TO STOP BEING UNHAPPY
The writing of “To Stop Being Unhappy”
Recently I was sitting alone in my rather too large house contemplating how far I have come in my transition to being a girl. I felt secure in my decisions, comfortable in a short skirt, and looked forward to as many tomorrows as I can get. It was five years ago this month (November) that I realized how and why so many people take their own lives, and that knowledge had a power associated with it.
I had felt so captured, so owned, and so at the mercy of others to obtain happiness. Five years ago I decided that, no…I realized that I had to escape unhappiness. Before me was the long-contemplated utilization of a shotgun; which represented an act of personal control. I have had friends that took their own lives, and I often wondered about their state of mind in those precipitating moments, and the act itself. I believe I then understood what transpired, what sense of no-way-out they might have experienced. I was there, very much there; and then I realized that there was another way.
My lifelong dream was to be a girl. I survived with gender-dysphoria my whole life. All the little acts between my “him” and my “her” were not going to safe me. The power to take one’s own life is freeing, it opened opportunities that were not available to my “him”. I finally found the courage to openly declare I am going to become a girl, and all else be damned.
The suicide rate in individuals with gender-dysphoria is TEN times higher then in the general population, and the rate of alcoholism and drug abuse is similar. I am lucky in that the power to take one’s own life can be used to willingly walk away from basically everything. I put the shotgun away, and I got help in transitioning to a girl. I did walk away from most everything, and most everything else ran away from me. I am here, I am still alive, and I am a girl.
“To Stop Being Unhappy” takes courage.
TO STOP BEING UNHAPPY
To stop being unhappy
That is what transgenderism is about
To stop being unhappy
At the end of happiness…
A happiness last seen so long ago
How do you know what happiness is anymore
I lost sight of my happiness
I lost sight of my dreams
I lost sight of possibilities
Of all the “just maybes” of life
That is why I kept my 12 gauge
A small collection of buckshot shell
To stop being unhappy
A power grew from unhappy
I am so lucky it grew prior to……
For so many it does not grow soon enough
Revisiting old dreams wished true
I sat there very close, very close
To stop being unhappy
To stop being unhappy
How…How…is there a way out
A way that I am yet to know
Several nights
I sat with the barrels in my mouth
Figuring out what chair best to sit in
How to get comfortable
Within a terrible task
I had difficulty in figuring out
How to use my big toe
To help me
To stop being unhappy
Revisiting old dreams
Long considered lost
So let down by the closest
So walked away from
To stop being unhappy
How many … How many … How many
Left their here and now…
To stop being unhappy
And could see no other way out
I was there
I was sitting out on my patio
I was seeing where my toe should go
I couldn’t see another way out
I am still here as I revisited
My moments of happy
When I smiled, and didn’t even know
I smiled
I remembered those times
I wished I could be there still
But that was so long ago
Can I ever be there again
Is happiness so out of reach
I am glad my toes are too big
To fit within the trigger’s guard
So…So…over
So…So…over So…So…
I will tolerate everyone else no more
I will return to whatever day in my life I lost
Avoiding punishment
I am no longer afraid
You can’t make me
You can’t make me
Hide from myself
In order to hide from you
To stop being unhappy
What am I willing to do
Now you know
I am willing to walk away
From every one of you
Every one of you
Happiness is a private truth
Few ever truly tell
To stop being unhappy
What would you do
Don’t tell me
And heaven forbit
Don’t tell yourself
What you might do
No
Tell yourself what you might do
All the might’s, all the do’s
Freedom is another word for courage
To stop being unhappy
Become your true you
At some point…Do!