Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Traversing Through Transitions in Life.

Everyone goes through hard times every now and again.  During these periods, one has the potential to grow stronger.  Sometimes, when blockades seem to be everywhere, it is best for an individual to focus on what he or she can do to inspire other people instead of trying to find an immediate solution to a problem that keeps persisting.

I have been going through housing and career challenges for a little over a year now.  All the old in my life is leaving, but as of right now, it does not feel like any new is coming in to replace what has been lost.  It feels like I will just end up in a dark void somewhere.  I take this as a sign that I need to realize what talents that I already do have and need to use it in order to uplift other people.  I am too focused on trying to put an end to a situation instead of enjoying what I do have.  This seems to be a “go with flow” period in my life.  The more I force things to come to an end, the more blockades tend to pop up.  In other words, I have Chinese fingertrapped myself.  The more I keep pulling the worse everything gets.  I have to learn how to relax and move forward with caution.  Everyone from my past seems to have exited my life at this point.  Now I am forced to take a big leap of faith.  I have never taken a huge risk in my life.  It does not really seem like I have much of a choice in the matter.  The best thing that I can do for myself at this point is to have patience and keep inspiring other people through my writing until I can obtain clarity on this issue. 

If a person is stuck in a situation for a long time, then he or she most likely needs to look at what type energy is coming from him or her.  Is the individual coming from a place of fear or a place of love?  It is obvious that all of these blockades are just representations of the insecurities that I feel inside my own mind.  The same would probably hold true for everyone else as well.  One needs to find the positive aspects of the imagined turmoil in his or her life in order to succeed.  Once a person is accepting of the new, then it will start coming into his or her life.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Independence is a Nightmare

Taking big leaps in life can be difficult for absolutely everyone.  They can be devastating for those who have never lived independently at any point during his or her life.  Independence is a freeing experience, but it means that the illusions one might have lived under are now gone.  One finally realizes the weight of every decision he or she makes. 

I lived a sheltered life when I was younger due to being born with Cerebral Palsy.  My mother did not let me do anything by myself.  She always insisted on helping me with absolutely everything.  I never learned how to do basic things like dressing myself, going number two, and tying shoes until much later in my childhood than most other people. 

My father saw me as a source of pride.  He was proud of me for graduating college.  This was not for my sake.  It was for bragging rights on how well his bloodline was doing.  I had to do everything the way my father wanted without question.  Every time I would fight him on something, he would bring up the fact that he paid for my college education. My father also helped me get from place to place since I could not drive.

My job mimicked the relationship that my father and I shared.  I was told what to do and when.  I spoke to people on the phone using a script template helping them with their unpaid bills.  The only thing was that most people did not really want help understanding anything.  All they wanted to do was complain about why they could not work or whine about every minor tax charge on the bill.  The customers would ask what all of the tax charges meant.  I hated explaining every minor tax charge because there really was not a straight answer what each tax item.  I wanted to tell these people that taxes are part of life and to stop nickel and diming everything. Maybe they would they would get somewhere in life is they actually put effort towards something productive instead of arguing taxes that add up to a dollar on the second page of a bill.  I actually failed a call one time just because I politely told a customer that the reason that his was high was because he had not payment on it in five months.  I was told that I should have told him about energy saving tips instead.  Each individual bill was not high so telling the customer about the energy tips would have been incorrect information. 

After my father passed away last year, I felt free for the first time in my life.  I could actually do what I wanted.  I started studying a lot as well as writing.  I had started a youtube channel a few years earlier and went back and forth on whether I should continue making videos.  I thought that I would eventually find my way if I followed my passions to a degree.  Now everything has come crashing down. I lost my job, my doctor, my family, and my home.  I never had anything in my name before my father passed away, so organizations including homeless shelters will not help me.  I still have not narrowed down what I want to do with my life.  I do not know how to take steps to write for a living or counsel others.  I do not have the money for school.  Due to transportation restrains, I cannot afford to travel far away for job interviews.  I majored in philosophy when I went to college and graduated with Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts.  I decided to go into philosophy because I was bad at both math and science.  I lack practical skills outside Microsoft Office.  I do not perform well in fast paced environments.  Due to not being able to drive, my chances of being promoted to a high position by a company are rather slim.  Corporations want people that can adapt to new situations immediately.

Since I have lost everything in the area I am living now, I decided that the best course of action is to move far away.  I kept getting blocked from getting a place in the Baltimore area, so I took that as a sign that I should not be here anymore.  I do not know how to take steps to move somewhere else, and I cannot get help from anyone else because everyone I know is living in survival mode and feel that they cannot sustain themselves if they are not working at their jobs 24/7. 

