My First Transgender Suicide Attempt, 1985

Hello My Dear One,

Important Preface: I am in no way currently suicidal. I have no suicidal ideation, no plans, no causes, no reasons for wanting to kill or harm myself in any way. Repeat: I don't want to kill myself. I am under the care and supervision of medical professionals and am 100% safe. Trust me, you can hold me to this one.

All that said, I want to share what my first suicide attempt was like and some of what I've learned about myself from it.

It was 1985 in the house I grew up in on the floor of my parents' bathroom.

I was 10 years old and I wanted to die.

I know that it may seem shocking, my young age, but that was the first time I realized I could end my life if I had the right resources. On that particular day, I happened to have the right resources. I had a bathtub full of water, a towel, a door with a lock, and a large block of dry ice we'd received with frozen steaks in the mail. I'd been warned of the dangers of the solid form of CO2 and exactly what not to do with it. I knew that as it melted the resultant gas was toxic and caused suffocation. So, with that knowledge, I filled the tub, locked the door, rolled up the towel to block the crack under the door, and laid down. I was waiting for an end.

A spoonful of poison...

But how did I get to this point? How did I at 10 years old even conceptualize this? Why was I desirous of taking my own life when I had existed for only 1 decade? What could possibly make a child want to die?

It was because I knew that death was an end to suffering. Death was an end to the constant pain of believing that I was never going to be okay. Death was the end of both feeling and being different. Death was a permanent release from the self-loathing, the anxiety, and the utter hopelessness of my different existence. 

And my existence was very different because I was a boy, stuck being a girl. I was transgender, and I didn't have a word for it. In 1985 there were adults who had sex changes, not yet called gender reassignment or gender affirmation surgery, and I had heard of 1 man who became a woman in 1951. But without female examples or an LGBTQ vocabulary, I was left in a figurative and a literal no-man's-land. Being transgender wasn't a thing yet, but I was. Consequently, I thought of myself as a thing, an "it" caught between a mind and a body that didn't or couldn't match. Death seemed like the only (good) answer at the time.

Leading up to that day I had fantasized about violent and scarring accidents and attempted self-harm by the time I'd entered Primary school. One summer when I was 7 or 8 I threatened to break my leg by jumping off a swing so I wouldn't have to return to camp. Why was I willing to do something that drastic just to get out of swimming in a lake with leaches and a snapping turtle? The shortest answer was my bathing suit. It was a one-piece with ruffles and it accentuated the fact that I was fat and developing anatomically female traits. I hated being anywhere that I was seen and identified as a girl. I would be perceived as female at camp, the lake, and everywhere else I went then. At home, as an only child in the 1970s, I dressed as I wanted, but out in the world, I had to be her. And if I was injured or dead, so was she. And being her was truly and literally a fate worse than death in my mind.

So, back in 1985, the white smoke-like fog was bubbling up and over the side of the bathtub, quietly falling onto me. There was no smell or taste, just a physical heaviness, and the emotional heaviness of the anticipation.

But, being 10 I was impulsive and impatient, and I sat up because the process was taking too long. And I was confused. And I was scared. And as a person of faith, I believe that G-d was just as present as the CO2 was. I felt within me that maybe this wasn't the right choice. So I moved the towel, unlocked and opened the door, and left the bathroom. I pretended as though nothing had happened. But I secretly wondered if/when someone would've come looking for me. But mostly, I was glad I'd escaped parental punishment because I wasn't caught breaking the rules.

Funny isn't it, I was more concerned with my father's verbal (over)reactions and the punishment than my actual death. Not until now have I thought about what my parents' response to their 4th grader attempting suicide would've been. Or what it would've been like had I actually died. I honestly can't imagine that scenario, their response, or the final outcome.

And that's one of the most important things I've learned from this event and the others that would follow it. I am unable, unwilling, or unmoved to imagine or care what will happen to those around me if I commit suicide. It is the most selfish act that I can do. I would be telling those around me that they are not enough, that their belief in me is wrong, and that worst of all my wants are greater than their needs. Even though the horrors of being me at that moment supersede all rational or logical thought, it doesn't change the outcome for those I'd leave behind. The deepest truth of suicide is that by choosing to leave and never returning, my concern for myself is larger than any amount of love from or for others. 

Eventually, I also learned that no matter how hard I try, I'm unable to be someone or something I'm not. Even a dead body was still going to be the wrong body. And that body has slowly changed into the one I have now. It still may not be the dream but it's a million times better than the old version. And it's infinitely better than not having it at all.

The man I am today.

