Time To Wake Up

I wasn’t going to write this particular post but after a few days of thinking about it, I decided I should. This blog is about me confronting things, not hiding away or pretending they never happened. It’s about taking responsibility for my actions and my life, right? So yeh, I’m ashamed to say that I slipped up recently. But it’s not all bad. Despite slipping up, something totally unexpected happened which has really given me the kick up the arse that I needed so badly.

A few days ago, my wife posted a Facebook status saying that she was in a strange mood, and that she didn’t know what she was feeling at the moment. I know things have been difficult between us, especially as I’ve been trying to deal with all this, and so I panicked. As her friends and family replied with offers of a chat or just giving her some support, all I could think about was that I’m the cause. I was the reason why she wasn’t happy and was feeling so lost. All kinds of wild scenarios ran through my mind. Maybe she’d figured it all out and was ready to end things between us? Maybe she had become disappointed in me? Maybe she’d met somebody else after realising I don’t make her happy anymore? Whatever the reason, I couldn’t cope. I still can’t cope today, if I’m being totally honest. It was like living through my fear about telling her. I couldn’t even find a way to offer support, I was just frozen with fear. Inside my head, I could feel myself descending into a depressive spiral again. In the end, all I could do was write “same” as a reply. Shit, I know. I hate myself for being so useless. You know what? Maybe she is better off without me. I had to do something to pull myself back up and to be there for her but I was lost too. The guilt was eating away at me and I needed to keep focused. I knew suicide and carving myself up were wrong, so I did the next best thing: I found whatever tablets I could that were capable of making me drowsy or high…and took them. As I said at the start, I’m ashamed of what I did but, at the time, I was struggling to cope with the burden of causing my other half to feel that way. I was facing a potential break up there and then. As the familiar spaced out feeling hit me, I could feel myself relaxing a bit. This was a low-key thing so I had to make sure I was still able to talk to her. Taking them was purely to take the edge off, not to escape everything. We did talk a bit, but not bout anything in particular. If anything, I thought it’d be better to take her mind off things instead and let her open up when she wanted to talk. I spent the night thinking she was going to say those dreaded words: we need to talk.

To my surprise, that talk never happened. The relief was overwhelming. However, that’s also when I realised I can’t avoid the inevitable anymore. She needs to know and she needs to know as soon as possible. I still don’t know if I’m the cause of her unhappiness that night, but I can make an educated guess. In any event, it’s just not fair on her – as I’ve said all along. At the same, I can’t live like this. Always on edge about people finding out before I have the chance to tell them. Mentally, I think it’d be more manageable if I was able to in control of who found out or how people found out. At least I can be prepared for the outcome. Keeping something like this to yourself for such a long time makes you paranoid. Thoughts or actions which come naturally to me may be obvious to others around me, so it makes me even more self-conscious. Let’s take the last few months for example. When people mention anything to do with make up, I’m like “shit, is that a dig at me??” or I think they’re hinting that they know. Or when people talk about clothes, diversity or gender, I panic and start to think they’re going to ask about me at any minute. Isn’t that the sort of behaviour displayed by somebody who’s guilty and afraid of being caught out? Yes, I’m guilty of having a brain that doesn’t match my brain. I’ll openly admit that in this blog but nobody really reads this. In the real world, the words that come out of your mouth can’t be unheard and will have serious repercussions, making it infinitely more difficult to admit to this – even worse when everybody already sees me as one thing and I’m now going to turn it all upside down by saying I’m the other thing.

Thing is, I can’t help but feel like a criminal or that I’ve done something wrong. I’ve been trying to rationalise everything and to be more tolerant of myself, but the feelings of guilt and fear keep returning. And that’s when it all clicked. The feeling of being motionless, stuck in limbo hasn’t been because I don’t know what to do next or not knowing what’s going on. Deep down, I do know. In fact, I’ve mentioned a few times in this blog that I’ve always known – I just totally lost track of it because of guilt and fear. I became obsessed with focusing on escaping those negative and unwanted feelings that I never focused this. I think that’s also why I’ve not been able to come to terms with things fully. Yeh, change can be scary. When it comes to something that affects the rest of your entire life, change is very fucking scary. But is it scarier than not being in control when people do find out? Is it worse than the feelings of hate I have towards myself? No. Nothing can match how I feel about myself or this. What happened the other night has given me a wake up call to make sure I’m focusing on the right things. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to be accepted as a person. One that’s equal to others, regardless of anatomy or any other differences. I don’t know how or when but in order for me to be accepted, I am going to have to tell people. Starting with my wife.

Featured image: via Google