transform

6 jan 2025

i am done with being complacent in my misery and dissatisfaction. by the end of the year, i want to be unrecognisable. i don't want to be like this anymore. i want to take care of myself. i want to detach from everything that holds me back, puts me in a box i don't want to be in, and gives me crushing shame and embarrassment from trying to move forward. i don't want to try to move forward. i want to MOVE FORWARD. rebirth. the moment i step off the plane in my home country this weekend, the old me is dead. no more sleepless nights wallowing about the past. it's about my future now. i may never be at the same level as the vast majority of my peers, i've been failed by everyone around me my whole life, a lot went wrong & there are many people to blame. but i know i will never get the closure i want. any time i try, it causes more pain. it might not be my fault that i turned out this way, but it's up to me alone to do something with my life. it will be especially hard, knowing i can't leave the environment that holds me back & ruins all my motivation and self-confidence for a long time. i don't know how i'm going to pull it off, but i have to. i had to do it years ago, and now i'm suffering the consequences of inactivity. this year it's absolutely crucial. it's my last straw. i don't have a choice.

i must transform myself

i must transform myself

i must become a brand new person

i am leaving the old me behind

i am reborn

i am free to be myself

i will leave behind what is not me anymore

i must transform myself

identity crisis

5 jan 2025

i feel like an entirely different person every few hours and it's tearing me apart. i will catch myself looking at masculine people and wishing i was like that, and feeling uncomfortable with my chest, my soft skin, my genitals, and wanting to be called a guy. then a couple of hours later, i will feel repulsed by that, and want to grow out my hair and keep my body & the way i present it the same. both of these deep and visceral feelings feel so simultaenously true to me, that i don't know who i am anymore. i have a tendency to keep changing my image, always wanting to change my name, but never following through due to the stigma, the logistical headache and knowing i'll want to change it again next year. i know we all change over time, and identity can be fluid, but this has to be a mental illness. i don't feel fluid and free, i feel like i'm always trapped in my own skin no matter what i do with it. nothing feels right. whenever i chase after one thing, thinking it's finally who i am, and i achieve it, it starts feeling wrong. it feels like there's more than one person inside me sometimes, and they're battling for control.

although, one thing that stays a constant in my mind is wondering what it would be like if i was dating women, knowing i do not find men sexually attractive. i've been dating a man for almost three years, and it's the most perfect relationship ever apart from that issue, so it feels wrong and soul-crushing to abandon him for a bodily function that i'm not even sure fulfils me. i know if i left him, i would mourn what we had together for the rest of my life. but the "what if" will always gnaw at me. sometimes it eats me alive, so i just ignore it to the best of my abilities. i know i can't move on, only push it away, because it's a permanent and unchanging part of me, whether i like it or not. i knew for sure when i was 11 years old; then i was gaslit by horny & homophobic teenage boys, and endured a few horrific relationships i never should have even entered for the sake of my loneliness and people-pleasing curse. i didn't even orgasm until last year, at the age of 20 (and a half). then i realised i could only continue orgasming while thinking about women. all of those "how to tell if you're a lesbian" videos online aren't helpful, because they shy away from the physical and sexual side of it. that's how you know for sure. i didn't realise it wasn't normal for straight women to not feel anything during sex, to only find soft and feminine features attractive, to see penises the same way they see toilet plungers.

i don't know if it's worth trading the real and perfect love my heart has found, just for sex with women, when i don't know if i'll ever feel the same way with my current partner about anyone else. the problem is i'm so attached, maybe i just can't see clearly. i get very attached to even the worst people if they show me just a little bit of care, even if it's entirely fake and used as a tool to keep me being treated like shit most of the time, and when it's over, it's devastating, and takes me months to not feel horrible every second i'm conscious. the problem is that this man has only ever showed me care, been so loving and generous and adorable, absolutely nothing like what i have been through with the disgusting excuse of a "man" that came before. the only thing missing is sex, and i don't know if i even care. i can only know if i leave him, and that's not a gamble i feel willing to take. i will always want change in the back of my mind, but is it worth it? lose everything, and gain one bodily function i can just do myself? nothing ever feels right. all i know is i don't see a happy life without him, despite myself.