And among other things, I see that who I am is a direct product of those horrible times and conflicts within myself. I am exactly the man I am today because of the female role I played, the suicide attempt(s) and the pain I lived with and enacted on others. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, a friend, and so much more because I chose to walk away from suicide then, and many times later on. I am here because of all that was, and what I choose to do with it now. I am here.

Thank you for being here in the darker parts of the journey with me so we can both see the light together.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Fighting My Anatomical [Trans]Gender Dysphoria

Hello My Dear One,

I've recently been fighting with my 15+ year psychological diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. My sense of dysphoria feeling/being a man, but still having physical attributes of a female, escalated to a level that I hadn't experienced in more than a decade. It started with a low-level of physical pain in my groin. There's a 30-year-old, largely calcified cyst in a delicate (read genital) area of my anatomy. Unrelated to anything I can recall leading up to it, the cyst became inflamed, infected, and eventually burst open 2 separate times. The second time the pus that drained out was putrid, gritty, and contained shards of calcium. All of this led to a few medical appointments, a small procedure, and a soul racking anxiety about my gender identity. Or at least the physical manifestations of said identity.

The practical and pragmatic questions started immediately. Why did this flare-up occur now or at all? Did I do something that made it happen? Is it just a random flukish event? Is there an underlying medical reason? Is it a combination of multiple factors? And more importantly, is there anything I can do about it now?

But the broader philosophical questions arose moments later. Why has this caused such a massive flare-up in my mind? Why has this medically benign object in my groin, set off a cancerous spread of gender dysphoria in my head? Why am I questioning my male identity based on a cyst that could just have easily occurred in my armpit, my neck, or on my ass? Why am I struggling to come to terms with a more than 30-year-old part of my body, that I didn't believe mattered anymore?

It's because it has mattered all along and I have been unwilling and unable to acknowledge or accept that. I've been aware of this thing for as long as it's been there, both pre- and post-transition. It's been a daily reminder of where I am male and where I am not. And I hate that.

It is a literal encapsulation under my skin of a medical condition that has dictated more than 75% of my life. And it was a condition I didn't even know I had. The physician I saw had done her research and figured out that I have Hidradenitis Suppurativa also known as Acne inversa. It's a chronic skin disease of acne, boils, infections, and scarring of the skin, usually stemming from sweat glands and follicular [hair] blockages. It has many comorbidities (conditions that often occur with it) that include anxiety, depression, excessive sweating, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. All of the above applied to me at one point or another in my life.

The disease itself isn't curable, and only the symptoms can be treated/managed. In a miraculous turn of events, my transition from female to male has helped, though that is certainly not the most common treatment. The removal of my ovaries and uterus, breast tissue, and a weekly injection of testosterone ended the ovarian cysts, the boils under the breasts, and seemingly most of the cysts in the groin. But, it didn't erase or eradicate the hardened cyst already there.

This new medical information didn't alter my sense of gender dysphoria. It was good to learn and access new resources, but it didn't change the dis-ease of not having the physical structures I want and think I need. That's the whole point of this for me. That no new diagnosis, or self-actualization, or psychological therapeutic intervention, or level of imagination will result in a physical change in my anatomy. I may one day be able to reconcile my gender dysphoria with my body, but it will never truly be that of a cisgender male. There may be an approximation that will meet my psychological needs, but it is not something that happens quickly, easily, or inexpensively. Surgical interventions are complicated processes.

But the surgery I can have done right now, a basic excision of the cyst, won't change anything about my anatomical or physical appearance. In the long run, it will likely alleviate some of my feelings of dysphoria, yet, it will likely exacerbate them as I focus more on that area. There will be pain, swelling, the potential for infection, issues maintaining blood glucose levels, and risks for scarring. It will serve as an acute reminder of my physical differences.

But will it be worth it? I think the answer for me is yes. I need to remove that which I can, even if it doesn't physically alter anything else. Freedom from something that has been painful and distressing for more than 30 years is worth the cost of a little bit of discomfort. Perhaps, it will serve as a motivating factor in creating more physical changes to my body. It may help me to refocus on what is most urgent for my health and wellbeing. And in the end, that might be more surgery. Or it might not. Who knows?

In the end, I have seen that gender is indeed something that comes from between the ears. It's a construct in our minds that stems largely from our culture, our religious traditions, and our personal experiences of G-d. But there is for me a physical component as well. And maybe that's the real difference between transgender and transsexual identifications. One's need for recognition as a man or a woman, or for specific body parts that signify recognition as a male or a female. Two or more forms of presentation and perception that create a slightly more holistic view of a human being. And which one is most important for the human being who is presenting and being perceived.

Whatever the end result is, I am thankful for this time to experience it, even if it has been triggering in so many surprising ways. Even challenging things teach us to see what is and what might be possible.

Thank you for continuing with me on this journey of experiences.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari