Sorry Knives! My bad. Thank you for telling me so I can use the right words; I should have asked.
Go in peace sibling. Live your day 
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Is it a “mental thing” or also physical?
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Are you asking me about my anatomy?
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Yeah, more or less, is that crossing a line? Im not asking for specifics of anything, but I know some people are born without reproductive organs, do you have that too? Or is it more a mental thing?
I do always find it interesting that the main question I get, or trans folks in general, in regards to our gender identity is about genitals lol. I don’t think what bits I have between my legs is of much importance. Some trans people have dysphoria about their bodies and aren’t comfortable with the bits they are born with and seek to change them, but I am comfortable in my body and the pieces I was born with💕
Trans is an umbrella term for anyone that feels different from the gender they were assigned at birth, some of my friends were assigned female at birth and are males, some assigned male at birth but are females, and I was AFAB but identify with neither binary gender which slips under the “non-binary” definition under the trans umbrella. Some nonbinary folks teeter from one end of the spectrum to the either, feeling more boyish or girlish on different occasions but I feel like neither at any given moment. Just devoid of all of it. I wear makeup and do my hair but that’s just because I want to and I like it, which makes most people perceive me as a ‘woman’. I believe clothes and makeup have no gender and there’s no right or wrong way to look how you want to.
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Okay, thanks for explaining
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There’s a good news & culture page that explores some of the depth & variety of trans & LGBTQ+ stories & lives here - it’s wonderful to explore the richness of experience:
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Thank you for sharing that it’s one of my favorites.
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Hi knives, hope you’re OK.
Forgiveness it’s just a way to accept that no one can change the past.
You can’t change it, so live the best you can with it.
it’s a way for you to stop whipping your self .
I was arrested when I was 1 year sober, on my birthday they gave me sentence. 5 years
I was out int 13 months for good behaviour and for being sober.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
It is what it is .
Take care mate, be strong.
+24h
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Thank you I try, and I know I can’t change anything, but I still ruminate and let it sit so heavy on my chest. I’m not sure I’ll ever really forgive myself and I think that one day I’ll be able to coexist with that in a healthier way.
When were you incarcerated? I think “good behavior” isn’t a thing here anymore, you just get 2/3 of your sentence reduced automatically if you’re good. So of the 6.5 years they want me for, I’ll serve 4.
I’m grateful to be able to share and I appreciate the response every time. Sharing with you all and the response I have gotten has helped me monumentally. I made this account pretty recently after it happened and the outpouring of support I’ve gotten has helped me a lot in how I see myself. You all have helped me feel like less of a monster and help me to heal every day. Thank you I know I would be mentally worse if it weren’t for the support I’ve gotten from this forum.
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I was incarcerated in 09-04-2007 on my birthday I live in Portugal and here if you behave your sentence can be suspended for the same time you were sentenced or more to the maximum of 5 years . But I had to be tested for all kind of drugs for the rest of my sentence and if I relapsed or missed a test they would put me in jail with no delay.
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Hello my friends. I am feeling incredibly down lately. Was it not for my absolute fear of getting in trouble or making myself look bad before sentencing I would likely have relapsed. I know I need to go to more meetings and get back on top of managing these thoughts. I just drift back to how much easier it would be instead of having to stay present during such a miserable waiting period. I wish I knew what was going on. I’m so terrified of the year anniversary coming up in April. (Can you believe it’s been that long?) that also makes me think about how if I’m to serve four years, which is what they want me for, I wouldn’t even be halfway through. It is so hard not to wallow and I feel very alone. Thanks for listening.
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That’s so hard Knives! It’s good you’re sober through this. It is as tough as it gets. You don’t feel strong - but actually you are.
Do you turn to your HP at times like this? How?
9+ months later and it’s still not coming to me, the spiritual foundations bit. I’ve tried very hard to come up with SOMETHING greater than myself but putting any weight into anything doesn’t sit right. The closest I’ve gotten is just ‘nature’but what is there to even give anything to, let alone such a heavy burden. Nothing seems right and just trying to let go of things and accept them as they are also doesn’t seem right.
