Happiness is not Impossible

Anger. Love. Ecstatic. Emotional. Certainty. Mind boggling. Life changing. Roller coaster. Up and down. Up and up. Down and up. Those are the things that come to mind when I think of the past year. I have fallen in love to the most beautiful woman. This woman loves me for me- wholly. However, it hasn’t always been easy; trying to navigate a relationship along with complex- PTSD, crippling anxiety and depression has, at moments, had the best of me and brought out the worst in me. At times mental illness has felt like it has ripped everything from under me like a rip current only to find that when I “go with it” or “swim with the current”  I resurface and am able to overcome and recognize that everything is still there, everything still good is still there- waiting for me to calm. In my case it is always my loving family, sweet soon-to-be wife, and wonderful therapist patiently waiting for me and urging me to come to them so that they may help me to sort out the loose bolts and mechanisms of my brain and throbbing ache in my heart. They help me to realize that things can be less lonely than they seem and that I have an amazing support. For once in my life, I really am wholeheartedly excited for the future. I get to marry my best friend in a month and half, I am looking into going back to school and have even solidly picked a major, and I feel like I am stabling in more ways than just mentally. Yeah, I still have my down-in-the-dump days; but I am working hard at making life better and recognizing the good and not being afraid to express my heart ache with others, especially my fiancee and therapist. I am learning to appreciate and recognize the value in every sunrise and sunset, in every laughter, in the tears and sweat, smiles, and even frowns because if it weren’t for the good and the bad I don’t think I would be able to appreciate one or the other- things would just be “neutral.” So, no matter how bad things may seem, looking to the positive but “dealing with” the negative or finding ways to cope and manage while focusing on the positive really helps one get through turmoil of life. That is one of the best advices I can give and that the best revenge for anything in life is success. Broke? Go to school. Hell yeah, you will be even more broke for awhile but the endsight is great. Faithless? Find faith. Find something to believe in and hold onto. Having faith in SOMETHING, even science, can show us that we are worthy. The list goes on and on. Happiness is not impossible.

Equality, Love, and Respect

When I think of equality, I think of love. To give everyone the most precious thing they can have is to be able to love and be with whomever they wish. But equality isn’t just about being able to love whomever you please. It is also about rights, right to housing and jobs- any thing we as living being need. North Carolina passed the bill stating that any transgender persons are subjected to only allowed to use the bathrooms in which “gender” they were born to and passed more discriminative laws. That’s a shame. They passed these laws because of so called “Christians”. I think to myself would Christ be filled with so much hatred towards others? No. I highly doubt that. I’m not saying being gay or trans is a sin but we should never cast the first stone; these so called Christians don’t get that it seems and it disappoints me. I am genderqueer, I identify with more masculine and I am in love and engaged to the most beautiful woman and human being I know. To know that my equality and rights are and can be stripped is unsettling. 10 steps forwards and 5 steps back in a way. I can marry her, but I can’t identify myself to a lot of people in the “good ole” South without being afraid of a beating or a firm cussing to, being called a “faggot” and flipped off. Where is the Christ-like in all of this? Where is the love in all of this? Why can’t we just treat others how we want to be treated? Place ourselves in others shoes? I don’t understand why how I identify myself is such a problem to them. Don’t want gay marriage or as I call it, marriage. Don’t get one. Whomever I marry doesn’t effect your life. My love for my sweetheart does not effect you. My being held in her arms in the living room when we are together or coming home after a long day to Skype her because we are in a Long Distance Relationship does not effect you. My deep and abiding love for her is what is beautiful. Fully respecting each other and our desires and dreams for our lives and working to achieve them together. She gives me breath and happiness in each and every day. I am sure that everyone wants the kind of love I have and to have rights for jobs and to be able to live peacefully and to try to take it away is the least respectful thing a person can do. Guess some people don’t get that.

