CW: Suicide

I didn’t know I was trans when Jerle (Damiya, Kate) took her own life. I had just been diagnosed with a pituitary macroadenoma the year before. When I said I was starting testosterone replacement therapy while talking with her on IRC, she immediately told me that I was taking the wrong hormone. I didn’t understand at the time, but of course she was right. I don’t know why I’m writing this right now other than this story has been stuck in my throat for a long time now, and I just want to get it out of my head.

I was, as far as I know, the last person to talk to her alive. She was on the #elitistjerks IRC channel, and had been for years (as had I). She posted something similar to what she wrote on Twitter in IRC, and I messaged her directly on IRC to… I have no idea what. Stop her? I guess. It is hard in hindsight to look at the person I was back then and have any idea what I was thinking or doing. I was a shell of a person, with the first cracks of who I would become just starting to show. I just knew someone was hurting, and I wanted to help. Instead what I got was years where that last conversation just pops into my head at the most random moments. She was so resigned to her fate - content even - with what was going to happen. It was haunting then, and became more haunting when I eventually transitioned myself.

I wish I knew then what I know now. About myself, about anything really. When I eventually got past the mental block I had that prevented me from transitioning myself, she was my first thought. Is that how I was going to end up? I was in a very different situation, but I have definitely had moments since transition where things got really dark (this week has been a pretty good example). Something about my brain is just wired to try to survive instead at all cost. I don’t think I’m capable of that sense of peace she had at the end, I’ve never known anything close to it.

Anyway, there was really no point to this story other than to get it off my chest. I wish I still had the IRC log, but I don’t really need it. I can see every character perfectly rendered in a tmux session that is still running in my brain. Maybe now I can finally detach from that session? 🤷🏻‍♀️