- Moving to Karlsruhe, Germany.
- Angelic Kittens.
- Next week's vlog: hearing against VUmc's gender team.
Maya
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Vlog: Moving To Germany And Angelic Kittens
Maya
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Finding The Peace Of A Proper Home Once Again
Train journeys tend to the be the time when one has the most opportunity to reflect upon matters and life in general. While in the train from Munich yesterday and again today when leaving Karlsruhe to travel back to the Netherlands I definitely had such time to reflect. Yesterday I began to entertain the notion that I just might find a home again after all these years. In a few very different ways.
As a child I had my own room. I'd have my toys in there, my bed and desk. I'd spend time playing indoors or outdoors on the farm my parents owned. I'd feel safe in my room, but outside it as well. The village I grew up in felt just big enough, but I did feel quite safe there. I got bullied at primary school and generally felt like the odd one out there. Yet there always was my home to return to. Even if my room was an explosion of toys with just a few meandering paths through it, and the walls and beams never properly got painted since the house was built, it was still my home.
I don't recall the house before it, which stood on the same place but burned down when I was still very young. It wasn't my home, so I did not miss it. Yet even the place I called home slowly changed as I became a teenager, eventually finishing high school. As I lost my direction after finishing high school this home became more and more restrictive. My room became something it should never have become, namely my world. Internet was literally my only connection with the outside world. It was still my room, but it was my prison in a sense.
Things gradually went downhill from there. My parents' divorce didn't come as a shock to me. I had felt the atmosphere in the house change long before that, with my dad becoming very distant. I just took it with the rest of everything. Moving to another home with my mother was tough. I had lost every connection with the place I once called my home. Clinging to the possessions I had taken with me I dreamed of a day when I'd have a real home again. During that time I completely lost interest in my outward appearance. My hair grew very long, looking unhealthy, with my skin and general appearance emulating a ghost. I got my driver's license during that time, but I have no idea how I managed that in such a state.
Moving again, I thought maybe I'd find a home there. Instead it became another prison, though I also found out what was the matter with me, physically at least. During the next years, as I travelled to Norway, Canada and through the Netherlands I never once found a home. There were just places where I stayed while I tried to protect the other home I had kept up till that point: my physical body. As Dutch physicians and psychologists launched assault after assault at my sense of self, it began to crack and crumble. I had thought for over two decades that I was a boy, until I found out otherwise, then those findings got cast into doubt. Instead it was me who was being delusional.
What could I do? I found some solace in Germany where a clear and concise conclusion told me everything I needed to know about my body. Finally things seemed to resolve themselves.
Looking back, the first thing I should have done back then is leave the Netherlands. The sad part is that migrating costs money, and I had virtually none. Canada didn't work out, Australia didn't either. I just kept drifting. Maybe these two weeks I was in Germany reminded me of that, with me staying in two locations during this week. Getting used to a new environment, dealing with house and flatmates. Knowing that you're just there for the moment.
The past one and a half decade I haven't had a place to call home. Maybe my medical efforts wouldn't have scarred me so deeply if I had had a home and a loving family and/or friends. While my mother supported me all the way, that didn't make it a home or family. Just another place to stay until the next move.
The upcoming move to Germany will be my... let's see, moved twice in the Netherlands, to Canada and back, five moves within the Netherlands... tenth move. On average that means moving once every year since 2003.
I really need this migration to Germany to be the final one for a very long time. This time it may actually work out too. I have a well-paying job, the company I work for is helping me find a house in the Karlsruhe area and everyone there is very supportive. On top of that it's the only country so far which has actually provided me with real medical care. It was kind of tough for me to leave today for the train station, as I don't know how it'll go from here. When I'll be back.
I'm sure it'll work out with finding a house. It may even be the new home I have been looking for for so long. One thing which makes me apprehensive is the judgement of the current German surgeon I'm in contact with as he looks through my medical file and MRI scans. To me this is even more important than the secondary home. I so need my body back.
In the ICE train back from Köln to the Netherlands I sat next to a law student from Amsterdam. I ended up talking with her about things and as always seems to happen also about my situation. It's just impossible to avoid the elephant in the room, I guess. She was very nice about it, though. The way I described it to her was that I started off with a medical question and it should essentially end with the resolution of this question, which should be with this final surgery. The legal matters and such... that's all secondary. What matters is that I leave the Netherlands, get real medical help and rebuild my life.
