Atypical Transgender Late Bloomer

I think a very good "first rule" is: first, do no harm . When I write here, I don't want to lead others into a worse place, so I try to self-censor some things. But the issue of HOPE keeps coming up. People will say, There's always Hope, and they seem to believe they're helping you when they say it. I say: hope is an abstraction that intends to communicate a good feeling without any change or evidence. Hope is a belief; hope is a fantasy with a significant population invested in it. There's a too-often used phrase: "hope and prayers", and they are similar things. They both ask you to accept the permanent presence of an invisible notion. I wonder, instead of Hope isn't it more honest to say: Maybe ? Maybe you'll get better. Maybe the suffering will stop, although you know our Buddhist friends position suffering as part of life. Maybe you'll be less of a load to those around you. Further: maybe you won't get better, but maybe...

The CNN coverage referred to the Decedant's media footprint in (successful white) American media, his backstory as a chef, referred to the existance of a 10-year old daughter, bore praise from other media people, referred to the recent Kate Spade suicide, and ended with the toll-free suicide hotline and an exhortation to call for help. It's a cliche'd format. No mention of the CDC report that suicide is up 20% in America since 1999. Or to put it another way, suicide is up since the Internet. More sensationalized reporting driven by money, on a topic known for contagious deaths after explicit reporting. The similarities of Bordain's story to the recently bruited Spade story are non-trivial. The media cycle will continue, generating clicks and eyeballs and money without regard to the impact on the audience, the dependants, or the trauma to those involved. We will revisit his Pittsburgh work . What would Fred Rogers have said about Bordain's demise? I think it wo...

A woman in her 50's named Kate Spade died this week. Survived by a minor child and her husband, she had a successful career in the fashion industry. That would have been sufficient. Unfortunately, the suicide of a prominent person is treated with sensationalism rather than discretion. The science that says publicized suicides can/will produce additional deaths is ignored in the pursuit of clicks and sales. First we're told she's killed herself, and how she took her life. Then we're told her marriage was problematic next we see comments by a sister and a brother-in-law, comments that probably weren't perfect for publication then the 13-year old daughter is brought in Then some details of the marriage - they'd been living apart for ten months, but not discussing divorce the note was teased: Bea, this wasn't your fault, ask your Dad The NYTimes went on to describe her product line in terms of class signifiers, eloquently discussed here , reducing the death ...

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...