Killer Wasp Sighted in Scotland
Natalie Rachael Gale
It started with a wasp sting and ended with a suicide attempt. Not a usual day for most people but a standard day for your average transgendered person.
Have you ever looked in the mirror and hated what youve seen? The answer is of course yes. Most people have hated something about themselves at some time in their life, nose too big, wrinkles too deep, hair a sight or just too fat or thin. Take these feelings and expand them a million times and you get me. Ive looked in the mirror a million times and always hated what Ive seen. The problem, my brain doesnt match my body. Im a man to look at but feel that I should be a woman. Take these feelings and add forty years of trying to be what society expects and you get the recipe for deep depression, hurt, anguish, pain, shame, guilt, horror, anger and loss.
My losses have been many, my children, who I had with a wife who didnt have a clue who I really was and who I married to achieve a society acceptable 2.4 children life, friendships broken by years of drinking, and any pride that I may ever have had.
The wasp cant have known what it was doing when it landed on my hair while I was playing the wii with my two nieces on a late Friday night. I brushed it away, not knowing that the sting on my left index finger might very nearly prove to be fatal. I laughed it off, just a little pain, macho after all these years of pretending, even though the truth as far as my family is concerned was out. I chased the wasp around the room with a newspaper, squashed it on the window with my thumb and then washed the sting with a little cold water to cool any pain. Wasp 0, Human 1.
Over the course of the next few hours the wasp got some measure of revenge for its untimely demise. The finger began to swell, red blotches began to appear and soon the whole knuckle was one fluid filled blister. I was never allergic to wasp stings in the past but once the swelling reached my wrist I had to face the truth that I was now. A trip to casualty, anti-histamines and anti-inflammatory tablets and the incident should have been forgotten, but the wasp sting, if not the wasp had other ideas. I awoke the next morning with the swelling up my wrist, my hand like a balloon and my knuckle now full of blood.
So why might this incident lead to a suicide attempt? As a transgendered person you feel that eyes are on you at all times, that any slip might give away what youre feeling inside. Transgendered people go to extraordinary extents to cover up what they feel inside, lots join the armed forces, and many take up dangerous sports or go to extremes to punish themselves for what they feel is a shameful condition. You feel that you are a freak, that your body is a traitor to your mind and that every part of you is something to be ashamed of. When you are out in public, its as if every person you see is staring at you and knowing that you are not what you appear. On this day at work one of my colleagues saw the hand and was disgusted by it, she couldnt bear to look at it and appeared almost physically repulsed by it. To me this was too much, it was how Ive always felt about myself and to see this transposed onto someone else was frightening as well as disturbing and shook me to my core. Another colleague tried to joke with me about the hand and after Id explained what had happened, laughed that the wasp might yet make it: Wasp 1 Human 1.
How close he was. Later, the depression that has plagued me for many years began to affect me deeply. Depression is painful in the extreme. This might seem like a strange statement but its true. How can something that is entirely in the mind be felt as a physical pain? For me, depression manifests itself in my arms, legs, chest, head and even across my skin. I lie on my bed with my mind swirling, my body aching, my skin itching, and my heart thumping. I stare at the walls and feel that theyre beginning to close in on me, that a black hole is opening up around me and that the best thing to do would be to dive in and lose myself. In that place, there is no reason to live; you forget your family, friends, and even your kids. You think of the pain of your life so far, the dysfunction, the failures and the thought of how you appear to the world. On this occasion I lifted tablets and began to sink into a place where I hoped that there would be no more pain.
I wish I hadnt killed the wasp. So, it stung me on the finger and I nearly died, but I didnt, I lived. Very soon Ill start my hormone treatment to become the person I was meant to be. Im forty and Ive known that I wasnt right since the age of four. Its a long time to live a lie, a long time to pretend that everythings alright when its not, its all wrong. I hope that after I finish my treatment I can live a life where I dont feel as if every eye is on me and thinking what my colleague thought when she saw my swollen, blood filled hand, and I hope that I can look in the mirror and not see it either.
As for the wasp, it didnt mean to hurt me, but like most things in life doing what comes naturally hurts someone else. I wish I hadnt killed that wasp.
