986, when Spacey was 26 years old and Rapp was 14 years old. This is the lead story: of adults injuring minors, of crimes beyond statutes of limitations, on the inability to make the victim whole, of the inability to punish the rapists, on the stories everybody knows about and nobody investigates. The fact that it is a very old story, a widely distributed story that everybody knows , a universal story across cultures, a story that treats vulnerability as consent, makes it no less the story of the day. Manafort is a pischer; Spacey is a monster. Manafort, Gates, and Popodpolous are thieves and political hacks (by which I mean, con-men) and there is nothing new or even audascious in their crimes. Their apprehension is a bit of Kabuki theater; ev...

I had the plans and procedures figured out. I'd told some people I was thinking about it, and each conversation ended with "promise you'll call me" and I'd say "of course", which is like the most consistently told lie in the universe. I had motive, method, and opportunity; I'd done a shallow practice run; it would seem like an accident; it was irrevocable. And then TM went and fucked me and convinced me not to do it, and he didn't even mean to. TM's in a similar life-situation to me, if you paint with broad strokes: same age, retired from the same field, kind of in the wind. He does have a few kids, who each have a few kids, and so he has Grandchildren where I do not. His most recent grandchild was born with a seriously bad condition. The baby ended up living in the hospital for more than 90 days. There were times when longevity was in question. So the mom & dad are rotating between the two kids at home, working, and standing watch wi...

I've encountered a new symptom in the last few days. I've seen depression, fatigue, ennui, apathy, and suicide but these last few days I've seen something new: bewilderment. I am bewildered at the world, at the dynamics around me, at the choices available. And what does that word mean, anyway? I should check it before I hang my hat on it. Be-wildered be thoroughly wilder to go astray or to be led into the 'wilderness' I have a sense of how to handle bewilderment, or any distraught emotion phase: avoid making big decisions, stay close to friends, avoid extremes, drink water and eat; in other words, press pause on the normal functions of life and wait until the issue passes. I'm not sure that waiting and pausing in my case will outlast the phenomenon.

This story is about a woman who was about to jump off a Pittsburgh bridge until she was restrained by strangers. This story tells about the suicide of 23-year-old video performer.