Current mood:	hungry
Current music:	Nightwish - Wish I Had An Angel
Entry tags:	!, being pretentiously arty, brother, career, chaos, clothes, coffee, family, fashion, gender, gothique, hazel close, journalism, laziness, lethargy, me, mess, mother, music, orbital, procrastination, schoolfriends, sexuality, stonebridge, the future, writing

Sorting Myself Out
Last night, I underwent a major revealation which has explained why I reached the situations which I did. The basic ground problem with it all is one of identity, and other problems have been tacked on. See, I've had depression for a long time, I think, but not of the negative variety, even though I do tend to chastise myself over everything that I was initially disbelieving when people told me I'd earned my high grades because I worked hard. I didn't think I had, even though I blatantly had worked my guts out on various things throughout the year. No, aside from that, I've just been very lethargic. I mentioned how I've not been proactive enough to sort out my holiday for this Summer. Well, that's not an isolated case by any means.

When I have several things to do, even fun things such as day trips, I tend to put them off to a point so distant that they only get done when they must. I sit there, thinking what to do next, but I end up doing mindless activities that don't even count as procrastination, such as refreshing BBC News and my LJ friends page endlessly, or sleeping, or watching Wimbledon when I have no interest in Tennis. It's quite chronic, and has meant that I've spent a lot of my free time doing nothing. I've not had the self-drive to go out, to actually carry out one of my many plans, and go see Anthony Gormley's exhibit in London, or to day trip to the South Coast, or something similar. I may not have been depressive, but I wasn't positive. I've been here before, too, hence why I guessed at the depression thing, because the whole tendancy to do very little, blame yourself for it and feel bad over it, and then still nothing, is something I believe I've been told is a symptom. It's not really noticable unless you know me, and the fact that I tend to be quite spaced most of the time, with my mind somewhere totally elsewhere, doesn't help.

So that's why I've got various tasks that haven't been done. I've only just now brought myself to seriously sort out the more nightmarish parts of my room, and nightmarish they were indeed. I also had a proper shower for the first time in a while. Yes, the lethargy extended that far. My own perception of myself was skewed by this. It's not that I set out to let my hair grow excessively tangled, nor that my wardrobe consists mainly of clothes that are too large for me (ironically, most of them are Mediums). I just put self-perception out of my mind, because it's easier to ignore it. Not a good attitude, I know, but it stopped be being brought down by myself, hence the lack of constant negativity. I focused on my work, on the news, on trivialities, on fantasies. Those who know me know that I'm quite an intense thinker, which is one reason why it takes a long time for me to get bored.

I'm getting by at the moment, because I'm checking myself. I did slip briefly this morning, spending a mindless half-hour looking up randomness on Wikipedia (okay, it has educational value, but it's not productive). I forced myself to tackle the various things under my desk, to actually answer those Facebook messages that I've meaning to do for a while. It's not much, but it's a start. However, it is clear that one thing that will really help with this is actually sorting out my image. When I have more confidence in myself, and not just confidence in an ideal self, which I do at present, then I'll be able to better present myself, be more focused on what directions I'm taking, and hopefully get a lot more out of life. So how do I do this? The answer is one that oughtn't surprise many of you.

Gender is, of course, key. Since my utter fiasco with Stonebridge in September, I lost a lot of faith in the whole NHS procedure, where everything has to be 100% correct on the day, otherwise you have to wait another few months. I started that procedure in 2004, and three years later, I'm nowhere as far as progress goes. I'm still under the belief that SRS is a poor substitute for my desires, but the whole ladder is about as good as it gets. I can't do this whole male thing, and apparently, I'm not even all that good at it. The unavoidable truth is that my preferred image is female, and there's no way around that.

If you remember my post with the Candybar dolls, that was meant to be an introduction this post, but said lethargy as well as exams meant that this post didn't happen. Until now. I was literally trying to work out self-images I felt comfortable with, and that post was about that, with my settling on that blend of the gothique, and the comfortable casual, amongst other things. Take skirts as an example. My current wardrobe includes some formal trousers I rarely wear, various woolen trousers and jogging bottoms that are comfortable, but baggy and messy, and jeans. Mostly female jeans, as they fit better(!). Yet I feel boring just going out in jeans all the time, even if I vary the type of jeans. As I said then, I quite like the long skirts that I've seen various uni friends wearing, especially on warm Summer days, when I absolutely refuse to wear shorts. I feel as if I cannot wear them as things currently are. Not just people's reactions, but I'd feel I'd look daft in them. A combination of that and general cluelessness about female fashion has meant that, even when I set out to buy new clothes, I spend seemingly forever hiding in the corners feeling sheepish and unconfident.

