We’re going to talk about homophobia and transphobia; We will look at identity and the ways that we interact with society. Hopefully, to decrease the suffering in the world.
First, though, a CONTENT WARNING!
I’m not transgender, but I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression, and I'm certainly not comfortable with my sexuality. Sometimes I feel like the master of my own destiny, like I could achieve any dream and mount any obstacle. Other times, one word from a stranger on the internet can send me into a spiral of self-hate and isolation.
If you're depressed or suicidal, or if you think you might be gay / trans and are experiencing deep feelings of isolation as a result, the contents of this article might be distressing to you. I've had panic attacks all my life, and I know how small things can make your brain to go to completely unexpected places. The psychology term for this is a trigger, a reference to the mechanism on a gun which, through the relatively small expenditure of energy required to pull a trigger, you can fire a bullet with deadly speed and force.
I understand what it’s like to feel a desperate need to live up to what society expects of you. It’s reinforced every day in the people you see, or don’t see, in media. Your parents drop hints at the dinner table about ‘getting a wife’. Friends at school make fun of each other for breaking different norms and expectations. We isolate people who are different, leaving them stranded on an island of self-hate and doubt, and tell them “start building a bridge”.
Look, I don’t want this to be political. I don’t care about high school sports, except insofar as it facilitates a more enjoyable and worthwhile school experience – which, is debatable… on another day.
I want to talk about the people.
Every day, trans kids and adults are falling into deep depressions, isolated further from their friends and family. Every day, people end their own lives to avoid another day of torture.
People are all about being aware of mental illness these days, right? They say to be yourself, to love you for you. You can find very good advice all around. But what happens when you try to have these conversations?
It’s really easy to tell someone “mind over matter” when you’re watching from the outside.
Like watching a nature documentary, you see the snake is about to go over the side of that nest and devour the eggs inside. You might jump and shout. You might even feel anger towards the snake, sensing some injustice in the snake’s search for food. It becomes the villain of a story, and it’s very easy for us to assign a narrative to something like that.
We want to identify a problem and hyper-focus on its utter annihilation, but social issues aren’t that simple. Life isn’t a story of heroes and villains. Humans aren't reptiles.
When your friend is depressed because he’s been suppressing romantic feelings for men, and you tell him to “man up”, this isn’t just utterly unhelpful. It actively plays into the feelings he has that whatever he’s been doing hasn’t lived up to the expectations that society has placed on him for being a “man”. With such a careless attempt to advise your friend, you’ve dragged his identity further into doubt and made it harder for him to communicate what he’s feeling.
My experiences aren’t an illness, they’re my life.
Trans people are often asked very invasive questions by well-meaning people struggling to understand. “Have you had the surgery yet?”
If you’ve ever tried to talk about mental health, you’ve probably gotten some extremely unhelpful advice. You want to open up, and you know that people love you, and they’re trying, but they just don’t really understand the depth of your feelings. It’s a barrier that can feel impossible to break.
This is actually something that many people don’t understand about suicide attempts. You’ve probably heard it’s a call for help, but that can be hard to wrap your head around - why would you kill yourself if you wanted help, right?
Well, imagine you tried talking to your parents about your anxiety, and they wouldn’t listen. When you realized you might be gay, you didn’t even consider telling your parents, because you’re already several layers removed from being comfortable sharing anything with them by that point. You grow apart from your friends as you get more and more depressed and unable to feel happy in daily life. Isolation just leads you further down the hole until you’re so completely shut off from the world that you can feel utterly alone, even in a room full of people.
What do you do?
They don't understand that you're dying inside. Every little thing that happens in normal daily life is like a chore you suffer through. Their advice is useless because they can't see the depth of your pain, they don't know how serious the problem really is.
You don’t want to die, exactly, but when life is just a constant clown show, pretending and putting on smiles for the sake of others, what the hell is the point of it, right? If only they could understand that you're dying inside, every moment of every day.
People who attempt suicide often report that they didn't want anyone to worry about them. Every time they've tried to communicate their feelings in the past, it's led to further sadness and stress in their relationships as the people fail to understand. We learn to harden our hearts and avoid worrying others, but a part of us still knows a deep need to be understood. This is perhaps the most human feeling of all.
You need someone to know that you're dying inside. They don't understand, because they live in their own world with their own triggers and their own pain and their own biases. What they do understand, though, is death. You know they do. We all share this common fear of death, and just the thought makes us uncomfortable. Depressed people often pick up dark senses of humor. It's a common first attempt to call for help, expressing these fears in a common coping mechanism of jokes.
Others might lash out against authority in seemingly irrational ways. A lot of stereotypical "teenage drama" moments are really desperate attempts to be understood. They're also sometimes not entirely irrational, fueled by legitimate pain from racism, homophobia and other harmful aspects to their society. People's identities are often forced into a political context, further obfuscating the human aspect.
Return to our scenario. Kids at school bullied you for not living up to gender norms, and your suspicion that you might be gay has upset your identity. Your parents have failed to understand your feelings or what you've gone through with anxiety in the past. Your family has likely impressed on you the same set of gender stereotypes expected by your schoolmates. They expect you to get married and have kids, and they may even have explicitly homophobic religious beliefs.
They don't understand that your feelings are not an illness or a political issue for you. Every day of your life is like a prison, and they could be helping to make it better, but instead they're adding bricks to the wall. How do you tell them to get the sledgehammer? How long before you're sealed in so completely that there is no escape left?
I leave you with this video by youtuber Philosophy Tube which, in part, inspired my article. I love her explanation of identity and how you change your behavior and even your thoughts to suit other people.
I feel you :(