Hellawfull #Diversity Saturday

More about Hellawfull #Diversity Saturday

Hellawfull - Hollow full - Hell awful - Hell! awesome - Hella full

(for awful = awesome see https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awful meaning 3)

This special entry in my public journal here, is an expression of the life-long struggle with my gender identity.

In my early years the struggle was about not being accepted the way I was. Then later about finding out who I was. And now, again, about acceptance. Although it gets easier as you build internal and external support networks.

There is a carefully curated playlist on Spotify accompanying this piece, telling many stories at once (trigger warning here for suicide & self-harm, homophobia, schizophrenia / psychosis & related trauma, general trauma; trigger warning 2: there is one song in particular on that playlist by an artist who has a lot of these slurs in their songs, but the song belongs there and I couldn't find anything else to fill that spot). It's quite dark in places, but has a positive resolution at the end:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0lqHV8KYbOWfRRWoA6ZbGQ?si=OPPLNPaNQvmTFM_UKhCS1w

It comes in at around album length, so, if you're in for it, sit back, take a breath and listen.