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I’m going to share an idea here; let me know whether it is potentially helpful or not. 9 months is a long time and I don’t know your personal search - I’m sharing this as a perspective that I hope will help.
What are we, as humans? Like, what do we know is unambiguously, universally true?
- We are individuals with other individuals; we not able to read one another’s minds. We are not ever in 100% communion with, 100% immersion in one another. This can feel desperately lonely sometimes.
- We are a story of difference. We are each unique and that is one of our greatest human challenges: each of us grows up knowing our own experience (as best we can), and we spend years, decades, trying to connect and co-exist and live and love with others who are different. That also, can feel desperately lonely.
- What we don’t know, is always infinitely greater than what we do know. That is humbling.
- We create; we innovate; we generate. It’s in our nature. We see this world and we shape it and bend its natural laws to our interests. This has both healthy and unhealthy effects. This creative, investigative impulse has given us both vaccines and plastics. Both have transformed our world. Our restless need to create in our world, is what drives us out and forward in desperate yearning, exploring, trying, conceiving. It’s agony, but it’s also beauty. And it’s human.
- All of us rely on our basic humanity, our shared sense of presence and purpose, to move us forward. This takes many different forms but it is universal. People want to create, they’re driven to create, and they create to express, to procreate, to build, to collaborate, to earn, to do a million other verbs that are that creative act.
If we are all those things, and we - as we know - are still imperfect and incomplete; a higher power must be the ideal combination of whatever is at the essence of us.
It’s like something we strive for. It’s an ideal. It’s a shared, single point of light, that gives contour and shape to everything we see. It’s beyond our comprehension, but it is something we know is there, because it is something that lights our way as we strive to be fuller, more complete beings.
My thoughts on it anyway. The concept is sort of like the perfect teacher who sees us fully. We’ll never understand it. But it is good will, and it is there for us, always.
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Your insights and perspectives are always very welcome and helpful, regardless of my personal agreements to them or not (though I usually find them agreeable). I do resonate with that a lot. I do believe that things are definitely outside of our understanding and a lot of things cannot be explained and that is beyond us as individuals. It’s hard for me as someone who has had to raise myself, has never had anybody to guide me. I’m always like “be your own sponsor. Be your own higher power” because I always have been. I know I need to distance myself from that mindset because where did relying on myself get me? Obviously nowhere good.
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I know my poetry is dark, but I try to freewrite something every day. Here is today’s.
X
I paint things for people
(Albeit shit)
So they have mementos when I die
I look at my plants and dole them out mentally
Who gets what
To keep alive while I am not
Will anyone wear my clothes?
Or walk
Quite literally
In my shoes?
Will people look through the accumulation of years like a novel scribbled in my journals and say
Oh fuck
I knew it was bad
But not this bad
Look through my notes in my phone and see all of these poems and see just how badly
I’m screaming for death
I’m sick of having things in my eye
I’m sick of my bones hurting and being tired and that stupid feeling
When my stomach drops as I’m trying to fall asleep
I’m sick of my skin and my dumb tattoos and my limp wrists and my knobby knees and I’m so sick of feeling hunger
I hate the taste of food
I hate the smell of vomit
I’m sick of these pills that are supposed to keep me well but
I’m still sick
I’m sick
I’m sick
I’m sick
I’m sick
I’m sick
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I look at you and see a plant growing. I see a flower in a garden. Like all flowers it’s got its roots in shit. And from that shit comes the beauty of stubbornly persisting.
This flower stretches up and stretches up and stretches up and -
Grows. It knows not where. But the very act of being and of being aware of that being - is creation itself.
I look at you and I see someone greater than the universe itself, because you are life, aware of being alive - and in so being, you are perfect.
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I was just reflecting and this thought came to me:
Is it possible your hesitation here relates to the idea of surrender?
No matter what a higher power is understood to be, the act of surrender is central. Is surrender an act that is hard for you?