Silent Treatment

I feel guilty today. Not for something that I did wrong, but for something that I'm about to do. I don't know what crime I will commit, but it will happen. Public shame will follow, ostracism will occur, and my reputation will suffer. This is the cycle of my normalcy.

But it isn't a cycle that is alone.

I read a story about a woman named Mona in India. I haven't finished reading the story, but I felt compelled to share my thoughts about it. She was a transgender person who was born a boy, but grew up into a woman. She felt she was female from the beginning. She was mal-treated by her family, abused verbally, ostracized, bullied, and molested by her tutor. It's awful what she went through for feeling different. In a society that prizes masculinity among males, and submissiveness among females, Mona simply didn't belong. But, simply is not how it was felt, lived, and experienced.

I'm not sure how my fate will unfold in the next 5 years, but I'm hoping for the best. I know the last 5 years were extremely difficult. Years of depression, so extreme that I couldn't think coherently. I couldn't talk freely, openly, or happily. My words, insecure, uncertain, and mumbly, I had my smile to rely on and my laughter to lift me. Luckily, I found myself amongst a peer group of writers in an academic setting that didn't take itself too seriously. It was the perfect refuge.

In the day, while I went to class and walked alone in the streets of the Mission, mumbling to myself, larger issues were lingering. In a community that blamed me for all their problems, I felt alone in my search for an answer. I lit up when confronting people on the sidewalk, but not in the uplifted spirits kind of way. My thoughts rang louder in my ears, confused by the meaning of "water" and past experiments at mental thought patterns. I was always somewhat conscious of my mind, but the consciousness rang louder year after year.

 My voice was cut off from my peers due to a severe side effect in my medicine--hence, I was not able to fully communicate my suffering--the panic attacks, the dread in everyday living, and the suicidal beliefs that I should die to end the suffering of a couple countries. Delusional thinking was my friend, and my escape. My ally as my psychoanalytic moments of self despair, and self healing were my exhilarating roller coaster rides.

But it is I who feels the pain, still. The sting of guilt, the nagging weight of trauma. Will it all repeat, again to cycle and re-cycle? I spent years trying to figure out where I went wrong, many moments asking the heavens for forgiveness, and many car rides of yelling for self worth and independence. Soul searching? Problem solving, but not my own problems. It is my sense of self respect that saves me, my selfish stubbornness that will guide me, and not my giving, generosity to mankind. I don't know what else to do. I need help. But not not for my mind, but for my soul.