Standing Before The Storm

Tomorrow, I have to undergo a short medical procedure at a Boston Hospital. It is such a routine procedure that I know everything will be fine, but a darkness nags away at me still. Will they let me leave or will they take me? Is this actually ECT? These are irrational thoughts — cognitive distortions — but they trouble me nonetheless. My time as a patient at McLean is now long in the past, but while I have moved far forward, some parts live long in my memory. I have come to both resent being involuntarily committed and greatly fear it, no matter how impossibly far away it might be. As a transgender person, I am deeply private about my body, and the idea of letting others see it makes me feel ill. Tomorrow, then, I will walk into that hospital with great trepidation — irrational, perhaps — but trepidatious nonetheless.

A good friend of mine is a leader in trans advocacy and support on Boston’s North Shore, and she is always putting on exciting, community-based events in the Salem area. She organizes youth groups, support groups, and vigils. She is a wonderful, mighty pillar of the North Shore’s trans community. She tells me of her organization’s events, and they are truly fantastic and heartening — there is something for every person in no matter their weather. Salem is a reasonably unpleasant distance to drive from here, but that is not the true reason for my total absence from her events. On paper, I would love to go — especially to vigils and support groups, and I could see myself investing great time in their youth programs. But I am scared, not of them, but of…