I Hate Me

No matter what I do, I seem to always do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, think the wrong thing. Me. Myself. I do this, all the time. I feel like I am barely keeping myself afloat. I feel like my relationship is failing and my connection to my family is dropping one-by-one. Because of me. I hate me. Now, today, yesterday, a year ago. I already hate me tomorrow because I know I will fuck something up, say the wrong thing, express the wrong thing. Feel the wrong thing. As always. This isn’t just a here and now problem, that has been a problem my whole life. I hate me. I wish I could change. I wish I could not be me. I wish I was better, had a better mind, heart, was a better person as a whole. I wish I didn’t feel the itch and ache to burn and bleed- my old form of breathing and release. I fucking hate me, and I fucking hate these feelings and I will say it over, and over and over again until someone, something, even myself finds a way to show me I shouldn’t and why I shouldn’t. But I know I am a fuck up, a mess. And I make a mess of everything because of who I am and all of the things I feel. I hate me.

My Monster and the Fight Within

A ‘fracture’ in life, physical and emotional exhaustion, instinctive guarding behavior, sense of having no personal identity, frozen and waiting for the sun to rise, clawing my way up and out of a hole that I have been forced into, insomnia, fear of going to sleep because at the end of every day things haunt you still, an echo that follows you still, hopelessness, constantly on the lookout with stressful hyper-vigilance- these are all things that I would use to describe C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder); things I would use to describe my experience every day. I am a survivor, but in my surviving I have struggled immensely.

Most of the time to formulate words of how I feel, to process emotions, and to control emotions almost seem impossible but I never give up for there is always some small break in the clouds of expression. I keep pushing because to give up on trying to be as normal as possible, as happy as possible, and as successful as possible brings in an ending and personal heartbreak. However, sometimes I have learned that I have to bury my old self and let a new person rise whether it be daily, weekly, monthly- whenever I need to become anew and with new perspective. I have been going to therapy for two years, there was a point in the past two years that I was going almost daily for more than 2 hours a day; with all of the hours of venting, talking, processing, and learning I have learned to cope as much as I can at this point in life.

Growing up I never learned the tools that I have now although I do I wish that I had because I know or feel I would be much better at coping, at living every day and controlling my emotions and recognizing feelings. However, I am learning but I can’t say I am “better”, I may never get better or never not have PTSD- I’m trying to though. I’m trying to get to a point in my life that things don’t effect me, at least in a major way. Trying to get to a point that I don’t feel some sort of crippling anxiety and depression daily. I’m trying to get to a point where I can sleep most nights without being afraid. I’m trying to get to a point where I can socialize with others without constant fear and to be able to feel safety in my surroundings. I’m trying to get to a point that I don’t feel like a burden to others. I’m trying to get to a point in my life where my focus isn’t always on survival but to enjoy life. I’m trying to get to a point in life where I don’t feel constantly strained, moody, tired, and overly-sensitive. I guess all I can say is I know it gets easier. Sometimes, even most of the time, it isn’t always adequate because you want things to be easier than they are but I can say it is a constant work in progress and things will get better if you keep working hard. At least that is how it has been for me.

But, feels right now as if my body is totally exhausted. A heavy dead empty shell. It isn’t me but a shadow of the former me I see. I feel as if I am drowning in fear, holding in my breath in so tightly; always on the verge ready to scream out and yet never being able to exhale. When I attempt to sleep the nightmares are often and dark. Like a tape that loops continuously so that even when or if I do awake screaming, the fear is so intense it paralyzes my vocal cords and I find I can’t make a sound. I feel now mostly only for myself and even to those I love I am so short tempered to. Is it love? I can no longer feel it as such. However, I know it is there, I know love is there. I feel as if a smell or even returning back to not just the area, but the city where my abuse occurred makes me physically vomit and I feel an overpowering need to run but there is nowhere to go. I cannot escape it. But for my sake, I must try as I might, try to overcome and conquer. The former me may be “dead” but I know I am stronger than before though I feel completely the opposite at times. I try to be at peace because there is a new perspective that I see. I know I am more worth than I feel. It feels as if I was kicked to the dust, a gum on the bottom of a shoe. But for my sake, I must know that I am worth more.

