Who am I?

Friday, May 27th, 2022

Who am I?

I’m not quite sure exactly.

Am I male, female, both or neither? Am I gay, straight, both, or neither? Am I good or bad?

Or maybe I'm just nothing at all.

Growing up with a homophobic christian grandmother is unironically hell on its own. Keeping your private life from them, although it may feel uncomfortable, is fairly easy when they are oblivious. Just keep quiet and be patient and say what they want to hear. Even when she always makes me seem like I'm going crazy and that I'm overthinking things or looking too much into it. That I am too young to understand, and I shouldn't follow how I feel and only listen to a god that probably doesn't even exist.

It’s funny how she expects me to believe in such an entity when that same "God" told her that five awful things were going to happen to me over the span of these past six years. All of them involved me getting raped by other men.

The first time was when I was on the swim team in my sophomore year. I had a friend who I have known for almost two years at this point. After her first encounter with him when we took him home, she told me he was gay and wanted to take me to his basement and fuck me. Even though he was very much straight. Almost every time she would tell me to stay away from him.

The second time was when I was eighteen and it involved another friend of mine that I was very close with two years later in my senior year. I had just got home from prom around twelve in the morning. I had changed my clothes and went straight to bed. About an hour later, she wakes me up to tell me that my best friend would force me to become her father's boyfriend. This lasted for almost two years, both before and after she met her.

The third time involved my boss at my first job working maintenance at a golf course. She kept telling me that one day he was going to contact me to go over to his house so he can rape me in his basement. Almost everyday she kept telling me to delete his number and to find another job. Even after I told her that he is married with a son.

The fourth time had the same ordeal but it was with at a guy who had cut and dyed my hair. However, both of these men were married and had kids. Of course none of these things even came close to happening. To no surprise. It was even the same, delete his contact. Plus the fact that he also is married with a daughter, that she is very much aware of, because they had a whole conversation about it.

The fifth and final time was entirely out of the blue. I was nineteen and I had just gotten back home from the mall. About half an hour later my grandmother bursts into my room and asked me, "Were you hoping to be raped in the bathroom at the mall?" I got such a whiplash from that question, that the only thing I said was for her to get out of my room.

The one thing that really pisses me off about this is the fact that she was so confident all of that was going to happen. I’ve lost contact with all of them throughout the time anyways, so I don’t have to worry about telling them any of this. My job at the golf course was seasonal, the barber I’m pretty sure left town, my first friend graduated in 2017, and my second friend moved out of state with her boyfriend.

Nowadays, it's "Are you gay?" or "I don't know why the lord is telling me to tell you this, but you are not gay; that's not what he made you be.” Every single fucking day. As if I asked to fall in love with the same gender. I was eight years old when I realized I liked men just as much as I liked women. I didn’t understand why I liked men so much, but I did.

The one other thing about my grandmother is that she makes me feel like I can’t take care of myself. That if someone were to try something I am far too weak and couldn’t possibly be able to fight or defend myself. As if I can be easily manipulated. Being the centerpiece of her delusions and paranoia is a mental exhaustion I grow sick and tired of everyday. She’s overprotective for no reason. She makes seem like I can only rely on her. Not even on other family members.

There was another person that caused my mental pain, and that was her mother. The reason why I was with my great grandmother is because CPS took me away from my mother and had her adopt me. I was four at the time. Five years later she kicked out my older brother when he was thirteen. Not really caring where he would go. Two years after that she had moved my little brother down to stay with our aunt and uncle in Texas. Then there was me. Throughout middle school I would just get yelled at a lot. The only thing that really changed was the beatings had stopped. Not like I didn’t deserve them. But when high school came around thats when the yelling started to actually affect me. She hated the sight of me and would tell me that she couldn’t wait for me to move out at every opportunity she had. Which was confusing since she would also tell me that if I am depressed I should talk to someone. She even took me to therapy. But that was as nice as she got.

From retarded nigger to I’m going to became a high school drop out and be put in jail. From lazy bum to waste of space. My great-grandmother would go on and on about how she would see me taking the money off the kitchen table and hidden it in my room. There was a time when I moved out and lived with my grandmother, one of her sisters was asking me why I didn’t help my great-grandmother out. I told lies and said I didn’t have time and there was nothing I could do because I knew she wouldn’t believe the truth. The truth was that she still hates me. At least I think she still hated me.

Both parties have caused me so much sorrow, low self-esteem, mental exhaustion and anger that I just don't bother defending myself against them.

Or anyone for that matter. There’s no way to change their minds about me. So why even bother.

For the most part, I never listened to them, but the words they spoke will constantly repeat in my head. I would even question myself. Am I really capable of defending myself? Do I deserve the love I am showed? What type of man will I become? Do I even want to be a male anymore?

