Climbing
Hi!
I’m Billie.
I am a transgender graduate student, digital war-crime investigator, naturalist, writer, map-maker, human rights advocate, and many other things. I live in Boston, Massachusetts with my wife and beloved Greyhound, Gracie.
I want to share two stories from my life with you. They are deeply personal, and they continuously reverberate through my everyday existence. The two stories are intimately connected, and they might really be part of the same story. You can be the judge of that.
Dear reader, writing these stories will inevitably hurt. In entering this library of my life, I ask that you read with the care and gentleness that you feel these stories deserve.
When I was a child, living in England, I blogged about the origins of my transgender identity and the genesis of my transition journey. It would take a transatlantic move, and more than a decade, to finally begin becoming the person I have always been — Billie. Over the coming months and years, through dysphoria and euphoria, I will chart my journey here, and I will gently explore the childhood blogs that remember everything from a lifetime ago.
I promised you two stories. The first can spark joy. This one hurts.
Earlier this year, I gazed deep into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back, deep into me. It triggered an immense mental health crisis, unlike anything I had ever known. It is not an overstatement to say that it has changed my life forever, for it has substantially so. As I write this, I exist and persist in the margins of that great abyss. I am not healed, and I am not yet safe — I am not yet okay. My doctors tell me that I might never stop climbing out of the abyss, and my fragility confirms that this might be my life now.
In the midst of this dark storm, I find a silver lining -solace- in this opportunity to write through the pain, dear reader. Perhaps we can even plot a path out of this madness together. I want to write, hopefully cathartically, about my experiences this year. I want to tell you the stories of my time in intense therapy, a partial hospitalization program, the ER, and above all else, I want to tell you tales from my lengthy stay as an inpatient on a psychiatric unit. We will discuss trauma too, whether through my gender identity or my work investigating war crimes. Understand, dear reader, that this story continues. This will be the story of my recovery, and we will chart it here, together.
As we unravel these two stories, I am going to write earnestly. It might be intense, awkward, and jarring at times. I will occasionally dip the nib of my pen in venom, too, for these are punishing, brutal times for transgender people like me. I hope I get to hear from you, too, dear reader. Please don’t let me rage against the dying of the light alone.
More than anything, I promise that I will write with fierce honesty.
I have much to share, dear reader.
Billie.
