It took a couple of days, but I was able to get by the hospital last week looking for help. Under the auspices of the Florida Mental Health Act, I was able to get myself a 72-hour stay in a very friendly facility. I went in as a suicidal, depressed person, but came out much feeling much healthier. I mentioned during my intake interview that I have gender identity issues, and those came to the fore during my visit to the psychiatrist and my follow-up meetings with various counselors. I told them that I'm not sure where I fit on the transgender spectrum, and they all said that I deserve to find that out, and explore my options. My visit to the psychiatrist also yielded a couple of prescriptions for antidepressants. I've only been taking them for a week, but I'm sleeping better, and I've lost a lot of the anxiety that plagued my day to day life. I have my first appointment with one of the counselors outside in August.
On an even more positive note, I finally got a job. I went to an interview on Wednesday at the local franchise of a hotel chain I've worked for before. I originally applied for a job there in March, but the position had been filled. They have a slot opening up next week, and they had retained my resume from the last time. The interview was the best of all the ones I've had, and I left feeling very good about my chances. Apparently I transposed the numbers from my phone, because they've been trying to call me since then, and the call wasn't going through. I got an email this morning, and they'd like me to start training next Tuesday.
Another positive development is that I've got a more permanent place to live, starting in a couple of weeks. My sister will be able to move into her new house after the beginning of August. The property includes a small guesthouse similar to where I moved into in December last year. That building was originally earmarked for another person, but he is no longer a part of their considerations, so it was offered to me. I'll be able to get into the house for meals and bathing, but I'll have my own place to sleep, watch TV and surf the net. Going back to work, I'll be able to fix my 360, and Xbox Live will follow soon after.
It's taken me a while, but life is slowly coming back together for me. I look to the future with a sense of hope.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Taking a Little Vacation
The last few weeks have been rough. When I last wrote, I was preparing to move out of my sister's house. Or at least, I was preparing for my sister to move out of her house. We spent a lot of days in June breaking down the house, packing things into boxes and readying other items for sale. We started having a yard sale on the weekends, to raise money until my sister got the money she was waiting for. We sold a lot that first week: an LCD television, two bed sets, a DVD player and most of the major kitchen appliances. Yeah, they sold the refrigerator and the microwave on the first day of the sale, some three weeks before the scheduled move.
Two days after my last posts, the City of Tallahassee shut off the electricity. My sister had just acquired thousands of dollars from various relatives, but she didn't use it to pay the light bill. Those last six days and nights at the old house were hellish. We'd work from sunrise to sunset doing whatever needed to be done, then it we'd sit in the house and read by candlelight. I was already depressed, but losing electricity meant losing access to the internet, too, and my circle of friends shrunk from dozens to a mere handful. Connected to the world by the web, I have many friends, scattered across six of the seven continents. Without the web, I can count my friends on the fingers of one hand.
If you'll recall, I was waiting for an opportunity to move in with the gentleman I met through the Tallahassee Atheists group. It was a tidy little setup. He was offering me room and board in exchange for keeping up the yard around his house. Do you remember that I thought the offer was too good to be true? A couple of days into that last week, I called my friend to let him know that the move was taking longer than I'd thought. I had been told that we'd be getting a moving truck on Monday of that week. As it happened, we didn't get it until midday on Thursday. I called to make sure we were still on, and told him I wouldn't be ready to move until Friday evening, or possibly Saturday morning. All of my things were packed up, but I wasn't going to bail out on my sister until the move was done. My friend had told me previously that he might be going out of town for the Fourth of July weekend, and when we talked, he told me that he'd wait for my call Saturday morning.
As it happens, we didn't finish the move until last Saturday afternoon, after my friend told me that he'd be going out of town. I spent the weekend with my brother at the store in Havana. It's a little cramped, but I've been able to get back online, and I've kept myself busy helping out with the store's operations. On Tuesday (July 5th), I sent my friend a message on Facebook asking when would be a good time to call. I never received a response. On Wednesday I called, and the phone went to voicemail without ringing, which told me his phone was turned off. I called again Thursday and the phone rang, but went to voicemail again. I left another message indicating I was ready to move; I just needed to know when it was okay to come out to his house. I never got a callback.
Yesterday my friend sent me a message on Facebook, saying that he never heard from me, so the room is no longer available. He said he looked forward to seeing me at a future atheist function, and signed off. I was so mad I could have walked out into traffic. Obviously I didn't, but I thought about it. This brings me to my next thought, and the point of this post.