Of course, clothes are only a part of it, but they provide a good example. There are plenty of other things. I'd feel I could sing again without feeling horrendously self-conscious (yeah, I know that requires training). I'd be less withdrawn if I were more confident in myself. I'd feel more confident about going to places such as Crosslands in the evening (that's the uni bar, for non-RHULians). I'd actually gain something akin to a realistic sexuality. I'd feel more confident about my future too, I reckon, as there's always something wrong about seeing myself as female in one of my hoped-for careers. I wouldn't, of course, change anything about myself that isn't myself. I wouldn't aim simply to be feminine, because that's nothing more than an ideal whose definition varies between different people. I wouldn't go around in miniskirts and the like, although I'd welcome the feeling I can be on the beach, or swim, again. Let me make it clear: I'm not seeking to change who I am, but simply let myself be that person, because currently I'm something like a shade of myself, visible and audible, but not quite fully there.

I see myself as someone who is quite intellectual, bathing in information, but not necessarily from books. I see myself as pretentiously arty, and I can envision myself happily sitting in a coffee shop for hours on end, making notes and talking with friends over a moccha. I can envision myself enjoying an eclectic blend of music, and going to both Muse gigs, and Video Game Concerts. I can see myself cosplaying for Amecon, something geeky, but not necessarily done well. I can see myself experimenting with non-cosmetic makeup for parties and the like (as I mentioned in that Candybar post). I can see myself juggling various writing projects at the same time, and gaining inspiration from the various places I visit on my chief expenditute, travel. I see myself in a future career working with words, either writing novels from home, or being somewhere in the maelstrom that is journalism (for which I'll be devoting lots of time to the Orbital). I see myself as vagely goth: I've regularly been almost-laughed at when I said that to people I know in person, but I really do find a lot of that scene appealing, such as the fashions, some of the music, and the dark, but not violent, aspects of gothic fantasy. I see myself as enjoying cooking various dishes at my apartment as much as I enjoy drinking my coffees there, watching out over nightlight. I see myself as intellegent, arty, geeky, romantic, eclectic, disorganised (albeit it to a far lesser extent that at present) but imaginative.

I'm confident in the above. I've been for a while. The problem is the gap between that at the me who spends their day waking up at 11am, dreaming awake until 2pm, making a coffee which takes an hour to drink whilst I scroll down my friends page without actually commenting, and then getting distracted by Holly's DS for ten minutes, before thinking I need to do something, perhaps throw a few discarded bottles away, and then turn on the TV for further distraction. That gap ahead of the me who spends whole days planning, but not doing. The gap ahead of the me whose sexuality lies wholly in repeated fantasies of the other me. The gap ahead of the me who gazes in withdrawn envy at the girls when Summer arrives. The gap ahead of the me who feels a surge of jealous sadness whenever they need to pee (which, as I've said before, acts as a focus of this whole issue for me). The gap ahead of the me who signs LJ posts Elle, and signs official documents 'Martin'. The gap ahead of the me who daydreams of the life of the other me, and what might have been.

It doesn't help that I've had very little idea of what to do about this. I need hormones for one thing, especially since I'm paying the cost of the void between 2005 and now, in the form of now needing to shave far more regularly. I could try with the NHS again, but if it takes until 2009 or further, I'm not sure I have enough patience. I'm also not at all sure I have the money required to go private. The other big problem is that I'll be in Germany next year. Sure, I could come back from appointments, but that'll be costly, and it relies on my schedule working out to accommodate that. Having to go to Nottingham from Egham was difficult enough, and the one time I tried, two train delays cost me a whole year of waiting. I have no idea what to do, and thus I've been reluctant to do anything. After all, it's easier simply to ignore a problem, right?

So by admitting this, and seeing where I can go and what I can do, I can hope to reclaim my life from lethargy. Obviously, it's a bad time, what with us having to move back from Uniland to our homes, where, although my Dad is very understanding, and my Brother couldn't give a damn, my Mother is almost permentantly ill, and something not too different from senile. If I walked around at home in makeup and a skirt, it would immediately and adversely affect my Mother's health, so I can't. As for next year...I'll be working as an assistant in a German school. That's not the best place to experiment with image.

What to do, what to do? For someone like me, who has chaos ingrained into them (you should see my family home), it's really difficult to know what to do first. I've loads to sort out for next year on top of all this, and on top of the moving out, which will see me begging for boxes, begging my Grandfather for logistics, and in a begging position to wash the layered grime off much of the floor, walls, and furniture. When I get home, aside from my Mother difficulties, my lethargy increases a huge amount, especially as I have far less to do (hence, I'll be counting on meeting various schoolfriends, including the one currently on Bondi Beach!). I need to sort this out, but it's so difficult to do.

Any help is really appreciated. Thankyou so much for taking the time to read all this. I'd say more, but I really must away to Reading to watch Shrek 3 and have a restaurant meal afterwards. I'll be back in a number of hours. Thankyou once again.