Published November 23, 2024

Whether the words in that image are true is not for me to work out with some mathematical formula. But if it is true, then I am both kinds of tired.

I’m on leave for at least 12 weeks, maybe longer. It’s for my mental health and for my physical health. It’s for rest. For peace.

I don’t know when I will post again. It might be tomorrow. It might be in February. I have nothing in the tank to back up any promise now.

Today, I will say too much, knowing that it’s not nearly enough.

I’m a mistake

There’s a thing I’ve said to therapists over the years, and maybe a time or two on here: “I’m a mistake.” Not a surprise baby or something else. What I mean is my very existence.

Whatever normal is, I’ve always known I’m not that. But I’ve always been able to push through, work through it.

I can’t now.

So I am off until at least three months from now.

Before I continue, let me say that I don’t always believe I am a mistake, but when I am convinced it, there is nothing anyone can say to make me see anything else.

But since I am a staunch believer in context, I will provide a partial list.

You need a list? Here’s a list

• Gender dysphoria has to be first, right? It sets the tone, a permanent printer that never runs out of toner.
• Keratoconus, with extra light hypersensitivity as a bonus.
• Tinnitus.
• I hear what sounds like talk radio, voices, when it’s quiet. Bad, nonstop AM radio chatter between songs that never play. They differ from thoughts, which …
• … never stop and are their own undiscovered sense. They make peace impossible.
• Lifelong nightmares.
• The loner thing where even on the most special of trips, I’d wind up sitting alone on a pier, away from the fun.
• A septum that’s not so much deviated as devious, causing too much havoc.
• Lifelong sleep apnea, undiagnosed until my 30s. I didn’t really sleep for decades.
• Therefore, an oxygen-starved brain with the accompanying damage.
• I don’t know what it feels like to wake up rested, with no pain. I bet it’s nice.
• Teeth worn down my a lifetime of grinding during sleep and faux sleep.
• Degenerative changes in the cervical spine from a young age onward.
• Hearing loss.
• Severe ADHD. Severe.
• Always doing imposter syndrome wrong. (OK, you can laugh. I’m giving you this.)

Look at us. We haven’t made it below the shoulders yet. So maybe we should move this along.

Our list continues

• The dramatic one is the ongoing medical mystery where my body mimics heart failure that isn’t real but takes a toll that is very much real.
• Ever since I surrendered my gallbladder, nothing in the midsection has been the same, including my voice. Sadly, I didn’t get the Brenda Vaccaro voice that’s long been on my wish list.
• Systems that have forgotten how to do their job, or simply can’t anymore. (This is a long list of its own that we won’t be getting into today.)
• A thermostat that’s impossibly out of whack, so that for most of my life, I was the first one to sweat and the last one to be cold, although I’m never really cold. Teachers fussed at me if they spotted me without a jacket or coat in winter. Miraculously, trading testosterone for estrogen has calmed things a bit.
• Not a real woman.
• Not a real man.
• Not a real journalist.
• Not a real copy editor.
• Not a real writer.
• Not a real liberal.
• Not a real progressive.
• Not a real Southerner.
• Not a real Cajun.
• Not a real American.
• Not “one of us.”

Not a bullet point, per se, but the world has always been too loud for me, too noisy for me and too busy chasing things I don’t understand.

And yet

And yet, all of that was somehow manageable. I was always somehow able to work through it all.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

It was never too much, somehow, until now. This month, and the torturous buildup to what I knew was coming, changed everything.

It’s why, to borrow a phrase by someone dear to me, I’ve been having to scrape myself off the floor to do the tiniest things. Mostly I am unable to function. Twenty-minute blog posts are taking four hours or longer to write.

The sense of abandonment and betrayal I feel is unprecedented. I’ve been asking myself how many people I can really trust now. The numbers suggest some people who voiced support were doing so performatively. It’s easy to say “I support the troops.” It’s easy to say “pay the players.” Easy to say “trans lives matter.” Costs you nothing.

Clearly we are disposable to a lot of people.

So it’s all too much now. So I’m on leave.

My big fat mistake of an existence and me.

I don’t know when I can work again or even post again. There is a lot of healing that will have to take place. A team of people paid to care and to help is on the case, they say. I want to believe them. There’s not a lot of belief left in me. And still I am not allowed to tell you everything about it.

So I’ll just say that things are only going to get worse.

“He said there’s a storm coming in.”

“I know.”

I’m not terminating

There might be the occasional short sad (or funny) post someday, but for now, I am pulling way back from the world. I’ve logged out of work Slack. Money is going to be a problem at some point. I’ll figure it out.

I’m not terminating. I’ll be back.

If I have it in me.

I know I haven’t made an airtight case here for my being a mistake, but I left a lot out. A lifetime of avoiding mirrors, for one. I didn’t recognize the face I saw. Related, getting ready for school or work in darkness illuminated only by a night light isn’t the best way to look your best, but I didn’t know who that person staring back at me was, so no biggie.

Gender dysphoria is about 300 bullet points’ worth.

Take care of yourself. Sending love.