I've been depressed for a long time, but I've never sought any kind of help for it. This has been a mistake. I should have reached out for professional help last year when my thoughts turned to suicide, but I thought I could keep myself away from the brink on my own. I spent a couple of hours the other night talking with my sister and my brother. My brother has suffered from depression in one form or another since he was seventeen. It runs in my family: my grandfather suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and was an alcoholic; both of my uncles had problems with drugs and/or alcohol and one of them killed himself when I was eleven. My mom had problems of that sort later in life, but they were overshadowed by her other health difficulties. I can hardly imagine how she held it together all those years watching her children lurch from catastrophe to the next. During the course of our discussion, I mentioned my misgivings about moving in with my friend. He's a little paranoid, and has a house full of guns. That's not the sort of environment I need to move into in my current circumstances. My friend lives twelve miles outside of Tallahassee proper, and with no vehicle of my own, I'd have no way to get around on my own. so I'd be stuck out there, often all alone, with a house full of firearms and my black moods.
My sister is out of town this weekend. I've been helping my brother keep shop, but I'm biding my time till she returns. Monday or Tuesday next week, I'm going to do something about my depression and thoughts of suicide. I've got neither a job, nor insurance, nor money of my own, so I'm going to the emergency room at the hospital. My brother has done this in the past. I'll tell them what's been going on and we'll see what happens. They might admit me for a few days, so I can talk to a doctor, and undergo tests, and maybe get some medication. Because I'm essentially indigent, I'll see if I qualify for Medicaid, which is paid out of the deductions from my wages from every job I've held since the age of fifteen. I may as well get some use out of it. I might be offline for a few days after this, but I'll be sure to report my condition after I get back.
Two days after my last posts, the City of Tallahassee shut off the electricity. My sister had just acquired thousands of dollars from various relatives, but she didn't use it to pay the light bill. Those last six days and nights at the old house were hellish. We'd work from sunrise to sunset doing whatever needed to be done, then it we'd sit in the house and read by candlelight. I was already depressed, but losing electricity meant losing access to the internet, too, and my circle of friends shrunk from dozens to a mere handful. Connected to the world by the web, I have many friends, scattered across six of the seven continents. Without the web, I can count my friends on the fingers of one hand.
If you'll recall, I was waiting for an opportunity to move in with the gentleman I met through the Tallahassee Atheists group. It was a tidy little setup. He was offering me room and board in exchange for keeping up the yard around his house. Do you remember that I thought the offer was too good to be true? A couple of days into that last week, I called my friend to let him know that the move was taking longer than I'd thought. I had been told that we'd be getting a moving truck on Monday of that week. As it happened, we didn't get it until midday on Thursday. I called to make sure we were still on, and told him I wouldn't be ready to move until Friday evening, or possibly Saturday morning. All of my things were packed up, but I wasn't going to bail out on my sister until the move was done. My friend had told me previously that he might be going out of town for the Fourth of July weekend, and when we talked, he told me that he'd wait for my call Saturday morning.
As it happens, we didn't finish the move until last Saturday afternoon, after my friend told me that he'd be going out of town. I spent the weekend with my brother at the store in Havana. It's a little cramped, but I've been able to get back online, and I've kept myself busy helping out with the store's operations. On Tuesday (July 5th), I sent my friend a message on Facebook asking when would be a good time to call. I never received a response. On Wednesday I called, and the phone went to voicemail without ringing, which told me his phone was turned off. I called again Thursday and the phone rang, but went to voicemail again. I left another message indicating I was ready to move; I just needed to know when it was okay to come out to his house. I never got a callback.
Yesterday my friend sent me a message on Facebook, saying that he never heard from me, so the room is no longer available. He said he looked forward to seeing me at a future atheist function, and signed off. I was so mad I could have walked out into traffic. Obviously I didn't, but I thought about it. This brings me to my next thought, and the point of this post.
I've been depressed for a long time, but I've never sought any kind of help for it. This has been a mistake. I should have reached out for professional help last year when my thoughts turned to suicide, but I thought I could keep myself away from the brink on my own. I spent a couple of hours the other night talking with my sister and my brother. My brother has suffered from depression in one form or another since he was seventeen. It runs in my family: my grandfather suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and was an alcoholic; both of my uncles had problems with drugs and/or alcohol and one of them killed himself when I was eleven. My mom had problems of that sort later in life, but they were overshadowed by her other health difficulties. I can hardly imagine how she held it together all those years watching her children lurch from catastrophe to the next. During the course of our discussion, I mentioned my misgivings about moving in with my friend. He's a little paranoid, and has a house full of guns. That's not the sort of environment I need to move into in my current circumstances. My friend lives twelve miles outside of Tallahassee proper, and with no vehicle of my own, I'd have no way to get around on my own. so I'd be stuck out there, often all alone, with a house full of firearms and my black moods.
