Looking back to my youth: Carto's "do not do" -tip

Navel-gazing leads me to my history, and Aiden's recent answer to a question from a young trans girl recalled a few memories. I'm not proposing this as a course of action for anyone, but this is what I did. It's dangerous, and not to be recommended.

Well, I did contemplate and plan for suicide. That carried me through my teen years and twenties, if I'm being completely honest. I planned how I'd like to die (permanently, and in such a way I'd really die and not stay on living, no matter what doctors might want to do - I also didn't want collateral damage to other people, so jumping in front of a train was completely out of the question. I was serious), got all the stuff I needed and was set to go. I got rid of the necessary implements of suicide when I had my legal sex changed to reflect the reality; that is, quite a while ago. But I still remember what it was like.

What I wanted was an exit, an exit no-one could deny me. An exit that was in my control, and no-one else's. At the time I felt (quite reasonably, in my opinion) that I had very little, if any wiggle room in my life to express what I was; I had to keep on play-acting a boy if I was to survive. An exit clause that I could invoke on a moment's notice was what I needed, and it did help me carry on as I knew I could leave whenever I wanted to.

I guess it gave an outlet to my self-hate. I didn't cut (well ok, I did eat in rather a chaotic and self-harming way), I didn't do much risk otherwise. It kept me alive.

Gazing at my navel (it's a very pretty navel, too)

Or therapy, if you like. It's pretty damn enlightening, now that I'm free to explore stuff that bothers and interests me, instead of the stuff I had to "explore" in order to appease psychiatrists.

Ok, maybe I'm just a particularly suitable candidate for professionally-assisted navel-gazing, but the difference between talking with a person you kinda trust and feel good about is so totally different from what I had to experience with doctors when transitioning.

I feel like sorting out my problems already, which I haven't felt like before. I was mistaken to think they mostly revolved around growing up trans - it's a major traumatising factor all right, but it's not the substance of things that really bother me about myself. Which is both nice (thank God it's not all about trans forever and ever) and kinda bothersome - I've been wrong not only about my sex/gender but also about great many other things, too. Just how wrong can a girl be? Very, it seems.