We met online around the end of summer 2018, through a mutual friend, I felt a strong connection immediately, we both shared the same interests, values and wanted the same things out of a relationship, although neither of us was ready to engage in a romantic relationship as we were both still obsessing over our exes and talking to other people in the mean time, it was hard to consider an exclusive relationship with him back then.
We remained best friends through all of 2019, talking all day, every day, we had alot to share and I knew I always went to him whenever I needed special attention, and having just started therapy to heal from my past relationship, I needed alot of help opening up, I still wasn’t out as a trans woman yet, despite dressing and presenting as a girl since the age of 16, I knew it was getting too late to start hormones replacement therapy and it would be impossible to reverse what puberty as a male had done to my body, at around the age of 19-20 my body started changing radically, from a tall slender figure with feminine traits, a hint of breasts, and beautiful long, wavy copper brown hair my shoulders were getting wider, I had started developing male pattern baldness, the facial hair was getting thicker and harder to conceal by the year, puberty was reaching an end and my body would be ruined forever.
From taking dozens of pictures of myself every day and feeling really comfortable in my own skin, I could barely look at myself in the mirror anymore, I knew it was time to make a change and finally come out. The response was positive from both my family and all my friends had known for a while, what man exactly feels comfortable going out in public with 3 feet of hair, make up, wearing girl clothes? It was pretty obvious from the get go, but I still needed to muster the courage to tell everyone.
At this point I wasn’t really cutting anymore, but there was a time in december of 2018 where I would slice my hips open, I don’t really know what I was trying to accomplish with that, the wounds burned alot and I knew I wasn’t going to take my own life like that? I was hurting alot due to a multitude of reasons between finding out my then ex was cheating on me while we were attempting to get back together all the changes my body was going through, not being able to speak up about abuse as a child because males aren’t usually taken seriously when it comes to those matters, I wanted to disappear but I didn’t know how it was going to happen.
Anyway, I had learned that behaviour from a girl friend of mine as a teen, she was going through alot too, between her father bodyshaming her for looking exactly like her own mother and her mother beating her every other day, she couldn’t even get help, being a minor, her parents wouldn’t allow her to talk to a therapist in fear they’d all end in trouble. The scars on my hips looked like stretch marks at this point so it wasn’t all that bad, neither the psychologist nor the psychiatrist I was seeing at the time really cared about my self harm, as I said I deeply regretted doing that to my body, I stopped even contemplating suicide knowing I was finally starting HRT soon, looking back now, I should’ve seen some other therapist back then, who thinks ‘my patient used to be suicidal but abruptly stopped doing self harm saying they regret doing all that, let’s ignore all the signs and move on’.
Getting back on topic with my romantic interest, things started changing around the first quarter of 2020, when the first lockdown started in Italy due to covid, he’d slowly stopped talking to me and, mind you, it happened all of a sudden, while I tried interacting with him like I always did, he’d just ignore me most of the time, our conversations weren’t going anywhere, then complain I wasn’t really contacting him anymore, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to say so I just decided to take the blame for losing him, and apologized, he was eager to continue talking, eventually asking me out on a date around october, I was surprised, we always knew we liked eachother very much but had never really talked in these terms. I agreed, and went out on two dates.
The first date went fine, we spent 40 minutes at the warhammer store as he had just gotten into this hobby, then we went to grab a snack, I was worried when I saw him order two large meals, he’s overweight and had previously mentioned how much he hated his body for that, not wanting to make things worse for him I didn’t verbalize my concern, although I already had two friends who had a heart attack in their mid twenties thanks to all that junk food and the thought of him passing away that young was frightening. Needless to say the sexual attraction was there, I didn’t want him to feel any more uncomfortable in his own skin knowing what we both were going through.
Our second date was… awful to say the least, while I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable knowing his issues with his body and most certainly didn’t want to create competition talking about guys who were still interested in me, all he talked about on that date was other women wanting to either fuck or date him, it made me quite uneasy and I barely said a word the whole time from what I remember.
Although the situation seemed odd to me, we kept talking like nothing had ever happened until one day while we were talking about my transition and how I was done doing bloodworks and the first appointment went fine, he ghosted me in the middle of the conversation and disappeared until he came back 6 days later with a meme, not a word was said on why he disappeared like that without saying a word, knowing how anxious I was, remembering how he already disappeared in the past and I was always the one who needed to apologize, I just left without saying a word in return.
Two months later, around the end of january 2021 he came back texting me asking why I was gone like that, trying to fix our relationship, I knew we both struggled communicating and I dont want to put all the blame on him, I just couldn’t handle the stress he was putting me through while also trying to manage my transition, it was all too overwhelming and I knew he couldn’t be there for me anyway so I didn’t leave him a chance to speak and shut him down, hoping for the best.
I then tried dating this other guy I had just met but things weren’t the same, although we shared interests and values I hadn’t known him for years at that point, in the end he decided to end things knowing a long distance relationship wasn’t going to work out for him. It hurt but I didn’t really care much about him in the end.
My ex best friend and romantic interest then decided to message me around the beginning of march, saying how he missed me and had dreamed me a few times, I gave in and decided to give him a second chance, I knew I didn’t really want to lose him for good after all we had shared the past couple years, I know it wasn’t that much time but I was deeply in love with him despite our relationship shifting completely around mid 2020, I was slowly realizing he meant that much to me and I definitely wasn’t going to find another man like him, I didn’t even want to try.
We couldn’t really see eachother the first couple months after he came back, and things were going fine, until the lockdown was lifted, he then started hanging out with his friends more, leaving me behind, I started feeling neglected, despite having so much in common he’d never ask me to spend time together online, I was always the first to suggest we’d play games or watch movies, go out on dates even though we were 3 hours apart from one another, I was willing to make the sacrifice to wake up at 4 in the morning to go see him even just for the afternoon, but it wasn’t enough.