My sister is out of town this weekend. I've been helping my brother keep shop, but I'm biding my time till she returns. Monday or Tuesday next week, I'm going to do something about my depression and thoughts of suicide. I've got neither a job, nor insurance, nor money of my own, so I'm going to the emergency room at the hospital. My brother has done this in the past. I'll tell them what's been going on and we'll see what happens. They might admit me for a few days, so I can talk to a doctor, and undergo tests, and maybe get some medication. Because I'm essentially indigent, I'll see if I qualify for Medicaid, which is paid out of the deductions from my wages from every job I've held since the age of fifteen. I may as well get some use out of it. I might be offline for a few days after this, but I'll be sure to report my condition after I get back.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Marriage Equality in New York
Just in case you haven't heard, the New York state legislature voted last night to legalize gay marriage in that state. I'm glad someone has good news.
Incidentally, this is my 300th post on this blog. Here's to many more.
Incidentally, this is my 300th post on this blog. Here's to many more.
Some Developments
I thought I should provide an update, what with things moving so erratically of late.
It would appear that I did not get the job. I thought it was my best interview yet, but a week has passed, and I've received no phone calls. I really wanted to work there, too. It would have made the rest of this easy, going forward.
After weeks of being poor like me, my sister has come into some money. She's buying a car this weekend, because her truck crapped out. If I had gotten this position, she and her husband were going to help me get one as well. They still might get another vehicle, but I won't have any claim on it, unless they allow me to use it.
I think I've found a place to live, at least in the short-term. One of my friends in Tallahassee Atheists has a spare room, and he's willing to let me live there in exchange for working on his yard. He's offering room and board, and all I have to do is mow his lawn and keep up the yard. Sounds like a steal, right? His property is about three acres. I'll certainly be earning my keep if I move out there.
I made some changes over on Facebook. I changed my profile picture to one of me in my current guise, id est, I'm male. I backtracked all the trans information out of my publicly-accessible profile and hid all of my femme photos. It's both honest (who I am on the outside) and dishonest (lying to myself and everyone else). I'm just in a rough space at the moment. I'm not sure what I am anymore. I keep saying I'm going to trek down the road to the local Leon County Health Department office to see if I can get any help, but I've yet to do so. If I move in with my friend, I won't be able to do that anymore, as he lives eight miles outside of Tally proper.
Anyway, enough about the depressing stuff. I didn't notice when I changed the format, but the wallpaper image used with this template is a painting of the view out the window of some large jet. I like that. It implies movement, a feeling of going somewhere (and not in a handbasket).
In the midst of everything that's happened the last few weeks, my old friends at Bioware released a bunch of information about Mass Effect 3, set to debut next March. It's silly, but if nothing else, seeing this game trilogy to its conclusion gives me something to live for. One of the trailers is below.
It would appear that I did not get the job. I thought it was my best interview yet, but a week has passed, and I've received no phone calls. I really wanted to work there, too. It would have made the rest of this easy, going forward.
After weeks of being poor like me, my sister has come into some money. She's buying a car this weekend, because her truck crapped out. If I had gotten this position, she and her husband were going to help me get one as well. They still might get another vehicle, but I won't have any claim on it, unless they allow me to use it.
I think I've found a place to live, at least in the short-term. One of my friends in Tallahassee Atheists has a spare room, and he's willing to let me live there in exchange for working on his yard. He's offering room and board, and all I have to do is mow his lawn and keep up the yard. Sounds like a steal, right? His property is about three acres. I'll certainly be earning my keep if I move out there.
I made some changes over on Facebook. I changed my profile picture to one of me in my current guise, id est, I'm male. I backtracked all the trans information out of my publicly-accessible profile and hid all of my femme photos. It's both honest (who I am on the outside) and dishonest (lying to myself and everyone else). I'm just in a rough space at the moment. I'm not sure what I am anymore. I keep saying I'm going to trek down the road to the local Leon County Health Department office to see if I can get any help, but I've yet to do so. If I move in with my friend, I won't be able to do that anymore, as he lives eight miles outside of Tally proper.
Anyway, enough about the depressing stuff. I didn't notice when I changed the format, but the wallpaper image used with this template is a painting of the view out the window of some large jet. I like that. It implies movement, a feeling of going somewhere (and not in a handbasket).
In the midst of everything that's happened the last few weeks, my old friends at Bioware released a bunch of information about Mass Effect 3, set to debut next March. It's silly, but if nothing else, seeing this game trilogy to its conclusion gives me something to live for. One of the trailers is below.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Fashion Faux Pas on Airline Flights
What Will Get You Kicked Off US Airways? Saggy pants or underpants?
I'm a big fan of letting people dress however they choose... within reason. I'm not sure what to say here.