That way I'll both have my primary (body) and secondary (house) home back.
I don't like to think that I may have to keep drifting for another decade or longer...
Maya
As a child I had my own room. I'd have my toys in there, my bed and desk. I'd spend time playing indoors or outdoors on the farm my parents owned. I'd feel safe in my room, but outside it as well. The village I grew up in felt just big enough, but I did feel quite safe there. I got bullied at primary school and generally felt like the odd one out there. Yet there always was my home to return to. Even if my room was an explosion of toys with just a few meandering paths through it, and the walls and beams never properly got painted since the house was built, it was still my home.
I don't recall the house before it, which stood on the same place but burned down when I was still very young. It wasn't my home, so I did not miss it. Yet even the place I called home slowly changed as I became a teenager, eventually finishing high school. As I lost my direction after finishing high school this home became more and more restrictive. My room became something it should never have become, namely my world. Internet was literally my only connection with the outside world. It was still my room, but it was my prison in a sense.
Things gradually went downhill from there. My parents' divorce didn't come as a shock to me. I had felt the atmosphere in the house change long before that, with my dad becoming very distant. I just took it with the rest of everything. Moving to another home with my mother was tough. I had lost every connection with the place I once called my home. Clinging to the possessions I had taken with me I dreamed of a day when I'd have a real home again. During that time I completely lost interest in my outward appearance. My hair grew very long, looking unhealthy, with my skin and general appearance emulating a ghost. I got my driver's license during that time, but I have no idea how I managed that in such a state.
Moving again, I thought maybe I'd find a home there. Instead it became another prison, though I also found out what was the matter with me, physically at least. During the next years, as I travelled to Norway, Canada and through the Netherlands I never once found a home. There were just places where I stayed while I tried to protect the other home I had kept up till that point: my physical body. As Dutch physicians and psychologists launched assault after assault at my sense of self, it began to crack and crumble. I had thought for over two decades that I was a boy, until I found out otherwise, then those findings got cast into doubt. Instead it was me who was being delusional.
What could I do? I found some solace in Germany where a clear and concise conclusion told me everything I needed to know about my body. Finally things seemed to resolve themselves.
Looking back, the first thing I should have done back then is leave the Netherlands. The sad part is that migrating costs money, and I had virtually none. Canada didn't work out, Australia didn't either. I just kept drifting. Maybe these two weeks I was in Germany reminded me of that, with me staying in two locations during this week. Getting used to a new environment, dealing with house and flatmates. Knowing that you're just there for the moment.
The past one and a half decade I haven't had a place to call home. Maybe my medical efforts wouldn't have scarred me so deeply if I had had a home and a loving family and/or friends. While my mother supported me all the way, that didn't make it a home or family. Just another place to stay until the next move.
The upcoming move to Germany will be my... let's see, moved twice in the Netherlands, to Canada and back, five moves within the Netherlands... tenth move. On average that means moving once every year since 2003.
I really need this migration to Germany to be the final one for a very long time. This time it may actually work out too. I have a well-paying job, the company I work for is helping me find a house in the Karlsruhe area and everyone there is very supportive. On top of that it's the only country so far which has actually provided me with real medical care. It was kind of tough for me to leave today for the train station, as I don't know how it'll go from here. When I'll be back.
I'm sure it'll work out with finding a house. It may even be the new home I have been looking for for so long. One thing which makes me apprehensive is the judgement of the current German surgeon I'm in contact with as he looks through my medical file and MRI scans. To me this is even more important than the secondary home. I so need my body back.
In the ICE train back from Köln to the Netherlands I sat next to a law student from Amsterdam. I ended up talking with her about things and as always seems to happen also about my situation. It's just impossible to avoid the elephant in the room, I guess. She was very nice about it, though. The way I described it to her was that I started off with a medical question and it should essentially end with the resolution of this question, which should be with this final surgery. The legal matters and such... that's all secondary. What matters is that I leave the Netherlands, get real medical help and rebuild my life.
That way I'll both have my primary (body) and secondary (house) home back.
