I feel robbed of my life

[transfemandgay]

I originally posted this on Reddit, and I'm too lazy to reformat it. So here it is copy and pasted. I just need a space to get this out.

I'm (F 18) a high school senior whose been in distance learning due to COVID since March of last year. It's been rough, and my work ethic has been completely destroyed, but I'm powering through it and trying to be a good student. Of course, being a good quarantiner, I've completely avoided any social interaction with anyone outside of my household other than grocery shopping and such. I haven't seen my friends or my girlfriend in almost a year now, but I wanna keep myself shut in so that, not only do I not get COVID, I don't look bad for breaking quarantine. My parents refuse to get me a therapist, let alone a diagnosis, but I know I've suffered from depression and anxiety disorders since I was a kid, and I'm starting to suspect I have ADHD and OCD. I'm also a trans girl, and most of my life has been spent presenting as a boy, even when I had the freedom that came with going to a pretty liberal high school.

I feel robbed of my life so far. Abusive parents and bullying stole my childhood. Mental illness kept me from pursuing any opportunity I would've enjoyed. Timidness kept me from buying a skirt and wearing it at school, even though I knew I would be accepted immediately. And, right when I realized my mistake and was ready to start taking it back in the last two years of my teenage life, COVID happened and took it all. I've officially lost everything.

My gf (NB 17) and I have both suffered pretty similarly. Abusive parents, mental illness, and quarantine. But, recently, my gf and I both learned that their younger trans brother (M 14) will most likely pursue and get scholarships for a foreign exchange program in Japan their sophomore to senior year, with support of their dad.

To say... we were both extremely jealous and bitter and angry is an understatement. We're trying to stay happy for him, but it was so hard. I immediately started bringing up Japan's issues with transphobia and homophobia, and xenophobia, and how different the culture is, and access to transgender friendly healthcare, and mental health services, and language barrier. That was definitely me projecting. My gf and I have to make up for lost time being born into abusive families, with mental illnesses, and at the wrong time that we lose half of our high school career. He will get it so much better and easier than us. We know that older people should strive for younger people to have it better, but, damn...

It hadn't dawned on me how much of my life I'd lost until the moment when we learned how much their younger brother will get out of their high school life. I know even if I did ask my parents to go on a foreign exchange program to Japan before COVID, they would've said "no" because of the costs involved and all the paperwork and the sending me to another country to live with a host family part and the hating me part, too,... or maybe they wouldn't... I don't know. I'll never know. Those opportunities are gone. My birthday was only a few days ago, and I just felt numb. I feel numb now. I know I have an entire life ahead of me... but... do I?

[Sam W]

Hi transfemandgay,

The way you're feeling is completely understandable. You're were already trying to survive a set of difficult things when COVID hit, and one thing the pandemic has been great at is knocking out the bulwarks a lot of us had in place when it came to our well-being.

It's okay to feel bitter or jealous, as long as that isn't creeping into how you treat their younger brother; it's not his fault that his parents have only now gotten better at being supportive, or that your parents remain unsupportive. That's on your parents and theirs. But I think you already know that, so I don't what to hammer on that point too much.

What I want to say instead is that there are lots of people, trans folks included, who don't really get to start living how they want until after high school. You feel like you've been robbed of your life, and that's an absolutely valid way to feel given everything you've gone through and are still going through. But something I've noticed in my own life is that the bulk of the exciting or interesting parts of it happened after high school. That's not to say what you're going through now doesn't matter, or that it doesn't suck to lose parts of your adolescence; it's more to say that you absolutely have an entire life ahead of you.

Do you want to talk about some ways, even if they're basically baby steps, of building towards that future life or feeling more in control of your current one?