I'm a big fan of letting people dress however they choose... within reason. I'm not sure what to say here.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
20/20 Hindsight
I lost my job in February, and I didn't understand why. I now think that I know, and the knowledge is eating me up inside.
A brief timeline of events:
August 2009 - Written up at work for wearing earrings and nail polish.
April 2010 - Started at BLANK. Quickly scanned through the employee handbook, found no prohibition against males wearing earrings, and the only reference to nail polish says it must be neat and in neutral colors.
May 2010 - One evening I came into work wearing a pair of small studs. The front office manager said they were okay. A couple of weeks later, the Leon County Commission votes to add sexual preference, gender identity and expression to the classes protected by the County's civil rights ordinance. The ordinance specifically prohibits discrimination in employment and all forms of accommodation (housing, hotels, restaurants, etc).
December 2010 - I was written up for a couple of errors I made. Around the same time I got my acrylic nails and French manicure. I had to endure a little good-natured ribbing, but no one complained about my appearance (at least that I know of).
February 2011 - I was fired, allegedly in response to some other error I had made. I didn't understand what they told me. I told them that if I had made a mistake, I should be allowed to try to fix it., As a consolation, the manager tells me that I've done good work there, and offers to provide me with a reference if I need one.
I talked to my father on Sunday. I called to wish him a Happy Father's Day. It was the first time we really talked in almost a year. He told me that he accepts my crossdressing, but wonders if that somehow influenced the way I was fired. I told him that was impossible. I haven't been out anywhere en femme since I came to Tallahassee. "What about your nails?" he asked. I didn't think that had been an issue, but it could have been. The company I used to work with is very sensitive to guest commentary. What if someone noticed my manicure and said something about it? If someone chose to make an issue of my appearance, that could have trumped all other considerations, and the anti-discrimination policy be damned.
Sadly, all this feels correct. I don't know what this means. I don't think there's any legal recourse. Florida is an at-will employment state. Employment can be ended by either the employee or employer at any time with no explanation. Once again, it's nice to know where one stands.
A brief timeline of events:
August 2009 - Written up at work for wearing earrings and nail polish.
April 2010 - Started at BLANK. Quickly scanned through the employee handbook, found no prohibition against males wearing earrings, and the only reference to nail polish says it must be neat and in neutral colors.
May 2010 - One evening I came into work wearing a pair of small studs. The front office manager said they were okay. A couple of weeks later, the Leon County Commission votes to add sexual preference, gender identity and expression to the classes protected by the County's civil rights ordinance. The ordinance specifically prohibits discrimination in employment and all forms of accommodation (housing, hotels, restaurants, etc).
December 2010 - I was written up for a couple of errors I made. Around the same time I got my acrylic nails and French manicure. I had to endure a little good-natured ribbing, but no one complained about my appearance (at least that I know of).
February 2011 - I was fired, allegedly in response to some other error I had made. I didn't understand what they told me. I told them that if I had made a mistake, I should be allowed to try to fix it., As a consolation, the manager tells me that I've done good work there, and offers to provide me with a reference if I need one.
I talked to my father on Sunday. I called to wish him a Happy Father's Day. It was the first time we really talked in almost a year. He told me that he accepts my crossdressing, but wonders if that somehow influenced the way I was fired. I told him that was impossible. I haven't been out anywhere en femme since I came to Tallahassee. "What about your nails?" he asked. I didn't think that had been an issue, but it could have been. The company I used to work with is very sensitive to guest commentary. What if someone noticed my manicure and said something about it? If someone chose to make an issue of my appearance, that could have trumped all other considerations, and the anti-discrimination policy be damned.
Sadly, all this feels correct. I don't know what this means. I don't think there's any legal recourse. Florida is an at-will employment state. Employment can be ended by either the employee or employer at any time with no explanation. Once again, it's nice to know where one stands.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Messing With the Format
You may have noticed that the blog looks a little different. I started out wanting to adjust the page width, because I got tired of embedding Youtube videos that display chopped off in the middle. I was using the default template before, and it doesn't allow you to change the sizes of anything. I settled on the first template I found that allowed me to rearrange things, but I'm still not satisfied. I'd appreciate any guidance my readers can offer.
I must contact Google again about the advertising. When I started writing tonight, the usual General Dynamics ad was showing, but when I changed the format, an ad for Christian vacation Bible school appeared. That just will not do. I will not allow this blog to be used to shill for any religion.
I must contact Google again about the advertising. When I started writing tonight, the usual General Dynamics ad was showing, but when I changed the format, an ad for Christian vacation Bible school appeared. That just will not do. I will not allow this blog to be used to shill for any religion.
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