I don't like to think that I may have to keep drifting for another decade or longer...
Maya
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Required Preparations To Get A Home Again
Before I can start living in Germany these are the items on the check list:
- Finding a place to rent.
- Setting up internet, water, electricity, etc. there.
- Moving my stuff out of the old place in Almere.
- Cancelling rent, insurance, etc.
- Moving said stuff to the new place in Germany.
- Requesting confirmation that I can stay in Germany (Aufenthaltserlaubnis).
- Things I forgot.
The first part is going to take a bit of time to get arranged, but there should be no problems there. Obtaining my stuff from the apartment in Almere is going to be the part I'm absolutely not looking forward to in any way or sense, but it has to be done if I want to get most of my possessions back. The rest is just tedious, really.
I looked around a bit already in the direct area of Karlsruhe and it's looking quite promise. I think I'm nearly over the positive sticker shock effect of the super-low renting prices here compared to in the Netherlands.
I'm really hoping that I can move into my new place before the end of this year.
Maya
- Finding a place to rent.
- Setting up internet, water, electricity, etc. there.
- Moving my stuff out of the old place in Almere.
- Cancelling rent, insurance, etc.
- Moving said stuff to the new place in Germany.
- Requesting confirmation that I can stay in Germany (Aufenthaltserlaubnis).
- Things I forgot.
The first part is going to take a bit of time to get arranged, but there should be no problems there. Obtaining my stuff from the apartment in Almere is going to be the part I'm absolutely not looking forward to in any way or sense, but it has to be done if I want to get most of my possessions back. The rest is just tedious, really.
I looked around a bit already in the direct area of Karlsruhe and it's looking quite promise. I think I'm nearly over the positive sticker shock effect of the super-low renting prices here compared to in the Netherlands.
I'm really hoping that I can move into my new place before the end of this year.
Maya
Friday, 6 September 2013
It's Impossible To Live With PTSD
Today it happened again. After work my colleagues and I were just going to hang out a bit and socialize at a local cafe. Yet while waiting while they were chatting with each other at the office, drinking beer and smoking, I began to feel increasingly less comfortable. First moving away due to the cigarette smoke irritating my eyes and airways, I began to feel increasingly less wanted. I felt threatened. I had to get away. After hanging on for a while I just started walking back to where I'm staying at the moment. All the way I felt frightened. Of someone running after me. Of a phone call asking me where I had gone to. Yet I had no choice.
While walking I felt sad and bitter, that there's no place for me. That I do not matter. I didn't feel like I should further attempt to socialize with people at the work place. Back at my room I just closed the door, vowing to not leave it any more until Monday. Sitting down in front of my laptop I just started watching videos. I felt numb. I also felt certain that this was just the proof I needed that there is nothing for me here either. That there is no place for me anywhere on this planet. I can not keep running forever.
Then my head started clearing up again after maybe an hour or two. All of those convictions and the super-strong sense of fear and terror I had felt up to that point began to fade. I'm still feeling it to some extent, but I mostly bitterly regret not staying, missing one of the few chances I have to talk to my colleagues before I am supposed to move here. I can't tell at which point the PTSD took hold of me. It happened so gradually, tweaking my way of thinking so subtly that I honestly did not notice that anything about my way of thinking had changed until just now.
I hate PTSD.
I also know that it is being triggered by so many things, the thought or suggestion of being unwanted just one of them. There is no warning for most triggers. Some I can recognize in advance. This one I didn't. The most horrible thing is that for a few hours I literally wasn't myself, that I completely lost control over my very thoughts and body. How am I supposed to function like this in heaven's name?! How can I be expected to pull off all the details around moving to a new country when at every time things like this happen? And even if by some miracle that all works out, it'll just keep happening after that. Forever.
With no medical and/or psychological help forthcoming it keeps pushing me towards the uncomfortable realization that there simply is no way I can continue this existence. It's better to end it while I'm still myself at times.
I don't know any more... I just can not see a way out of this living hell any more.
Not that it matters that I write any of this. It won't change anything. All of these words are meaningless. My blog is meaningless. My life and everything I have suffered and done means nothing. I didn't change anything. Nobody will jump in and save me.
Observe closely, for this is what it looks like when the last tiny flame of hope flickers and dies.
