I've been thinking a lot about my depression lately...I attempted suicide twice in 2011, but since then I've gotten a lot better. I'm still depressed, especially post-graduation, but I never have suicidal thoughts anymore thankfully.
But, I've been looking over my life, and I think my depression partially stems from suppressed "transgendered" feelings. I'm not sure if that's the exact definition, but when I was young, like around six or so, I always identified with female characters in the shows I watched. This is a nerdy example, but me and my friends used to always play Digimon...we'd borrow goggles and put them on our heads and such, but I always dressed up as Sora (wearing a bike helmet as her hat) and thought she was the coolest character. Now, that's not exactly indicative of being a transgender, I know, but that's the earliest memory I can recall regarding strong urges of identifying with girls. It got progressed more so, as I was always teased for being girly due to stuff like crossing my legs and curtsying, you know, stereotypical girly stuff, and I started to purposefully raise the pitch of my voice to sound like a girl. I don't know why I did this exactly, but I did it all through high school. By then, though, it wasn't even on purpose...I found myself resorting to it automatically, and even now I find my voice changing on its own.
Of course, I got MERCILESSLY teased for this. I grew up in a pretty conservative area, so no one thought I wanted to be a girl or anything, they couldn't even factor that I guess, rather they thought I was gay. But I never felt I was gay. I don't have anything against gay people, but I just didn't feel like I was simply a guy who was attracted to other guys. And none of the actual gay people I've met in my life have ever said they identified with girls, or wanted to be one, which of course isn't surprising once I grew up and saw that being gay had nothing to do with how manly a person is. I've found myself attracted to both men and women throughout my life, mainly women, but I'm always unsure how much of that is simply trying to live up to social expectations. I've never been with anyone at all, though, and much of that is due to my gender issues. The most I've done is gave a gay guy a blowjob in College, and that was because I was drunk, lonely, and when I did it, I even asked him to act like I was a woman. I enjoyed it, but I felt extremely guilty afterwards because I totally led him on and never called him again.
Regardless, I ended up just living with the jeers. Around that time I also began my Internet career, and at first, I did the whole "I'm actually a girl" on the Internet routine. But it wasn't for sexual pleasure, or getting a laugh, I never used that to try and lead guys on or anything (and I was just a kid myself, so it's not like I was a predator), it was literally me trying to live a life I couldn't in real life. And I was also a stupid kid on the internet, haha. This was before the LJ/Tumblr craze, so I wasn't self-diagnosing myself as a pansexual aromantic with Sora as a Spirit Guide, luckily.
It got really bad in High School. I was always a bit awkward and nerdy, even without these issues, so I was really uncomfortable fitting in. I always felt upset when we split into boys/girls in Gym, and I found myself getting jealous of girls. Not like a hatred towards them or anything, but more like wishing I was like them. One time I even borrowed a girl's lipgloss and wore it, which ended up getting me in trouble and sent to the Principal's office. Why? They said it was disrupting the education environment. I finally confronted my parents about this behavior which I had always hid from them, and they didn't take it well...I expressed interest in a sex-change and, this is probably the worse thing I've ever heard from my parents, but my dad threatened to "cut it off" if I ever said that again. After that I NEVER brought it up to them again, and I've never mentioned these feelings to them since.
But when they weren't around, I continued to act out and express my desire to be like the other girls. I suffered tons of teasing for it, and really nasty bullying, which led to me more or less suppressing these desires and becoming "normal" by 12th Grade. Since then, I still have moments where it pops out, but I find myself hiding it since I don't think that anyone I'm close to would understand it. My whole family is super-conservative, and the people I work with are horribly close-minded...there's a post-op transsexual who shops at my work and people treat her HORRIBLY. Not just calling her "sir" to be rude, but literally refusing to serve her. But within me, it's always been a strong feeling...when I envision myself, I always see myself as a girl, and I "feel" like a girl. I love when people use feminine pronouns to refer to me over the phone when they mistake me for a girl. I hate looking in a mirror because then I see a guy.
So, yeah, I'm really unsure of what to do though, because I've been pulled in both directions all my life...I feel like a girl, but society sees me as a boy and has pushed me to regain my masculinity. I've come to feel more comfortable in being a man, yet I still have feelings about being a girl and they really have begun to bubble up lately amongst my depression. :/
