To Trans People Who Feel Despair

Welcome to What’s Helping Today, a newsletter about the everyday work of staying alive on earth, written by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen.

Hi everyone,

Some months ago as you may recall, I wrote a newsletter that’s gotten circulated quite a bit (as my newsletters go), called “To Cis People Who Feel Despair.”

I’ve since wanted to write a companion to that piece, for trans* folks in particular. Because I know lots of us feel despair — perhaps despair that’s really overwhelming, at times. And so I’ve wanted to say how I really feel, lately, to you all at least.

*I’m using trans in the broadest umbrella sense here, inclusive of all gender-nonconforming folks. (The neat-seeming cis/trans binary, like all binaries, is false, however “real” it might also be.)

In truth: I hope all humans hear my words … because I think all this gender/sex-based discrimination and violence, all this transphobia (and other eugenicist hate, so emboldened of late) hurts us all … However much it may already consume our daily lives.

I try. I try to not succumb to despair or rage or sorrow. I try to step back and pause, when I feel myself starting to slip into such grievance-mindsets and doom-spirals. When I feel myself getting into squabbles with even people who — however noble their intentions — are pissing me off, because of their ignorance.

Because I’m so angry and heartbroken, baseline, these days. Because I’m so often contemplating the premise that cis and trans people, we experience such different realities, especially these days. Because my sleep’s shitty and has been since November ... It’s been bad as it was when I was a middle schooler, as I sometimes think, and remember my life back then. Because I’m angry at the failure of mainstream media to include trans people still … to include trans adults, to include trans men, in their nonetheless obsessive coverage of “us.”

I’m appalled … by the remorselessness of certain publications in particular of course. By their lack of self-awareness and of values … their apparent lack of respect for human life. I’m terrified by the predictable and frightening tide of fascism rising, which my community, trans people, we’re already feeling the impact of — to various extents — and amongst many others. We’re already feeling this eugenicist regime coming for our own lives and futures. They persist in doing so because, I’d observe, nobody else with power seems much interested in defending us, with a few noteworthy exceptions.

It can all feel beyond depressing to me, in truth.

So, dear fellow trans folks who feel despair: Me fucking too.

Every day, I try to start with my own insides, as I’m often advising others. I try to get real about how I’m actually doing, however unappealing this may feel. I try to check in with my own internal “weather,” so to speak, a metaphor I’ve explained before. I try to focus on like, addressing my own self, inside and out. Read: I think about my own self-care routine, my daily list of five/six things (as I unpacked last time, which is worth reading if you skipped it or are new and these self-care topics interest you).

This morning, I dove in instead first thing, writing this draft … compelled by various factors. (Like this new piece being out, which quotes me.) I found myself writing the above paragraph and then, trying to heed my own wisdom: I stopped. I did the 20 minutes of journal-yelling and then a long meditation. I then had a therapy session scheduled, as well.

And I had another session with my other guy, yesterday. What else … I took a bath last night, as I’m often doing. I have been indulging in watching total crap that I enjoy on TV, end of the day, lately, and maybe having ice cream. I have been letting myself leave a sink of dishes or whatever overnight, a fuck you to my own sometime perfectionism.

I try to be gentle with myself, as regards my own self-care habits (as I discussed at length last time). For me, this includes trying to avoid rules or “shoulds” or anything too rigid like that. The harder I am on myself, the worse I tend to feel …

So I try to practice being flexible and kind with myself, as much as possible, especially when the external world can be so mean and fixed in its thinking …

Trans people, we don’t get a break. Not from the hell that is living in this transphobic society — at least I can sometimes feel, as my tax dollars fund genocide and famine and fascism and so much other cruelty. Especially these days when my own cumulative fear / sorrow / anger / loneliness and so forth can at times feel extremely high …

How often I feel it inside, that threat of overwhelm. Or that threat of my inner Hulk. Or that threat of back pain or of panic attacks and so forth. Whatever my body selects seemingly — from the menu of embodied stress symptoms I tend to experience.

Or perhaps the chef has prepared some new special this evening, some fully new symptom I will feel. Like left knee pain is my recent-ish on-and-off one. In any case, I try to listen to my body and I try to not take its ideas too seriously, either … when it serves up hip pain or knee pain or back pain or panic or depression or high anxiety or insomnia or whatever else.

By which I mean, I try to like, not merely freak out about the pain (or whatever) itself and its potential causes … I try to do turn to my stress-reduction methods, namely journal yelling and meditation and such. I try to schedule with my own healing-type guides … The tougher and meaner my head and / or the world, the more I try to lean into my own long-constructed self-care routines (as I’m often repeating).

The meditation I chose this morning was nearly 20 minutes (which is long, by my standards). It involved lots of silence (also hard). Closing my eyes, listening to the nothingness and my own thoughts, this isn’t pleasant or fun for the likes of me — even 1500-ish consecutive days in, meditation-wise. Believe me, it’s all hard, most of the time for me, sitting down to face my own mind …

And hence I do it, every damn day. I try to, at least, and if I can’t get to that or whatever else I meant to, as I’m often repeating, I use this as an opportunity practice self-forgiveness, self-compassion … Much as I can hate doing that, too.