Maya
While walking I felt sad and bitter, that there's no place for me. That I do not matter. I didn't feel like I should further attempt to socialize with people at the work place. Back at my room I just closed the door, vowing to not leave it any more until Monday. Sitting down in front of my laptop I just started watching videos. I felt numb. I also felt certain that this was just the proof I needed that there is nothing for me here either. That there is no place for me anywhere on this planet. I can not keep running forever.
Then my head started clearing up again after maybe an hour or two. All of those convictions and the super-strong sense of fear and terror I had felt up to that point began to fade. I'm still feeling it to some extent, but I mostly bitterly regret not staying, missing one of the few chances I have to talk to my colleagues before I am supposed to move here. I can't tell at which point the PTSD took hold of me. It happened so gradually, tweaking my way of thinking so subtly that I honestly did not notice that anything about my way of thinking had changed until just now.
I hate PTSD.
I also know that it is being triggered by so many things, the thought or suggestion of being unwanted just one of them. There is no warning for most triggers. Some I can recognize in advance. This one I didn't. The most horrible thing is that for a few hours I literally wasn't myself, that I completely lost control over my very thoughts and body. How am I supposed to function like this in heaven's name?! How can I be expected to pull off all the details around moving to a new country when at every time things like this happen? And even if by some miracle that all works out, it'll just keep happening after that. Forever.
With no medical and/or psychological help forthcoming it keeps pushing me towards the uncomfortable realization that there simply is no way I can continue this existence. It's better to end it while I'm still myself at times.
I don't know any more... I just can not see a way out of this living hell any more.
Not that it matters that I write any of this. It won't change anything. All of these words are meaningless. My blog is meaningless. My life and everything I have suffered and done means nothing. I didn't change anything. Nobody will jump in and save me.
Observe closely, for this is what it looks like when the last tiny flame of hope flickers and dies.
Maya
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Personality Optional
On my way back from the office today I was walking alone for the first time this week. The difference compared to when I was walking around with my male colleague was quite... interesting. Beyond the extensive looks I got from a few women, I had men staring at me intensively. Two even made pretty lewd remarks in German, basically amounting to that they found what they saw to be quite interesting.
I can't say it made me feel flattered or special. More like weirded out and disgusted. The clothes I am wearing today are for comfort, not for looks: skin-tight jeans and black top with the top part lace because it's awesome in summer time, accompanied by the slightly heeled sandals I bought recently. The way people responded to me I felt more like I was in some kind of freak show. Maybe that's what those two guys were referring to, though. I don't know. I don't think I'm attractive. Not that I care about such matters.
Inside this body lives a mind which wants to live freely and feel at ease. Something went wrong, though, as instead it feels trapped and hunted. There's only the constant awareness that I as a person am in no way relevant. Nobody truly cares about whether I feel happy or at ease. Maybe it's just because they do not understand and feel it. I do keep up this facade of a successful and relatively care-free person, but that's more because the alternative is to be a complete emotional wreck. At times this does come to the surface, though.
Right now I feel just incredibly sad. I won't end up living in Germany, but end up homeless if I don't commit suicide first. That's how my story is supposed to go. There is no such thing as a happy ending in reality. Those who are happy stay happy, those whose lives were ruined by others will toil among the ruins until they die or end their own existence. I was never meant to be happy. I wasn't happy as a child. I was miserable as a teenager. After that everything turned into an absolute hell.
I'm a mere cog in the ruthless machine of society. Easily ignored and forgotten. Easily replaced. Ergo no reason to worry about any discomfort I may experience while I strive to be a useful addition to society.
Part of me wishes reality was just that black and white. The few touches of kindness make life so much harder for me. When I get back to the Netherlands in two weeks time I'll have this gift waiting for me from a friend. It's a sweater with angel wings on the back. He bought it for me after I mentioned that I thought it was really cute. As I type this tears are streaming freely over my face. It's both very pleasant to realize that I'm not a total reject and that at least some people care about me, but at the same time it's the most horrible thing in the world.
How can I end my existence if I can not say farewell to life without some regrets left? Part of me longs for the feeling of complete peace when I took those pills a few years ago which should have ended my life. I fear I won't ever get it back.
