NB:The following RANT was written in the throws of suicidal feelings, and (apart from being reformatted) is reproduced as is, expletives included.
This morning while walking the dogs I found myself feeling suicidal over not feeling attractive or sexy or even human. The last time I felt suicidal (two years ago now, when I was going off myself at the height of a full moon) when dealing with feminist issues.
And today, well today is probably the culmination of stress and anxiety of the whole week. First that dream I had on Sunday night, about feeling lost and unattractive. It bothered me all week. Sometimes it seems like the effort I make to look pretty and attractive might just come to nothing. I may as well just chuck all the cosmetics and clothes in the bin and just stay home.
I was going to go to a Gothic nightclub in Sydney on Monday night, but the friend I was going with didn't have any money until this weekend. I was disappointed. "Gothing Up" seems to be a way for me to play with my appearance and have a bit of fun with my persona, things I really have difficulty doing. When I'm Goth, I feel powerful and confident and (maybe) in control. In any event it didn't happen, though I WILL be going to one tonight.
Instead I ended up going to an art exhibition opening the night after in Strawberry Hills. I tried to dress elegant in blue and purple satins. I found that because I didn't know anyone there I could only stay 1/2 hour, I was just stressing out. Sometimes I just feel so delicate, brittle and shy. I just have so much trouble with crowds. Sometimes its huge crowds (like the ones at Katoomba) but others...
Oddly, on the train back I met Kelly who'd just broken up from her ex (again). She needed someone to talk to and it seemed I was in the right place and time for her. It was funny, she even told me that I was beautiful. Made me feel better for a time, but most times I just don't feel beautiful, or sexy, or even human; most times I just feel tired and stressed and ill.
Went to a "Pagans in the Pub" Thursday night. I thought it'd be good to get together with a group again. I wore this green skivvy with a black aerobics top over it (it comes down and curves under the breasts, helping to emphasise what curves there are), a pencil leather skirt with black fishnets and shoes. The venue damn it was a bloody leagues club and I wanted to look, well, sexy (flash, nice, fuck knows).
But all I got from the person who'd organised it was that I shouldn't try and look like a "trannie" and try and look like an attractive woman instead, and how she'd lived in the gay/lesbian community near the Albury (a notorious drag-show joint) and knew "all about it"; and how most transsexuals were actually caused by childhood abuse and did I know about 4" heels and so on and so forth.
I lost my cool one time when all she could do was pick at the skirt. I mean maybe my whole bloody life CAN be summed up by two sentences of psych theory (more like a 700pp case study) and maybe I DO like like some stupid cliche (though I try not to) but fuck it I just wanted to look nice and maybe stand out in good way. I wear casual and probably "daggy" clothes all week, why should I wear them going out to a club, something I rarely do? I was upset and pissed off, and maybe it didn't help having my hormone shots 3 days late or seeing the dietitian earlier in the day (I'm 105kg, I went UP in weight in the last month), and maybe getting stupid comments when I went into the Post Office on Wednesday, and just feeling so EXPOSED all week.
I was glad when I did a SubGenius rant for XXX day -- I was trying to be as raucous as I could think -- which was the whole point, but maybe some of that just came from feelings of sexual frustration. I just seem to go great periods of drought when nothing happens, not even interest in masturbation. And there's this woman talking about sexual health and how it's not about "doing it right" or "getting enough" but about attitudes towards oneself and the need and maybe I've never had a healthy attitude EVER in my life to this -- it's always just been TOO FUCKING IMPORTANT when maybe all I've ever wanted is just a kiss and a cuddle once in a while, and a sympathetic shoulder, someone to hand me the hanky when I cry too much or pick me up when I fall down.
And here's this woman who says she fucks 'em and leaves em, who could probably get laid in her sleep, telling me about this and oh fuck, what's the point? And I think about the TGFolks-OZ posting I read earlier in the day about the difference between stealth and being out and how I said I tried to be open instead, and where the fuck does it get me -- abuse and punters who want to fuck me not because I might be pretty, or nice, but 'cause I've got a dick (until October that is)! And how someone said that going stealth was great because she knew then just how it was be treated as just another woman and there's me thinking "has this ever happened to me" and to my shame I couldn't tell if it had or not, I just don't know any more.
At least on Friday, I felt good. After confirming with Robyn that she'd go with me to Thailand (after my previous travelling companion cancelled Monday night) I booked and paid for the last two seats available. I felt so good -- I know I'm going, it's going to happen! And as the days pass and it gets closer and closer I just feel the excitement more and more, because this is one thing that I want, just for myself, not so I can be fucked by guys (they fuck anything!) or prove that I'm a woman, but just for me, as the one gift that I can give only to myself and no one else (I tried doing that too, she went mad after the reassignment surgery and I lost her) and I FEEL SO FUCKING GOOD ABOUT IT.