I have begun to wonder if counseling others and writing is what I truly want to do, or is it something that seems desirable because it is better than call center work.  What if somehow I found a practical application for writing and counseling, but ended up hating it?    It does not seem like I will actually get the chance to see if that is true or not since I cannot figure out how to actually make money doing what I say I like to do.  Most of the daily grind jobs out there right now are customer service or sales jobs that pay less than where I was employed.  If my soul screamed like a banshee for me to get out of my current job, then why is it being so coy about what I should do next with my life?  When things are not going the way the universe wants, it will make a person ill so he or she will slow down and focus on other things, but when the individual does not know the steps to take, the universe only gives out small hints on what to do.  How did I get too sensitive to work in a call center in the first place?  I worked for two years without a problem, and then all the sudden, everything about the place bothered me to no end.  I also got sick a lot as well. 

I am not trying to state that the universe is against me, but I feel as though it is having its cake and eating it too.  It tells me in a sharp manner to head a different direction than the one that I have been going towards, but then it uses the “free will” card when it comes to what I should do next.  Where are all the theatrics and light shows when it comes to my new path?  Where was the “free will” card before I started having lucid dreams and incidents of sickness telling me to go in a different direction?  As I stated earlier I worked at the call center years without much of a problem.  I was fine with the job back then.  I never asked to have lucid dreams.  I did not know that lucid dreaming was possible, nor did I attempt to have a lucid dream.  Where was my   Now I have to get a similar job to what I just had that will pay a lot less.  Then when I do not have time to engage in my passions, the universe will once again come up on me and make me sick all.  I will be back to square one.

I do not know how to finish the cycle I am in right now.  I do not know how to meet my needs in a way that is actually beneficial to my sense of self.  I get thrusted in this new direction with no clarity about how to navigate.  I learned a lot of things and met many great people, but all of this does not help me manifest what I want in a practical way.  I have a lot of obstacles in my way that I do not know how to overcome by myself without help.  I have already asked help from others numerous times and was turned away. 

I do not understand how the universe expects me to be this independent right out of the gate.  People usually have to learn the ropes before they can do everything by themselves.  I am not completely in the dark.  I know how to take care of daily practical matters, but I am being asked to figure everything out myself even though the obstacles I face can only be overcome by multiple people.  I am just beginning to do things on my own, so why am I facing challenges that somebody with twenty years of experience of being independent would have a tough time handling?  I have asked the spirit world for help as well, but all I ever see is mixes 1s and 7s, 3s and 7s, 4s and 7s, and 1s and 6s.  The first three mixed numbers indicate that I am headed in the right direction.  The last number means to ask for help from others in regards to a material situation.  I am not going to count the times that I have asked for help and was turned down. 


I have done everything that I can possibly think of at this point.  The only thing I have not done is look how to ship my belongings across the country.  I will probably try that next.  My life in Baltimore is pretty over at this point, and staying that much longer would just be procrastinating the inevitable.  If there is not anything here, then that is it.  Under normal circumstances, one needs to plan out a big move, but all the events that have taken place are hardly traditional by any stretch of the imagination.  I am just going to have to figure out how to use my newly found sensitive and my writing skills as I go along.  I am not a huge fan of this approach, but it is all that I have as of right now.           

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Detransition: The Little Black Sheep

Detransition is seen as taboo within the transgender community.  A lot of people fear discussing it because they do not want to admit that it could be them one day.  Those that oppose the transgender community use detransition as a reason why transgenderism is disorder of some kind and not an actual identity.  Most just tend to avoid the topic altogether. 

There are a few things that I noticed when doing some minor research about the issue online. Detransiton seems to be a bit more common in the the female to male population and less so from those who transitioned from male to female. I looked up detransition on youtube a few times and most people who shared their stories were female to male. An article I read over the internet through a friend focused mostly on those that transitioned from female to male.  I cannot put my finger on why this is the case. My best guess is that the health risks associated with testosterone are lot more severe than the ones linked to taking estrogen. Maybe that is a bit of a stretch, but it is known that testosterone is a stronger hormone than estrogen.  It will not take as long for one to see the effects of the changes in his or her body as it would for someone transitioning from male to female.  Other than this small observation, it is still a mystery as to why detransition seems more common among the female to male population.

Some people have reported going through another serious issue in their lives at the time they decided to transition.  A person's life is not going to magically change just because he or she transitioned. One has to transition for him or herself. An individual is still going to have the same interests and emotions as before the transition took place. A person will have the same traits as he or she did before his or transition took place. An individual might be happier after transition, but the other aspects of him or her probably will not change that much.