Maya
I can't say it made me feel flattered or special. More like weirded out and disgusted. The clothes I am wearing today are for comfort, not for looks: skin-tight jeans and black top with the top part lace because it's awesome in summer time, accompanied by the slightly heeled sandals I bought recently. The way people responded to me I felt more like I was in some kind of freak show. Maybe that's what those two guys were referring to, though. I don't know. I don't think I'm attractive. Not that I care about such matters.
Inside this body lives a mind which wants to live freely and feel at ease. Something went wrong, though, as instead it feels trapped and hunted. There's only the constant awareness that I as a person am in no way relevant. Nobody truly cares about whether I feel happy or at ease. Maybe it's just because they do not understand and feel it. I do keep up this facade of a successful and relatively care-free person, but that's more because the alternative is to be a complete emotional wreck. At times this does come to the surface, though.
Right now I feel just incredibly sad. I won't end up living in Germany, but end up homeless if I don't commit suicide first. That's how my story is supposed to go. There is no such thing as a happy ending in reality. Those who are happy stay happy, those whose lives were ruined by others will toil among the ruins until they die or end their own existence. I was never meant to be happy. I wasn't happy as a child. I was miserable as a teenager. After that everything turned into an absolute hell.
I'm a mere cog in the ruthless machine of society. Easily ignored and forgotten. Easily replaced. Ergo no reason to worry about any discomfort I may experience while I strive to be a useful addition to society.
Part of me wishes reality was just that black and white. The few touches of kindness make life so much harder for me. When I get back to the Netherlands in two weeks time I'll have this gift waiting for me from a friend. It's a sweater with angel wings on the back. He bought it for me after I mentioned that I thought it was really cute. As I type this tears are streaming freely over my face. It's both very pleasant to realize that I'm not a total reject and that at least some people care about me, but at the same time it's the most horrible thing in the world.
How can I end my existence if I can not say farewell to life without some regrets left? Part of me longs for the feeling of complete peace when I took those pills a few years ago which should have ended my life. I fear I won't ever get it back.
Maya
Born Into Confusion And Pain
Last Monday I travelled to Germany for my work as I mentioned before. It was a pretty harrowing journey, with both the Dutch and German train systems giving me grief. In the end I arrived at my destination, however. I'm staying at a colleague's place, who is sharing it with a number of other people. It's a busy but kinda fun place. Today and yesterday I spent working at the office, preparing for the meeting with the people from BMW in Munich next week. I'm performing an analysis of the current application to be used for optimizations. It's pretty all right work, really.
It's the second time I'm here in this city of Karlsruhe. First time was early this year, when I was just being introduced into the company and to my current colleagues. Back then I didn't really know how things were going to end up or what would happen for me. After months filled with chaos and pain, shattered promises and the bitter taste of injustice in the Netherlands I find myself here in Germany with the knowledge that I am going to be living here soon. It's really more of a rational choice, though.
I don't know what use my emotional side is in this all. I still obviously do not have a proper self-image, with the requirement to adjust it regularly by analysing comments made by others as well as through observations in mirrors and the like. The insistence by Dutch 'specialists' that I am still just biologically male isn't helping here, nor the frequent addressing of me as 'sir' during phone calls. Earlier I took a shower, and the big mirror in the bathroom was quite hard to ignore. Do I see a female in the mirror? I don't know. Do I see a male? I don't know. I do know that I keep being afraid of people finding out and insulting or discriminating against me. I do not enjoy having this body in any way.
There's just a lot of uncertainty. Moving to what is still a quite unfamiliar country and city to me is tough enough. Not knowing what is awaiting me with a very uncertain future. I do want to find a happy future here, to end the uncertainty. I just don't know whether it's possible. I do know that I have been harming myself significantly by keeping up a brave face. I'm socializing as is expected from me. Yet do I really gain anything from it? I hear myself talking and joking as though there's nary a care in the world. It's as though I am two people, one extroverted personality and the introverted personality keeping to the background. Which one is really me?
Every day continues like this; filled with uncertainty and recollections living their own lives like cancerous growths. Everything emotional just hurts. Others being happy and apparently carefree shock me with this horribly bitter feeling I have come to loathe so much. All I seem to be able to do is feel horrible about myself, my body, my life and my future. Until I push it all away again for a while.