And even last night, I visited Janet, whom I hadn't seen for ages and we ended up with a group at another art exhibition opening, this time in Newcastle, and this one I enjoy and I connect, I fucking well connect there, and even if later when I walk past the "G" (a local queer pub) and get told my outfit is "so divine" by two arseholes outside (it's my street clothes you morons -- why don't I come round to your house and tell You how great your cutlery is) I feel OK. And then I have this dream last night.
In the dream I'm dressed as a Goth and skinheads come up and threaten me with a knife and reckon that I should have my head shaved and the next thing I know I'm twisting their necks off and killing them with a smile and in the dream I feel like I know just how LeStat the fucking vampire feels with the power of it all and next thing I know I'm in Flinders St in Sydney outside some club (the Taxi maybe) and I go in and the flesh tone drops from me and I'm picking victims at random and sucking them dry, hearing their hearts come slowly to stop, and ripping the heads off and hearts out of anyone who tries to interfere and all the while there's manic smile on my face and mad laugh (between sucks) to my lips and the bystanders cut a path before me as I leave to look for others of my kind, who I know are out there laughing and waiting for me. darkness, I'll give them fucking darkness.
Ghods, I understand why the Vampire Chronicles books are so popular -- power and lust, loneliness and rape fantasies rolled all into one. I'm working my way through Queen of the damned just now and maybe it's seeped through my consciousness more than I thought, and maybe I might even go off and write a book like this, full of blood and desire and loss. about Hecate and eunuchs and infinite sorrows (the plots been coming tome over the last month).
And I wake up this morning and only remember the dream while I'm walking the dogs, and then I have an overwhelming feeling of frustration and loneliness descend on me, of the absolute void of negative stuff come rushing in on me like it threatens to do so often, and I'm sitting there crying for a bit. I compose myself for a while and walk on and then it starts again, and Pegasus sits down and waits for me and looks worried like the last time he did when I was suicidal (and when he saved me by licking me on the face and looking into my eyes) and there I sit, bawling my heart out, and all those horrible ideas come into my head. Of almost hyperventilation (but not quite).
And maybe, like Windows on my PC, I've just crashed, like I sometimes do, and maybe I'm having a brush with my Shadow with what's left of all my fears coming up, and maybe I just have to sit and feel and own this shit of mine. Maybe. And maybe it all feeds into my childhood fears of not even being human (because of all the epilepsy I had), of being this freak of nature that's here and hides among the humans and maybe doesn't feel all those obvious and secret things that all the humans think and feel and maybe, maybe I have no idea.
But I know that I'm still going down to Sydney tonight, to "Goth Up", to go to Ritual (but with friends) to be on Fascination Street and maybe who knows, I might even enjoy myself. Fucked if I know. I don't don't, the beauty is that I can lurk in the dark and hide there if I want, and no one will notice, because that's business as usual.
I'll see I guess, maybe that will take those thoughts of kitchen knives out of my mind, and maybe I can be be and feel pretty in my own warped way.
| * Break in Writing * |
Well, I went to RITUAL, and I'm STILL here (no kitchen knives just yet). I'm beginning to think I really need to get out more. I had a good time last night and it was good to meet folk from the newsgroups and mailing lists.
This morning (only just) at my friend's place I read in THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (Body+Soul liftout, page 12-13) that it does one good -- they claim that dancing at a nightclub burns off 711 kilojoules in half an hour, and that 10 minutes of "perving" is the equivalent to a 30 minute aerobics workout! Maybe I did a bit of dancing, and maybe a bit of perving too (ah, I love how we dress) and maybe I just basically had some FUN for once.
Sometimes life does seem like shit I guess (and gee, do I have self-esteem problems), but at least I can party as well...
...and I talked to Dhanu (a pagan trannie friend) on the phone tonight. It helped a lot too. "Go where the energy is" she suggested. Maybe I haven't been. maybe I've been going where the energy ISN'T.
So here's a resolution I think I need to make:
- Do my makeup regularly (maybe even *gasp* once a day); and
- Go to a nightclub or something at least once a week.
Maybe doing both will help increase my confidence, and could be fun to boot. You know, I still feel like shit, but I think the kitchen knife is going back into the draw for now.
Was there an explanation for the rush of suicidal feeling? Maybe....