As a kid, I've only seen males as careless, reckless, abusive, sex addicts, and other negative things. With the addition of my skin color. I never wanted to be hated; I don't like to be hated. It was because of this, I tried to convince people that I was incapable of being that stereotypical black male. That being in a gang while selling drugs and doing drive by’s are some of the many stereotypical black things that I didn’t want to be associated with. But as time went on, I didn't trust myself to be a good person. I led myself to believe that I was always going to be that abusive narcissistic future gang member. It's always been my biggest fear of people thinking I am capable of such things. Or that I already have done such things. Or people thinking I would only think with my dick and not my head. For as long as I can remember, I have always been ashamed to be male. I have the physical features of a male figure. I can grow facial hair that covers most of my jaw, cheeks, and upper lip, however my left side cheek has more hair than my right. I have a penis but sometimes I wish I didn’t because it only reminds me of the other males who have used this part of theirs to dominate anything with a pulse. The other times I just don’t think about it at all.

When I was sixteen, I wanted to believe I was a male. So one day I looked at myself in the mirror and said "I am male." The amount of disgust, embarrassment, and anger I felt every time I said it. I couldn't even tell you why I did it.

According to society, I have no reason to be sad; I shouldn't ask for help; I have to be aggressive and controlling; I should never be afraid; I can never show weakness; I should always be sexually active; I'm expected to be abusive; it doesn't matter if other people get hurt just as long as I'm fine; I don't need anybody.

I saw all of these expectations that society wrote for males that… I didn't want to be one anymore. That's when I decided, maybe I could go transgender. I never felt comfortable referring myself as male. Not a day goes by where I'm not thinking about transitioning. Being able to feel comfortable in my own skin. But I never went through with it because I knew people would accuse me of mocking transgender people. The same thing happened when I wanted to present myself as nonbinary. Even today, I still don't want to be labeled as male, but I'm too afraid to label myself as anything else. For the most part, I just try and accept it, and I have, for the most part. But wanting to let people see me as me and not a narcissistic perverted male, or another black gang member isn't easy when you've halfway given up on life. My shadow is the only thing about me that I can look at and not feel… completely disgusted.

I wish I knew what it's like to have confidence. However, in this day and age, I doubt my depressive ass will figure that out. Maybe it would help if I knew how to keep blood in my arms for more than a couple of months, or at all, and find the courage to flush the blade down the toilet where it belongs. But that's wishing for way too much. My arms are so fucked that I can't even imagine what they would look like normally. Hell, almost all of my previous scars are still visible. I just wish I could stop. Sometimes I wonder if I really did make the mistake of not ending it all before I turned twenty-one. Now I don't know what to do with my life. Every day I just want to fall to my knees, cry and scream at the top of my lungs. But I can't. My tears have long since dried, and I'm too exhausted to scream. Everything just hurts both mentally and physically. Trying to make it seem like I work my ass off every single day when in reality, I don't do shit, and even when I do, it's never good enough.

I just want to know how and why people see me as this hard-working somebody, but every time I look in the mirror, all I see is a worthless nobody. I just don't get it. What is it about me that people love and cherish so much? I want to know what I am missing. I guess I just really hate compliments. I don’t know why but almost every day, I hear people say,

"I'm glad I met you.”

“You're an amazing person"

“We're lucky to have you"

"Thank you for everything you've done"

"We love you."

I just want to know what I did to deserve everyone's love and support. What did I do to deserve friends?

Friends?

It feels wrong just typing that word, much less saying it out loud. I wish I didn't grow up the way I did, then maybe I would have a better understanding of what it means to be loved and the proper response to such a powerful emotion. Why is it that trying to understand love, kindness, and care are like walking through a maze? Once you enter and walk around trying to get to the other end, you end up back at the beginning. The main reason why I want to know what it feels like to accept being loved, so I know how to take a compliment, especially since the very thought of someone flooding me with compliments would make me want to cry in a corner and be alone.

Yet, with all of these things, I expect to have the ability to help people. That I can give people hope and help them see the beauty in life, even the beauty that I consistently blind myself to.

I have always heard that telling people how you feel would make you feel better. That it would ease the tension off your chest or back or whatever. But I don't feel any different. I feel like I wasn't supposed to tell people. Like I’m just manipulating them into staying.

I just wish I knew how to start over. I don't know how or where my life’s going, and I honestly... I don't really want to think about it. I've heard it's exciting to find out the person you will become. But I don't want to find out. It's too stressful. What if I just hate it and find another passion just to repeat that cycle every year. Truly never knowing who I am?

So I guess until the day I figure all of that out. My name is, Omega. I am pansexual. I know I said I didn’t want to consider myself as nonbinary, but I like the feeling I get when I don’t have to tie myself to any gender norms. My pronouns are he/they but I also don’t mind, she. All in all I am just another human being on this giant rock we call home.

Word Count: 2,421