Today happens to be my birthday, but there's nothing joyous about it. I feel more pain, frustration and sadness than what should be compatible with life.
I wish I had never been born into this horrific, disgusting 'body'. Without it I could maybe have been happy.
I don't know... life has never felt entirely real to me. Any attempt to fully experience has always been blocked off. I still don't feel I ever grew past the emotional age of maybe 8 or 10 or so. Simply because I can't. I just fake it all via my intellect. I'm pretty sure that is the truth. Opening up my emotional side has been and still is impossible, as doing so would utterly destroy it. There are no nice people out there. It's only a cruel world where not being a stone-cold killer means signing your own death warrant.
Living for as much as possible in this surreal dream world, shielded by intellect, is how I can keep existing. Living in the illusion of happiness and a world where doing one's best actually means anything.
It still hurts so much, though...
Is there salvation? I have no idea. Most of my life seems to consist out of loss and people turning out to either forget about me, not providing promised help, or just outright hurting me. I do not think I can start trusting people any time soon. Until then, there's the constant expectation of betrayal and pain.
Happy birthday to me.
Maya
It's the second time I'm here in this city of Karlsruhe. First time was early this year, when I was just being introduced into the company and to my current colleagues. Back then I didn't really know how things were going to end up or what would happen for me. After months filled with chaos and pain, shattered promises and the bitter taste of injustice in the Netherlands I find myself here in Germany with the knowledge that I am going to be living here soon. It's really more of a rational choice, though.
I don't know what use my emotional side is in this all. I still obviously do not have a proper self-image, with the requirement to adjust it regularly by analysing comments made by others as well as through observations in mirrors and the like. The insistence by Dutch 'specialists' that I am still just biologically male isn't helping here, nor the frequent addressing of me as 'sir' during phone calls. Earlier I took a shower, and the big mirror in the bathroom was quite hard to ignore. Do I see a female in the mirror? I don't know. Do I see a male? I don't know. I do know that I keep being afraid of people finding out and insulting or discriminating against me. I do not enjoy having this body in any way.
There's just a lot of uncertainty. Moving to what is still a quite unfamiliar country and city to me is tough enough. Not knowing what is awaiting me with a very uncertain future. I do want to find a happy future here, to end the uncertainty. I just don't know whether it's possible. I do know that I have been harming myself significantly by keeping up a brave face. I'm socializing as is expected from me. Yet do I really gain anything from it? I hear myself talking and joking as though there's nary a care in the world. It's as though I am two people, one extroverted personality and the introverted personality keeping to the background. Which one is really me?
Every day continues like this; filled with uncertainty and recollections living their own lives like cancerous growths. Everything emotional just hurts. Others being happy and apparently carefree shock me with this horribly bitter feeling I have come to loathe so much. All I seem to be able to do is feel horrible about myself, my body, my life and my future. Until I push it all away again for a while.
Today happens to be my birthday, but there's nothing joyous about it. I feel more pain, frustration and sadness than what should be compatible with life.
I wish I had never been born into this horrific, disgusting 'body'. Without it I could maybe have been happy.
I don't know... life has never felt entirely real to me. Any attempt to fully experience has always been blocked off. I still don't feel I ever grew past the emotional age of maybe 8 or 10 or so. Simply because I can't. I just fake it all via my intellect. I'm pretty sure that is the truth. Opening up my emotional side has been and still is impossible, as doing so would utterly destroy it. There are no nice people out there. It's only a cruel world where not being a stone-cold killer means signing your own death warrant.
Living for as much as possible in this surreal dream world, shielded by intellect, is how I can keep existing. Living in the illusion of happiness and a world where doing one's best actually means anything.
It still hurts so much, though...
Is there salvation? I have no idea. Most of my life seems to consist out of loss and people turning out to either forget about me, not providing promised help, or just outright hurting me. I do not think I can start trusting people any time soon. Until then, there's the constant expectation of betrayal and pain.
Happy birthday to me.
Maya
Sunday, 1 September 2013
One Person Living Two Lives Which Are One Life
Most people of my generation will be familiar with that scene from The Matrix, where Agent Smith tells our protagonist the following:
"It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not."
