About my self-confidence

First of all, I'm not dead... as proved by this post. I've just lost my self-confidence over the last few weeks, and am back into the mental fog that I was in before I said I was ready to come back.

I think I figured out the reason why, and while there isn't much I can personally do to change the situation... I can at least share it here as a way of letting it go.

A note before I begin: I don't want drama. I really don't. I'm not going to use names for some of the people in here simply because there's no point. This is just a way to get stuff off my chest, not a reason for people to attack.

It happened in Scrub.jpg's Discord server. One night a few weeks ago (around the time I stopped streaming again), we wanted to run the Root of Nightmares raid. A casual raid for casual people to get their loot for the week. We had to bring in some new people to get it done, and we did. Overall the time during the raid was fine, we all communicated well and no one got irritated with each other.

After we had cleared it, we began to part ways. Scrub had said that the people could stay if they wanted to, which was something usual for the Discord - the more people, the less we have to look for others and the more fun we have with each other, that kind of thing.

I chose this as an opportunity to mention that I'm transgender, which prompted one of the new guys to ask about it. Stuff like how far in I was and what I was planning to do, that kind of thing. I'm a pretty open person and this is already a pretty public topic about me so I didn't mind sharing - what came after is what affected me though.

He began to issue warnings about making choices too fast. I had just turned 18 so I thought that maybe he was just thinking "You're a new adult so you should slow down first." I explained that this is something that had been coming on for a while - remember, the first time I told anyone about it was 2016.

He continued to warn me about making changes to my body (hormones, surgeries, etc) because of the experiences that he has had with transgender people in the past (at his job, and usually in a negative light.) Scrub and I both tried to explain that I had given this deep thoughts over the course of those seven years... he still didn't listen.

When it was just Doug (friend of Scrub, pretty chill dude) and the new guy running with me for the rest of the night, I muted my mic. I knew that I couldn't really persuade him to see what I saw, and it wouldn't be productive to try, so I just kept playing the game in hopes of getting my mind off of it. I was glad for someone to give me advice, but I wasn't happy that he wouldn't take what I was saying into account, either.

What really hurt was what he said when he thought I was gone. Doug and the new guy were talking about pronouns while I had myself muted, which made me start paying more attention. The new guy had said "What if I don't feel comfortable calling him [me] a 'she/her'?". This paused Doug and I both.

Doug brushed it off, and I don't blame him. He told me afterwards that he doesn't like these kinds of situations and just tries to avoid them - which I agree with. It was also late at night, I would have preferred not to start anything bad right before I went to bed.

When I did get out of the voice chat, though, apparently things took a turn for the worse and he said a few things that didn't sit right with Doug. I'm not inclined to share them here though, but I can get the gist of them in the questions I've been asking myself below.

Since then, I've been wondering a few things. What about me makes people uncomfortable with using the right pronouns? What about me makes using the right pronouns not an option? I've spent all this time to work on feminizing myself and yet... this. Why is it so repulsive that I feel trapped in the wrong skin, the wrong gender and I want to correct that problem...

I didn't know it then but that's... that's what's been keeping me back. I haven't really been able to use my voice in public anymore, I noticed I started talking less even in real life. I often have myself muted when in voice chats unless I'm absolutely required to say something, where I might even throw a Grandmaster just to type a message instead.

I know that it's probably not an issue with me myself and others probably don't think the same but it's hard to not think that way. I just want to be... me. And it just seems like a lot of things stop that from happening.

I'll try to stream again on Friday (and will likely move back to YouTube for recording streams directly), however I'm not promising anything.

I also want to say thanks to Scrub, Doug, and the other OGs in that Discord for having my back on this. They welcomed me in with open arms and deal with my shit all the time, but they still respect my personality and who I am rather than what was forced upon me when I was born.