Living A Dream

by L.B.

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

I only ever liked two people, one of which is dead ... I could never like anyone because I never liked myself ...

My mother said that I wouldn't live to see my twenty-first birthday. Well, I am now 24 and pleased to have proven her wrong. I am a drag queen but no longer dress as a woman. I decided to take on a male role when I was drunk and having a bad night at work.

I finally took the back door out of my life and started to live the life I had been dreaming of for a number of years. I left Sydney because I couldn't cope. The main thing I couldn't cope with was me; being a prostitute and a drug addict and then not even knowing what drug I wanted to use. I narrowed it down to heroin and speed. Heroin was okay but I didn't like the fact that I nodded off while doing a job (especially in cars), so speed it was, for work anyway. I liked speed for the first part, the rush and about five hours afterwards. I hated the rest of the comedown and I wanted to commit suicide to get it over and done with.

I left Sydney at 1:30am on the first of April 1993 and I feel like it is the best move I have ever made in my life. I detoxed at home with help from my ex and I can cope really well without using now even though I think about it a great deal. I have used three times since I moved to the mountains. I spend my money on things that I need, which is a big step for me because I never did in the past.

The hardest things to cope with are the memories. I only ever liked two people, one of which is dead and the other I still keep in touch with. I could never like anyone because I never liked myself, the only reason I liked these two people is the fact that they never pushed their views or moral values onto me. I'm starting to like myself now but I'm very scared at what I have become and what I'm capable of becoming. Not that I'm a monster but I'm scared of living a normal life. I put myself through torture some days because I wake up and look at myself and there are tits. The trouble is that I have short hair, beard and dress as a male and my tits are visible in some of the things that I wear.

So then I get depressed and think about suicide, but I get through it somehow. Perhaps that's because I still feel that I have made the right decision. I told people for years that I wanted to move to the country and have a vegetable garden. Well, my vegetable garden may not be so great at the moment but it will get there in the end. I also never realised that I could live so nicely on the pension; I've got so much money it's not funny. I eventually spend it on books or some other thing, but I never go hungry any more.

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