A life of two identities, two lives lived by the same person, keeping up a different face for each of them, as one can not bear the other. Both separate, and yet intertwined.
I feel like this too, only there was no free choice for me. The 'Thomas' part, of being a law-abiding citizen is a given. That's what you need to be accepted in society. I got that pat down, with the identity of a capable software developer thrown into the mix as well, making for a respectable identity. It's an identity people can admire and approve of.
Then the 'Neo' part for me is not so much that I chose to go into the dark side myself, but something which happened. There are a lot of 'if's here. If physicians would have helped me right away. If psychologists had helped me at all. If politicians I contacted had done something. If society had known more about intersex already. If I hadn't been born intersex. If I hadn't been born at all. If the medical specialists had done their job I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't be in court on September the 24th in a hearing against the VUmc gender team. I never picked any of it.
Worst of all is that it has forced my life to take two distinctly different paths simultaneously. Two identities to keep up. The 'Thomas' identity can not reveal anything of the 'Neo' identity. The other way around the 'Thomas' identity has no relevance to the 'Neo' identity. Living two lives like this is hard. One life is hard enough to live, but living two lives which directly contradict and oppose each other... it's trying to achieve the impossible. One makes the other look like a mere dream, while the other way around it makes the former look like a twisted nightmare.
The past years I have more and more often elected to get rid of the side which I feel has no future: specifically the 'Neo' identity. It's a dead-end, in the most literal sense. It's a life of total despair, of hate, blood, gore, suicide and mutilation. In comparison the 'Thomas' identity is about as close to the 'perfect family with white picket fence' stereotype one can get.
As I'm heading out tomorrow on a two-week trip to Germany for my work including to the BMW offices in Munich I'm reminded of this ever so strongly again. While I'm there in the capacity of a team member on this project. There's no room for any 'Neo'. It can not exist or show itself.
One could say that this 'Neo' is merely a magnification of one's personal life, and this wouldn't be incorrect. However, the average person has a personal life which hardly gets more exciting than picking the right brand of pasta sauce at the store after work. My personal life is more akin to a hefty medical thriller. It's become larger than life.
Maya
"It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not."
A life of two identities, two lives lived by the same person, keeping up a different face for each of them, as one can not bear the other. Both separate, and yet intertwined.
I feel like this too, only there was no free choice for me. The 'Thomas' part, of being a law-abiding citizen is a given. That's what you need to be accepted in society. I got that pat down, with the identity of a capable software developer thrown into the mix as well, making for a respectable identity. It's an identity people can admire and approve of.
Then the 'Neo' part for me is not so much that I chose to go into the dark side myself, but something which happened. There are a lot of 'if's here. If physicians would have helped me right away. If psychologists had helped me at all. If politicians I contacted had done something. If society had known more about intersex already. If I hadn't been born intersex. If I hadn't been born at all. If the medical specialists had done their job I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't be in court on September the 24th in a hearing against the VUmc gender team. I never picked any of it.
Worst of all is that it has forced my life to take two distinctly different paths simultaneously. Two identities to keep up. The 'Thomas' identity can not reveal anything of the 'Neo' identity. The other way around the 'Thomas' identity has no relevance to the 'Neo' identity. Living two lives like this is hard. One life is hard enough to live, but living two lives which directly contradict and oppose each other... it's trying to achieve the impossible. One makes the other look like a mere dream, while the other way around it makes the former look like a twisted nightmare.
The past years I have more and more often elected to get rid of the side which I feel has no future: specifically the 'Neo' identity. It's a dead-end, in the most literal sense. It's a life of total despair, of hate, blood, gore, suicide and mutilation. In comparison the 'Thomas' identity is about as close to the 'perfect family with white picket fence' stereotype one can get.
As I'm heading out tomorrow on a two-week trip to Germany for my work including to the BMW offices in Munich I'm reminded of this ever so strongly again. While I'm there in the capacity of a team member on this project. There's no room for any 'Neo'. It can not exist or show itself.
One could say that this 'Neo' is merely a magnification of one's personal life, and this wouldn't be incorrect. However, the average person has a personal life which hardly gets more exciting than picking the right brand of pasta sauce at the store after work. My personal life is more akin to a hefty medical thriller. It's become larger than life.
Maya
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