The Monster

What do you do when the monster inside of you is raging? When it creeps into every view, every feeling and ripping you apart. How do you cope with this monster telling you how worthless you are? How do you cope with this monster telling you that you don’t matter; your life, comfort, etc. doesn’t matter. Some of the same things some people tell you, this monster tells you every second of every day. It reminds you of your past- sick, twisted past. Reminds you of the hurt you felt and still continue to feel each and every day. What do you do? I feel like I have lost battle after battle trying to be happy, even trying to be content. When your go to cope of escapism doesn’t seem to work anymore because feelings of loneliness, anguish, anger, frustration, self-blame, betrayal, defeated, degraded, damaged, exhausted, inferior, being insufficient, numb, panic, and resentment; those feelings continue to grow like thorny weeds that you can never rid of, taking over. Those feelings are weighing me down, suffocating me. I feel like I am not safe no matter where I go or what I do. I feel like I am running terrified, trying to cover my emotional ears from the things the monster may say or do. Then again, what else can I do anymore?

Closeness and Intimacy: The Fears and Me vs. Them

Have you ever sat or laid there and just wanted closeness, absolutely craving it like never before? Wanting so much to be next to a person, in their arms and feeling the safety and protection they have towards you emit from them? Wanting closeness so much that it almost hurts and then you realize that it isn’t just a want, that it is a human need? However, I have realized and studied a few things and you better hold on because it is about to get factual up in here, a research paper is on its way. 

The greatest struggle for human beings is between their desire to overcome isolation and loneliness and their simultaneous fear of close, intimate contact with another being. Often the desire and the fear are equally strong, so that people are pulled and pushed in opposite directions. This causes a tremendous strain. The pain of isolation will always push people into attempts to escape from it. When such attempts look like succeeding, the fear of closeness induces them to pull back again and push away the other. And so the cycle goes on with human beings first erecting and then destroying the barriers between themselves and others. Now that tid-bit has been mentioned- what do we as human beings need to do about that? How can we work on that ourselves? Your relationship to another person can be successful only when you are motivated by your innermost being. If the relationship is determined solely by the outer intellect and will, these faculties cannot find the delicate balance of allowing your self-expression and also receiving the other’s self-expression. Since no rule can be made about the rhythm of this mutual interchange, the outer brain is unable to effect the balance. Nor can the ego-mind find the balance between self-assertion and giving in, between giving and receiving, or between active and passive participation. These delicate balances cannot possibly be determined in a prescribed way. Yet the outer intellect is an instrument that prescribes, predetermines, and thinks mechanically; it determines rules and laws. By itself it is not sufficiently intuitive and flexible to meet each moment as it comes and to respond to it adequately. For such a flexible response the core of your being must be activated. The relationship with another can be spontaneous and mutually satisfying. Not in contact with your innermost being, you can neither function properly where life requires creative responses, nor can you contact another person’s innermost being. But this, after all, is the real relating, the closeness which eliminates isolation. Intimate self-expression and relating flows with the life-stream and brings dynamic peace. Everything else is strain, effort, and difficult discipline, which is not conducive to the great freedom and joy of intimacy. Why is the fear of self and the fear of contacting others so great?  Basically the fear is due to people’s destructive aims, and specifically to your aim of refusing to give yourselves over to life. Doing the work on such a path as this, many of my friends have encountered exactly this kind of attitude deep within themselves. If all people were truly willing to give what they are, both their potential and their already realized selves, if they were to willingly offer their best to life and deliberately held this as their goal, they could not be in conflict with themselves or with life. For each one of you has so many wonderful assets which you neglect or only vaguely sense. And even when you do sense them, it does not occur to you to offer these assets to life. Once you deliberately do that, something must begin to happen. A great inner movement takes place which you have no reason to fear, for it must all happen in beautiful order and harmony. You as an individual can change from being an isolated creature keeping your assets for yourself, sometimes leaving them completely unused, never intending to give these assets for the benefit of life and evolution, except perhaps in a vague way. The moment you change to the new state of deliberately dedicating the best of who you are to life, the change within you and in your outer life experience will be so drastic that words cannot describe it. What was difficult, laborious, fearful, bleak, strained, and lonely will become easy, self-perpetuating, relaxed, safe, and bright. You will feel a deep sense of oneness with the world, with others, with the entire process of creation. Until this change takes place, you must be eternally in the whirlpool of wanting and fearing the same thing. And this truly is torture. At times you desire more:  at other times you fear more. The outcome will be problematic, painful, and fraught with conflict because you pull and push in opposite directions. The moment you change your attitude in the way I just described, everything will fall into place automatically. This is the real key. The struggle of wanting and fearing closeness with others, as well as of wanting and fearing intimate contact with one’s innermost self, cannot be settled by making up one’s mind to give up one of the two alternatives of closeness or separateness. This can never work. It can be resolved only when negative and destructive aims are surrendered, and the best of who you are is joyfully offered to life. Only then do you experience that there is nothing to fear from life except your own destructiveness. When this destructiveness is given up, the key to life is found.