I tried talking to him about our issues and while he seemed to be understanding of the situation, two weeks passed by, nothing changed.
I decided to end things with him for good this time, it seemed obvious he wasn’t there for a relationship, I had learned from a friend of mine and two other acquaintances he had started hooking up with this girl he had met while we were trying to date the second time, I was hurt and I didn’t really want to confront him or know his side of the story after all he had done already.
Seven months passed by and he messaged me again, around before christmas apologizing for everything he had done, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore, I was struggling to much with my own problems to deal with him too, everything was going downhill and I had started feeling suicidal again after years, I finally relapsed but I didn’t do any cutting this time, I just disassociated from everything and everyone, it hurt to open our chat or even see his face, I just archived our chat and slowly forgot about him.
Until july 2022 arrived, yet another seven months had passed and he messaged me, again, this time he deleted all the messages, saying his phone broke and of course our chat was still there, I didn’t really believe him but the situation felt off, I just decided to ignore him again.
Fast forward another seven months, it’s the end of january 2023, I have no idea why he thought it would be a good idea to message me again, for the third time in nearly 2 years after i broke up with him for the second time.
I just decided to ignore him, I was getting sick, things were finally going well, my life was taking a turn in the right direction, I was getting my driving license, I was about to start taking hormones after struggling all these years, things were going great, I didn’t need that weight in my life again.
Until I started thinking about him, what if he wasn’t going to message me in august? I felt a pain in my chest, I had never felt this anxious and paranoid my whole life, I started remembering our friendship from the beginning when we met in august of 2018 through the end of 2020 before we started dating, I never really had friends, everyone either wanted to fuck me or lost interest immediately, I didn’t have much to offer in a friendship or even a relationship, he was the only one who was really there for me though.
I decided to message him again around the end of may, I don’t know what I was expecting from that, I just needed him back in my life now that things were finally going well, or at least so I thought.
We started talking and flirting, I asked him out on a date, he accepted, things went well and we decided to try for the third time at a relationship, I had just started HRT, side effects were awful, so much anxiety, I could barely sleep because of the nightmares, I could barely sit at my desk for more than a couple hours a day, I couldnt drive, I was barely eating, but at least my boyfriend was there.
Until the depression started getting so bad I started feeling the need to hurt myself, I dont know how or why but it felt like a necessity.
I started realizing I was scratching my hands so hard I was bleeding, cutting wasn’t the only way I was doing self harm, I had started excorticating the skin on my finger as a child, I never really talked about this or the reason why, I decided to finally tell him I was molested as a kid by grandfather and then a female cousin, it happened before I even started elementary school so I only had some memories of what happened but I decided to open up to him and be vulnerable for once, he comforted me, but it wasn’t enough, I knew I couldn’t really talk about it to anyone else, as a kid nobody would’ve believed me, I had many male acquaintances who were abused at a young age and they all had gone through hell for opening up, the same happened with me, as soon as I told my best friend at the age of 8-9 he decided to tell everyone, nobody really helped, I was ostracized not only because I was an extremely feminine young boy but also because I decided to open up about sexual abuse, the memory came back and hit me like a truck, it hurt so bad thinking I never had a childhood I decided to stab my left leg with some tailor shears I had laying around my bedroom. I tore my leggings and some blood spilled, it didnt seem that bad but it burned alot.
I then decided I needed to end things with him, I didn’t want to hurt him if I was going to end my life eventually anyway, I spent the whole night and morning trying to find the words to do it, I didn’t want him to think I was going to end my life because of him, things were going well but I was broken in a thousand pieces all this time and I couldn’t get back on my feet.
I then sent him the message the morning after, I regret it so much I just asked him to just forget it immediately, it was a desperate cry for help, but he didn’t want to be there if things went downhill, he actually decided to end things saying he wasn’t able to handle the situation, I tried to be understanding although it hurt so bad, I didn’t want to coerce him to stay, I didn’t want to him to be worried either so I lied saying I’d get the help I need regardless of what happens to our relationship to put him at ease.
I lied on my bed empty headed for about an hour until I decided to head to the shower with a razor, I gathered the courage and sliced my left wrist, water and blood were running down my legs, I didn’t know what to do, I messaged him immediately saying how bad I fucked up, but I was losing blood and eventually slipped, I was now laying down, my legs hurt, I was still losing blood. I didn’t want to end it there, I didn’t want to be there anymore either. I just wanted to sleep until I eventually reached my end and died of blood loss I thought.
But he called 911 and sent them my info, my mom rescued me eventually, bandaging the cuts, an ambulance arrived at our home an hour later, we just lied about what had happened saying it was probably just a bad joke, my name wasn’t even registered, they decided to press charges against him for reporting a fake suicide attempt.
What made me reach the breaking point was having him tell me
‘contact me once you’re finally better, but block me again right after, I really just need to know when that happens’
It hurt so much knowing how many people I’ve met who lived with untreated ptsd, crippling chronic depression, anxiety for years, I don’t want to live until my 30s, 40s, god only knows how long I’ll live as a dysfunctional adult, I dont want to live knowing I wasted the past 23 years of my life, knowing too well I’ll probably die alone.
It’s not my fault I was abused as a child and things went to shit, I know, but it hurts so bad seeing how unfair life has been on me.
I’ve really loved you so much but I wish we’d never met 5 years ago, what monster abandons their partner because they’re suicidal, without even trying to help them?
You kept me like a dog on the leash, making it impossible for me to really move on with my life all these years, even though you always knew you couldnt be there for me when I truly needed you.