There has been a lot of talk regarding how easy going doctors are these days to prescribe hormones.  Some argue that medical professionals should probe individuals about why they want to start hormones to make sure they are doing it for a good reason.  I do not think that care for transgender individuals needs to go back to the “gatekeeper” system, but I do think that a person should think about things long and hard before they do anything to his or her body. A person should be able to do what he or she wants with his or her body. I do believe that there should be guidance, but the decision is ultimately up to the individual. If the person regrets the decision later in life, then he or she will have to deal with those consequences.  This is why some people choose to live as the other gender for a while before they start hormones. No one says anything when people are of drinking age or smoke cigarettes, so why should hormones be any different?  I was told the risks of hormones before I took them. I had to sign a paper stating I understood that what I was going to do to do to my body was of my own free will.  Being “young and stupid” is not an excuse to institutionalize “gatekeeping.”  Any transgender person could decide to come off of hormones at any time.  They will still have to deal with the repercussions of what will happen to his or her body.     

The question regarding hormones being right for an individual is actually rather simple. Does one feel that in-congruent with his or her body enough to want to alter it almost permanently outside of other persisting issues?  Being transgender can be extremely confusing.  I was confused for ten years before I took any serious steps to do anything about my dysphoria.   Hormones are not a joke by any means. Even though, it takes a while to physically notice a difference in one's body, the changes start from the first dose that is taken.
 

The key to having a successful transition is to know what all the risks and challenges are before going forward.  There are always going to be things that come as a surprise when a person begins this process.  As long as one takes responsibility for the choice that he or she has made, then there will never be any regrets regardless of the outcome.  The most important part about the decision to transition is the power of choice.  The individual is living life his or her way.  Life itself is all about learning.  The journey is more important than the end result the majority of the time.  As long as one keeps pushing forward, he or she will always come out on top.      . 


Saturday, July 1, 2017

Freedom is the Greatest tool that Everyone can use

(This is another letter that I wrote to my father)

Dear father,

It has come to my attention that you and I still have some old baggage that we need to square away.  I am not mad at you that much anymore about everything that happened between us before you died.  I know that you grew up in fifties and sixties when society was trying to force uniformity onto every individual and business that existed at the time.  I learned from an Italian substitute teacher back in high school that around this time frame, a person’s work was more important than his or her safety.  I am sure that this extended to self-expression as well.  Uniformity was valued over individualism.  I am aware that my existence threw all of the values that were enforced in your day out the window.  I was born with Cerebral Palsy, which made my body different than the “standard” individual.  I had difficulties in adjusting to how society worked. 

I am sure that my transgender nature also came as a big shock to you.  The type of transformation that I went through was unheard of in your day.  People definitely did not openly express themselves in this manner fifty years ago.  I know that you thought the best thing for me was to do things the traditional way.  Your negative actions towards my self-expression were just your way of trying to make sure that I did not get hurt.  You were scared that I would become an outcast in society and ruin my life forever.  You thought I was just trying to challenge the status quo because I could. 

The information that was missing all of these years was the fact that you never felt as if you could express yourself freely.  This is why you and I would argue about the heat in the winter time.  You would always say “no one is going to tell me what to do in my own house.”  The anger that you showed towards me was because you thought I was taking away your form of self-expression.  This is also the reason that you could never sell the house we lived in together.  The house was your sense of freedom.  You could make your own rules and do things your way.  You felt inhibited in every place outside the home.  Even though you and I argued a lot, we both were fighting for the exact same thing.  We both wanted freedom from our inner turmoil.  You wanted freedom from the constraints that society placed on you long ago, and I wanted the freedom to use my own power the way that I saw fit. 

The thing that we did not realize was that we could have obtained our freedom long ago.  We let the conditioning of society get to us, and that is why we felt like we lived in some type of cage for most of our lives.  You could have opened up a business that revolved around something that you actually cared about.  Maybe you would have felt like you had freedom outside the home.  If I would have stood up for myself earlier in life and actually learned that I could do more things for myself than I was led to believe, then maybe I would not have hated you so bad when you were alive.  I felt like I had no freedom because I always needed help from everyone else.  The thing I learned since your death is that I do not need much help at all.  I pay all the bills on time, and I found out about Uber and Lyft.  I could have talked to you about getting a data plan for the phones in order to download the apps for both services, but I never did that.  I never brought up or forced the issue, so I did not get anything out of it. 


The events we shared together are all in the past now.  I plan to move farther away from the Baltimore area and create the life I want for myself.  The bank owns the house now, so I have to get out of it in the near future.  I no longer hold any grudges against you.  Become a soul that shines brightly in the universe and use the knowledge that you gained in our interactions to help others living or dead.  You taught me how to take my own power back.  I cannot pinpoint what you have learned from me, but I hope you learned that all the different ways an individual can express him or herself is important.  Individuals make up society, so when each person lives authentically, society as a whole becomes a little bit better over time.