Yesterday I woke up and some bigot was just full-on being transphobic directly at me. Dude said a bunch of shit like this … and then I blocked him.

For some years, when faced with transphobic asshats and their followers bullying me en masse online, I opted to be … not online. From 2021 until last fall, as I sometimes mention, I wasn’t on any social media. I enjoyed the peace. There were downsides to my opting out of such spaces as well, as a journalist and author especially.

Nowadays I am more visible again, as a trans person, in part because I sense me trying to facilitate these conversations between trans and cis people may be of help …. and like all I think about these days kinda is how to help trans people. Trans adults; trans kids and their families. I think about how we trans people can save each other …

Speaking of: I’m again quoted in this new Jude Ellison S. Doyle piece for XTra about the Trump administration ending youth LGBTQ+ suicide crisis hotlines — cruelty of the sort that I do hope helps wake up any remaining cis allies who are still asleep to what’s transpiring here. Thanks to them again asking me for my thoughts re: trans folks and how we combat despair.

They quote my mentioning about “Alternatives to Suicide” groups, which you can learn more about on the Wildflower Alliance’s site. That organization, which I’m often recommending, offers many great peer-support options for anybody — both throughout their Western Mass region in real life, as well as online. They offer peer-to-peer counseling. They offer various peer-support groups, including ones I’ve attended during some of my hardest days ...

If you’re ever feeling truuuuuuly alone, again: I cannot recommend their peer-support resources more. That community of people is really wonderful — and they really embraced me and mine, during my hardest days.

Let me re-share … some me-links related to suicide and such …

This previous newsletter, not long, which contains my succinct and candid thoughts about suicide itself and about talking about suicide (it’s mostly an extended riff on Titanic): “Promise Me You’ll Survive.”

And this one, in which I offered a bunch of practical advice about surviving the worst days pain-wise (emotionally speaking, physically speaking, etc.).

This one written mostly to cis adults who feel worry about trans/gnc (and/or otherwise vulnerable) minors they know … in which I speak to the topics of helplessness and my own survival strategies, as a survivor of childhood domestic abuse for example.

Also see: This Esquire essay about my own closeted childhood — and some of what I endured.

I also recommend listening my Mad Chat episode with Caroline Mazel-Carlton of the Wildflower Alliance — which includes a discussion of suicide itself, amongst so much else pertinent to all this (madness/mental illness, psychiatry/its alternatives).

She’s really someone who’s taught me a ton about all this …

Also regarding the Wildflower Alliance and Caroline, I wrote about her and the organization in this piece for The Cut.

If you — hi, yes you — ever feel you are alone …

If you ever feel that bigtime despair inside … those worst sorts of thoughts …

Know I’ve felt that way. And I do still sometimes, being real.

As I occasionally share: My main mental health-type guy these days, when he hears me despairing thus — about how I’m alone or nobody loves me or whatever — he’ll often hold up a single finger …

He’ll say like, all you need is one.

Meaning one friend. Meaning one connection. Meaning one person to talk to … It’s his way of reminding me, at least, that I do have somebody.

And that one somebody is enough, is his point. The rest is gravy, as human connections go; I sometimes like to remind myself this and anyone else who needs to hear it.

FWIW: Know you are not alone, as R.E.M. sang on the radio when I was a suicidal kid … and I want you to hear me say too. (One of my fav songs to cover, these days.)

Especially if you’re trans or nonbinary or feel otherwise different or ostracized or unloved: Know you are not alone.

And, as Michael Stipe sang (and my young ears heard): Hold on, hold on, hold on …

You can always write me, fwiw. I’m always happy to hear from trans and gender-nonconforming people especially, about whatever. Maybe tell me what’s helping you today. I do try to write such folks back, when I can. When I have the spoons, so to speak.

If I don’t write you back, know it’s just because I’m trying to like, follow my own best advice as I try to keep my own little boat afloat on these choppy seas. My inbox is a mess and an overwhelming place to be, for a sailor like me, given what and all I do contend with …

Sending love,
Sandy Ernest

p.s. What’s Helping Today: Many people and things, including the two very talented and brilliant mental health type professionals I’m extremely lucky to get to work with …

p.p.s. Here again, just in case, is an older post with my thoughts on finding therapists or other supports, ones that actually suit you and help you … Which we all deserve and should get to access for free (in my view, in an ideal world).

p.p.s. Here’s an ambient-type playlist of mine called “thank you for being here.”

p.p.p.s. I dunno, perhaps forward or share this newsletter to your trans/gnc friends … or even your cis friends or family (perhaps it’ll help them think through how tough it is to be us, lately).

p.p.p.p.s. Finally, just a bit of housekeeping: As I recently announced but wanted to repeat, I’m teaching an intermediate/advanced literary nonfiction writing workshop online this fall. Learn more here. I strongly encourage you to sign up sooner rather than later, if you are interested. Space is very limited.

Thanks for reading What’s Helping Today! If you were forwarded this message, you can subscribe here for free. If you’d like to support my work, which I greatly appreciate, you can tip me or become a monthly donor via Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you!