Warn… typed this up and then couldn’t stop myself, it’s long but advice is appreciated (needed?..)

This can’t be real. After avoiding mirrors. Hating mirrors. Smashing one. Gosh I fucking hate reflections. After hating myself for so long (and still).

Now, I can’t push this aside like I would other problems. I just wanted to be a normal 18 year old. Round off the school year. Get college plans in place. Parties, hangouts, something like that. But now it’s different. Now I know I’m trans (fuck, I’ve never said that anywhere…), and I can’t push through things the same way anymore, although I’m now putting so much more effort in to try. I barely even had my shit together before, likely to some ADHD(/autism?? I don’t know…) that already felt like the biggest hurdle trying to grasp and get tested for (very little progress made on that front). Now I feel like I’ve been living a complete lie up to this point, and I’ll have to restart but on hard mode. I don’t know what to do. The people in my life are limited and I have a really hard time articulating my points, let alone my feelings, I don’t know who to talk to or ask for advice. I feel like walls are being pushed up against me.

My mom is really great and I love her so much, but it’s always hard to get a read on her since she’s busy and exhausted near constantly. She’s indifferent about queer people, and doesn’t really have a good understanding of them. She grew up in a conservative third-world country and is really prideful of her religion; I don’t think she’ll be receptive. Even just growing my hair out she’s made half-jokes of her having a son, not a daughter. My hair isn’t even that long yet, but I stopped cutting it a while ago before understanding why I wanted to see it longer.

My friends are… great. I’m aren’t worried about their opinions on me whenever I decide that I want to tell them, but now is a really bad time. I’m used to keeping up appearances for a long time even when I’m not doing well, so the sudden shift to the absolute mess I am internally right now is just too much. We have so little life experience, and we’re practically still kids. They don’t have the resources or capacity to deal with me as I am right now, and I’m not willing to put that burden on them.

For now I’ll look through objects, my work, and even people that are standing in front of me far more often now, even more than with my other undiagnosed issues, just struggling to keep this… machine… active. I will walk around and get my day done as I usually would but in such a disconnected state knowing that this flesh sack is an illusion I’m using to make everything look like it’s ok when I know I’m walking through a full scale production of lies. I’ll spend time with my friends silently begging they would stop repeating the name of a person that doesn’t exist. I’ll get home and make dinner for my brother who since he was a baby has always seen me as the best big “brother” in the world. I’ll go to my desk and (try to) get some work done wishing I at least had my own room to store stuff in for expressing myself in (not on purpose, this place is all we can afford). When I go to bed I can either listen to stuff on my earbuds to keep the feels at bay or cry anyway knowing there’s no room, time, or place in my life to be anything other than what the flesh on the outside appears to be. I’ll remember how I’ve realized who I am now at no worse possible time, where people like me are having their rights stripped and threats to be hurt and/or killed. And I’ll live that cycle over and over again. For how much longer? I don’t fucking know. But what’s a little longer when I’ve been doing it that way already… why do I have to be so fucked up…

I’m trying for any sort of advice, I know my circumstances aren’t helping and my thoughts are disconnected and rambly (as they usually are)… this is the first time I’ve ever really opened up about my (not just trans) feelings before to a place other than animals or random plushies (lmao…), and it’s also quite late in the night for me, but I can try and explain some more stuff. I just have no vision on where I go from here other than really bad places…