Devote a few minutes every day to thoughts such as these:

“Whatever I already am, I want to devote to life. I deliberately want life to make use of the best of what I have and who I am. I may not be sure at this moment in what way this could happen, and even if I have ideas, I will allow for the greater intelligence and wisdom deep within me to guide me. I will let life itself decide how a fruitful interchange can take place between it and me. For whatever I give to life, I have received from it, and I wish to return it to the great cosmic pool to bring more benefit to others. This, in turn, must inevitably enrich my own life to the exact measure that I willingly give to life:  for truly life and I are one. When I withhold from life, I withhold from myself. When I withhold from others, I withhold from myself. Whatever I already am, I want to let flow into life. And whatever more in me can be utilized, still waiting to be brought to fruition, I request, I decide, and I desire that it be put to constructive use, so as to enrich the atmosphere around me.”

If such thoughts were deliberately pursued and deeply meant, problems would have to resolve themselves, pain would cease, solutions would appear on the horizon even to problems which had before seemed absolutely insoluble.

The fear of uniting, of meeting, of reaching, of having intimate contact, exists as long as the individual’s psyche is negatively geared. In such a case union must be frightening and appear a question of “me versus the other.”  As long as the depth of your own psyche is frightening — and it will feel frightening when you pursue negative, destructive aims — free self-expression is dangerous, contact with others is dangerous, and giving one’s self up to the bliss of union must be desperately avoided because it threatens to eliminate control. Without this control, your destructive aims could take over and threaten annihilation. Giving up control must appear as death, as the giving up of selfhood and safety, as long as destructive aims persist and preoccupy the psyche. Therefore, in order to preserve one’s individuality, the only available way appears to be building up barriers around the self. Only this seems to keep the self intact. The inherent tragedy is that as long as destructive goals exist in the psyche, isolation gives one a sense of identity and seems to preserve one’s individuality. Yet only in a negative context does loss of control lead to death or to a loss of power over oneself. Ultimately mental disturbance is caused by this conflict. But when your psyche no longer believes in “me versus the other,” but in “me and the other,” and when you therefore give what you have and what you are to life, then you will not fear loss of control because loss of ego-control will lead to more control in a better, fuller, healthier sense. With a completely constructive psyche, the personality can trust its spontaneous, unchecked, free expressions. It can give itself up to the inner powers, so that a free-flowing, vibrating unity between the self and the life force exists. This appears like an act which relinquishes direct control. But through this act more constructive powers deep in the core of the self are activated; they make the self forever more adequate and give it more control over life so it can determine its own fate in the best possible way.

If you can allow these words not only to fill your intellect, but also your inner being and become sincere in your good will to find the truth of “me and the other,” you will experience how safe, easy, and joyful life becomes when you dispense with the pseudo-necessity of pursuing negative aims. Wanting to defeat life, others and yourself, out of spite, you withhold the best of you from life for the so-called safety and satisfaction of your negative aims. These negative aims have to become so conscious that they literally stare you in the face. Only then can their futility be comprehended so blatantly that the personality will dispense with them. You will no longer need to fight and obstruct what you want most, namely the deep satisfaction of being wholly yourself, which also means being accepted by another person as being what you really are, without masks and pretenses, without separating mechanisms which you still think you have to use. When you dispense with the masks and barriers you have so ardently put up all your life, you will be free and know that what you are is good. But this knowledge can come only when that which already is good in you is offered up to life. “Me versus the other” is the whole human struggle. As simple as this is, you as an individual cannot understand these words unless you have made some progress on a path leading deep into yourself. Then you will know what these words mean. As you learn to inwardly assimilate these words, you come closer to passing over this threshold. All of you can make the first step now in a very simple meditation:

“I decide to give up the error of ‘me versus the other.’  There is really no conflict, therefore I can give all of myself. I not only request help from deep within, but I decide to give the best I am to life, without fear. Any fear that still lurks within me is error, and I decide to rid myself of this error and to give myself over to the divine powers to which I open myself totally. I deeply desire to understand the truth of ‘I and others are one’ meaning that there is no conflict. I therefore can give of myself the best that I am. I surrender to those higher forces so that this self-giving may occur in harmony, in rightness, without strain and effort.”

