This is a hard thread  for me but I  will reply. I was never really happy after basically my babyhood.  My depression started as early as kindergarden and went on a downhill slide from there. By the time I hit puberty I couldn`t stand life anymore. I was cutting , fighting and just plain never happy. In highschool I spent 6 months in the hospital for my depression, and still had it afterwords.       Now days I`m doing ok because I have taken controll if my life. I still clam up in crouds and think people are talking about me but oh well. I have figured out what was making me so depressed and am on my way to fullfillment. It is a very herd life being born with my condition but am almost through.      I`m not comfortable with shering my condition because of hatered and bigotry but screw it here you go.  http://transsexual.org/aprimer.html  Don`t hate me.  Angie,,,,,

We're not going to hate you Angie. I for one applaud you for being so honest with us. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been for you to share. I'm glad you're doing well, and good luck on your journey.

i am so glad you shared angie!  i have always been a supporter of the glbt community, but even by attending pride meetings, meeting people who are transgendered and transexual, i still had some questions, your website was so informative and answered so many of my questions!  thank you so much for posting it.

wow , thankyou thankkyou! I wasn`t expecting such nice replies. It really does feel good. Thanks I love veg web

we're good peeps! :)

So I see there are a lot of binge/purge eaters.... Any tips on making it stop and getting a grip????? I've been doing it 4-5 times a week lately....

This is a hard thread  for me but I  will reply. I was never really happy after basically my babyhood.  My depression started as early as kindergarden and went on a downhill slide from there. By the time I hit puberty I couldn`t stand life anymore. I was cutting , fighting and just plain never happy. In highschool I spent 6 months in the hospital for my depression, and still had it afterwords.       Now days I`m doing ok because I have taken controll if my life. I still clam up in crouds and think people are talking about me but oh well. I have figured out what was making me so depressed and am on my way to fullfillment. It is a very herd life being born with my condition but am almost through.      I`m not comfortable with shering my condition because of hatered and bigotry but screw it here you go.  http://transsexual.org/aprimer.html  Don`t hate me.  Angie,,,,,

Angie, I'm sorry you had to go through this. Thank you for talking about it. It got my b/f and me to discussing an ex's of his 10y/o daughter who's ftm, and now goes by the name of "Luke". The b/f didn't understand why it was necessary to be positive/encouraging of non gender normal behaviour at "such an early age". When he read your story, he then was able to better understand why his ex is allowing Luke to be who he really is.

This is a hard thread  for me but I  will reply. I was never really happy after basically my babyhood.  My depression started as early as kindergarden and went on a downhill slide from there. By the time I hit puberty I couldn`t stand life anymore. I was cutting , fighting and just plain never happy. In highschool I spent 6 months in the hospital for my depression, and still had it afterwords.      Now days I`m doing ok because I have taken controll if my life. I still clam up in crouds and think people are talking about me but oh well. I have figured out what was making me so depressed and am on my way to fullfillment. It is a very herd life being born with my condition but am almost through.      I`m not comfortable with shering my condition because of hatered and bigotry but screw it here you go.  http://transsexual.org/aprimer.html  Don`t hate me.  Angie,,,,,

Wow Angie, I had no idea about transsexuality.  Thank you so much for sharing.  I'm really glad to hear that you have figured out what was making you feel this way.  You'll always be welcomed here :). 

love,
ariana

hmmm.  i don't know if anyone still posts on this but i haven't yet.

1) i grew up with my dad and step mother.  my step mother is a drug addict and has always been one (since she was a preteen).  she finally went to rehab three years ago for the heroin addiction that we didn't even know about.  i know it's terrible to say, but of all of the drugs she was on, my family all agrees that we liked her the best on heroin.  it caused her to just hide out in her "cave" of a bedroom in the dark watching LMN (lifetime movie network) and eat ice cream.  all of the other ones made her bipolar way worse and she was absolutely impossible to live with.  with heroin we never even saw her.  she was more like a house plant.  I DO LOVE HER.  but because of my childhood, i have never touched drugs, never will, and will never allow them anywhere in my life (meaning my wife knows that's a hard boundary and if she does drugs she will be divorced).

2) my dad is an alcoholic in denial.  he and my stepmom divorced after she came back from rehab.  he is currently married to his FOURTH WIFE.  no wonder i have no faith in relationships.  there are six marriages between my three parents (mom, dad, stepmom).  dad/mom, dad/patty, stepmom/joey, dad/stepmom, mom/victor (lasted nine months), dad/susan.

3) my mother is super morbidly obese.  she won't tell me how much she weighs (although she says she knows) but my wife (brittney) and i are guessing around 500 pounds.  i've always had an eating disorder.  when i lived with my mom i was an overeater.  then i moved to my dad's when i was twelve and realized i was fat and went from a women's size 28 (usa size) to women's size 9 in one summer by not eating and over exercising.  one of my biggest fears is gaining weight.  i don't want to be like my mother.  her whole family is big, but she is by far the biggest.

4) growing up in an addict-house was very hard.  i self-mutilated my way through it.

