I just cut myself, intentionally, for the first time, perhaps only 10 minutes before I started writing this sentence. I am now a cutter. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again, but I needed to do something, I needed a release. Pressure has been back building in my life for a little bit now, and lately it’s like someone opened the valves wide open. It’s… unpleasant. After a conversation with someone, I hit my limits and I felt outright suicidal.
Author Archive
About Author
Katie Bongiorno
Katie is a self identified out and proud transsexual woman, and a lesbian. She currently resides in Westchester, north of NYC, working for a major hospital in New York City as a Junior System Administrator. In her "spare" time, she likes to rebuild old computer systems and give them to friends and acquaintances (mostly other trans women) who lack a computer, as well as road bicycling, and daydreaming about building all manner of mildly complex items from kayaks to bows. When not doing these particular things, she often can be found taking apart just about anything she thinks she can get away with destroying for the sake of hacking, modifying, and tinkering. The most frequent victim of these assaults is usually her car. Often, she is wearing a dress or skirt far too nice (and possibly short) for the job on a mechanic's creeper, sticking halfway out from under the car like the Wicked Witch of the East. I mean, really now, how many girls do you know who change their oil in a Michael Kors dress?
04 Mar 2014
A Trans Woman’s Open Letter to Her Dad
Hi Dad,
It is time to address the last sticking point in my transition. I don’t need to remind you that I am making the single biggest step in this journey in three weeks (and yes, I’m absolutely certain). If required, I will go into greater detail, but you don’t want that and I’m not excited to have to.
25 Jun 2013
Small Steps: Adventures in Prescriptions and Dosing
After a lot of work with my psychiatrist, we managed to, more or less, titrate my medications to acceptable doses that managed my anxiety and depression (again, more or less). Primarily, these were my Paxil and Wellbutrin, which are my long term maintenance medications. A little bit of Ambien here to counter the side effects, and a little bit of Klonopin there to pick up the occasional slack (an intense background social anxiety), and I’m pretty much golden.
23 Apr 2013
Give it to me straight, Doc
So, I have always sort of wondered if I were to be bipolar or something, though I’d never been formally diagnosed as such. To my mind and observation, I’ve always had a fairly… unstable emotional balance. High highs (occasionally) and low lows. I finally brought this up actively to my psychiatrist. I’m sick of it, and I want to know what’s wrong with me.
22 Mar 2013
“What do you have to be depressed over?”
Ugh. Stop. Seriously, stop. I don’t get why people keep asking why I’m depressed, or what I have to be depressed over. Really, it’s a dumb question. Ok, though, in fairness, maybe it’s not actually their fault – society is probably to blame here. People say that something is depressing, or they’re depressed, and what they really mean is that something happened, and it sucks, it’s a bummer, they’d prefer it didn’t happen.
18 Jan 2013
Self Preservation and Stress
The moment I made the decision to preserve myself, at the risk of possibly abandoning my friends who need me, I was again asked to help one of those friends. Perhaps this is my lot, to care for others at the expense of myself. If this is so, then the fates have been kind to me in their curse.
It goes without saying, I believe, that it is very much so against my nature to think of myself first, or, sometimes, at all. I’m not saying that I don’t buy myself things or spend or do for my pleasure – I freely admit that I do. What I am saying though is that when I am asked to choose between buying dinner for a friend, or knowing I’ll have enough money for the rest of the week, I will always choose buying dinner for that friend.
08 Jan 2013
Are You Afraid of Me?
Do I scare you? Does the way I talk worry you?
I’m not talking about intimidation. I’m tall, and I’ve always been told I’m stronger than I realize – usually just after hurting someone without realizing it, but that’s not what I mean.
27 Dec 2012
Mental Health and Firearms
In the wake of the waking nightmare brought to Smalltown America in the form of the murder of 20 young children and 6 educators in Newtown, CT, firearms and the right to possess them once again returned to America’s field of vision. With it, though, came a new focus on mental illness and how that played a role that horrible day. There is no doubt that the shooter in this case and too many others like it in the last two years (and throughout our history) were not mentally well. While very true, it’s also readily apparent that the right wing and the gun lobby are simply using this fact to shift blame and attention away from the guns.
10 Dec 2012
Survival: Living From One Milestone to the Next
“Living from check to check” is a common phrase in today’s society and economy. In virtually every country in the world today, and particularly in the United States, and whichever state you live in here, the number of people who survive ‘check to check’ has skyrocketed. Not only do I really live check to check, but I live… no, survive from event to event in my life.
30 Oct 2012
Klonopin Quick Facts
Klonopin belongs to the benzodiazepine family of pharmaceuticals (other examples include Xanax, Rohypnol, and Valium, to name a few). Klonopin works as an anxiolytic (antianxiety) drug, typically used in the treatment of anxiety and panic disorders.