When you are in the unity of being, there is no either/or, for it is always “me and the other,” and then there is no conflict between giving and receiving. There can be no conflict of control. If you do not fear giving, you can fully receive; you can never be shortchanged. When you fear giving, you cannot be open to receive. It is impossible. Therefore you are constantly being shortchanged. The wrong conclusion is thus strengthened, so that you will close yourself up even more. But when you are in the truth of unity, using your freedom to offer what you are to life, it will make you completely comfortable about receiving. You can easily determine this fact.

Coming Out- Facebook Version

One thing that people don’t realize is just how hard it is for those that feel like they have to hide a part of who they are. It is sad that they feel the need. But they do it out of fear. Fear of losing the ones that they love. Losing family, losing friends. It becomes the most difficult thing for many to endeavor through. I know this because for many years, and still at a level up until today, I have gone through every part of that.

For a long time in my life, my largest fear has been people discovering that I AM QUEER. It was my worst nightmare. What would they do? What would they say? It had always seemed that everything you heard about the “gay community” or “homosexuality” or even just someone coming out was negative and tragic. From the harassment, the discrimination with the countless murders and suicides, I pondered for a long time as to why anyone would want to come out. But what should have been on my mind was why would anyone want to affect one’s life just because of a small characteristic about them? Why is it that we hear about all this negativity and where is the positivity? Where are the people that are building others up?

These were the fears that I faced in my life as I contemplated telling the ones that I loved the secret that I had buried so deep for so long. I feared losing my family. Losing my friends. Being alone. Some of you know that at the end of my junior year, I faced my biggest fear. For YEARS, I denied every aspect that I could possibly be gay. I became frustrated. And then finally I had found a friend I could talk to. Someone who was always there for me. Someone that accepted and supported me. Made me feel like I wasn't the horrible person I had always felt I was. She gave me hope that there are loving and understanding people.

It took me a long while to tell others that I considered my closest friends up until my freshman year of college; when I did start telling them it was a slow process. They were accepting. So I decided to open my range a bit and told more people, including family. Some people were accepting and loving but at the same time didn't support it at all and were confused, To them, it was still wrong; as I know many others feel about it today. However, others I have had nothing but full support and understanding from. But with that knowledge people have about me, it spreads and people found out, some of them started to treat me differently. I began to dread knowing that others knew about me and wished that I could 'crawl back into the closet.' But as I think about it more, I am glad that I didn’t, and with this, glad I am finally sharing this with you-- as to many of you, this is the first you would have heard about it.

While I have gone through immense hardships of losing friends and family since sharing this part of me, I am happier now. All my life I have worried about people finding this out about me. Stressing over their reactions and losing the ones I love. I do know that by posting this, I may lose another one of you, but it is a risk I am willing to take.

I hope that more and more others won't have to face the fears I did. I hope that anyone who is going through the hardships and trials that I have gone through will be able to get through it and to become happy as I have. Not to sound super cliche, but it does get better. At times, it may not appear that it does and at times you may not recognize the blessing that is disguised in the trial.

I want to thank everyone that has been there through this with me. Those that accepted me even if they didn't support or agree with me. I have watched so many people change. From not understanding and being completely homophobic (even me of myself) to developing a stronger love and understanding for me -- or at least even striving to understand. To you, Thank You. You have helped me immensely. You have made me stronger.

While I don't share these for your sympathy, I share these with the intent of helping others. I hope that one day, people won't fear the way I did. But to get there, we all need to help them. I hope that you know how hard this is for me to share. For many of you, this may come across as a shock. But it is something that I want to share with you. It has taken me years to post this about me, I went back and forth because of fear. Just remember that I am the same as I have always been, the only difference is you now know a part that has been hidden backstage behind the curtain. All I want is for everyone to live a happy, enjoyable life, and to remember that life is wonderful. EDIT: Genderqueer to be exact.