5) food issues: my parents first supported my transition from vegetarianism to veganism.  they even pointed out how it was hypocritical to be vegetarian for ethical reasons but not vegan.  then when the holidays came around and the food issues came up around their friends and family, they were then convinced (by friends and family) that i was only vegan to control them and get attention and i should be starved out of the phase.  they stopped buying me food.  i was FIFTEEN.  i spent the first three years of my vegan life eating crap that i could scrounge up.  microwaved slices of bread with condiments spread on them became a staple.  i used different condiments to add variety.  when i was eightteen i got a job and spent all of my money on food.  my parents would allow my younger siblings and themselves to eat ALL of the food that i bought, which left me with nothing to eat.  or they would throw it out.  i'm definitely a food hoarder.  i store food "just in case" so that i will never be hungry again.  i have canned food that is probably five years old.  i never eat it "just in case" there is a time that i need it more.  one day brittney cleaned out our kitchen and threw a bunch of food away and i went crazy screaming at her about how she cannot waste food like that and i don't care if she thought it had gotten freezer burnt and i don't care if it isn't something she thought we would ever eat... it was my food and she can't throw it away!  she didn't understand until later when i explained why i freak out when i don't have control over my food.

6) i've been in very abusive relationships. i've got tons of scars.  most were self inflicted... but some of the biggest ones were inflicted by others.  abuse included: verbal, physical, mental, emotional, sexual. i got raped 124 times by one of the abusers.  that abuser also slashed my arm open and now i have a huge keloid scar about three inches long and a quarter of an inch raised from five years ago.  people ALWAYS ask me what happened and i can never really tell them.  that idiot tried to reconnect with me and add me on facebook saying, "it's been a while, how have you been?".  oh, that made me mad.

7) my best friend in the whole world was my cat, stripe.  she was my goddess.  i've never been as connected to someone as i was to her.  she was born into our family before i was.  for the last ten years of her life, she chose me as her companion.  we were inseparable.   she died in september, 2006, right in the middle of my parents' divorce and everything else happening at that time.

8 ) in 2007 i moved to washington (from oklahoma) to be with my wife.  a month and a half later i got into a car wreck doing pizza delivery.  i haven't been the same since. i now have ptsd, anxiety disorder, and depression.  i have anxiety attacks and a severe phobia of driving, car wrecks, and other related things.  i have horrible night terrors at night that resemble the saw movies.  terrible.  it caused a lot of sexual dysfunctions which affects my relationship.  i'm overly sensitive and i cry too easily.  i'm always afraid something bad is about to happen.  i cannot handle stress.  i have a brain injury which has affected my memory and my ability to multi-task (which i cannot do AT ALL now).  i also have trouble concentrating.  i'm still just as smart, but my brain doesn't work the same.  all of it is depressing.  i'm currently on celexa which has helped my mood dramatically. 

9) somehow i broke my karma and it is breaking everything!  since january i have crashed THREE computers (my laptop went back and forth).  my cell broke, i got a new one, and last week that charger decided to melt instead of charge.  a month ago i broke a big piece off of my car doing a pizza delivery. 

i don't know how i broke my karma, but i wouldn't recommend it!

In day to day life, much of the time, I feel like I am asleep. Or dreaming, or like I'm watching myself from outside of my body, (or really really far inside it.) I watch myself do things, but it doesn't feel real sometimes. I can be in a big or small group of people, engaged in the conversation, and still feel very alone. I have felt this since...well, at least high school, so...ten years or so? It's gotten to the point where it's just something I live with.

there is actually an illness... like a disorder, i think... that causes this.  have you gone to the doctor?  it's very rare and isn't usually diagnosed correctly at first.  i saw it on mystery diagnosis or something similar.  this girl had symptoms just like that.

That said, I crave feeling connected to people.

i have that problem, too.  i feel quite connected to every animal i meet, even if i don't know them.  my best friend and the most important person in the entire world to me was my kittie, stripe.  when she died, my world practically ended and i went on a drinking binge and gained about forty pounds in three months.  i spent at least $300 a week on alcohol although at the time i made less than $250 every two weeks!  i was going to drink until my life got better, but it just continued to suck until i quit drinking.  i haven't drank at all since march 2007 because drinking just made me poor and fat.  i don't want to be poor and fat!

but as far as feeling connected to people, i have trouble feeling connected even to people i love dearly.  when heidi was pregnant with our daughter, layla, i couldn't feel connected to her.  even though i found it to be the most precious time of my life and i loved talking to her through heidi's belly and sleeping at night with my ear against her belly so i could feel the kicks and hear layla's movements, something was missing.  i found it when layla was born.  the minute i held layla, that connection came full strength.  but i felt horribly guilty and like a terrible "maddy" (layla's term... i guess it means "mama-daddy"?) the whole time heidi was pregnant.  once layla was born, i made every lj journal entry about my struggles private because i no longer felt that way and i was embarrassed that i ever did.  i felt ashamed.

wow, this became so much longer than I expected!

that always happens to me, too. 
;)