Here is a brief background of the minor things I've been through in my short life. I'm sure that there is more to come.

My body is incongruous with what I am. I'm pretty sure that this is true for many of the people that read this. When I was six I began going through my "sissy phase"(but you all probably realize the absurdity of the word "phase" here) along with an increased hyperactivity. This was around the time that my parents decided I should see a child psychologist. The report said that there where no mental defects except for ADHD. So my mom filled out some paperwork for my Ritalin and I was immediately barred from eating sugar. The child psychologist failed to mention any presence of gender dysphoria. So I grew up as an ADHD kid with a special diet in elementary school. I wasn't allowed to have sugary snacks, so while the other kids had chocolate chip cookies, I grew quite fond of eating carrot sticks.

Entering my third grade year my parents divorced and nobody would tell me why. I was eight years old, and began living with my mom, my older sister, and my younger sister. Incidentally this is the same year I began to realize the anatomical difference between male and female, I didn't know why they split the girls bathroom from the boys bathroom (Kindergarten through second grade, there was a single unisex bathroom in all of the classrooms. Third grade and up they divided the bathrooms). Sadly I was the kid that got hassled for walking into the girls bathroom. Not only did I get hassled by other students, but I was also given detention.

Skip forward four years. In seventh grade, I began to notice things. Well, actually I began to notice the lack of two things and the presence of a few other things. All the girls in my grade began maturing and developing while I began to mature and develop in an entirely different way. One of my best friends from elementary school had grown from having a flat chest to having to wear a 32C cup. I on the other hand started growing hair. My straight blonde hair began to darken, frizz , curl, and thicken. I hadn't even began to gain weight though. So in my state of mid androgyny I was labeled as a little queer boy and kids decided not to believe me but to instead listen to some kid named Chase. It got so bad that I would get beaten in gym(which by the way is another story) and cornered in the bathrooms(which is part of why I don't use public bathrooms anymore). After one particular skirmish (in which I came home with a broken ankle, blackened eyes, a missing tooth, and several bruises that speckled my entire body) my mom finally decided that I needed to transfer schools.

My life at this school was very much uneventful. I had become depressed before the transfer and by now I was suicidal. I became masochistic and tried several different ways of torturing myself(pricking myself with needles1, cutting2, and tried overdosing myself on a handful of Concerta, Adderal, and Ritalin. (Nothing happened, I had apparently already worked up a high tolerance for these by constant dose changes. I don't remember the rest of that day though) So in my depression I sunk into eating for comfort. This is when I started becoming overweight. I gained one hundred pounds by my fifteenth birthday. At two hundred eighty pounds with curly brown hair in the tenth grade, I was hardly a sissy anymore. Sadly, this is the polar opposite of what I thought I would be.

My sixteenth birthday was one of the singular most depressing moments I have had thus far. All of my former "Friends" were having their "Sweet Sixteen" and partying. Getting their drivers licenses the next day and driving to school in their new cars. On my sixteenth birthday, I stayed in my room and cried. I had come to the final realization that I would never have my desired body image. I still had no clue what I might be. Why was I different?

February of my tenth grade year(I had been held back twice) I was diagnosed as Narcoleptic. I went to a sleep center in the local hospital and they wired me up to a machine and I felt like I was being put back into the "Matrix" with the amount of wires and tubes running from me. I slept all night and took a few naps during the day while they watched me and evaluated how I slept and how I acted while awake. The doctor (working with my current useless psychiatric counselor) my previous diagnoses of ADHD was retracted. From the explanation I received, my inattentiveness was not because of an attention disorder, but because I was asleep most of the time. My hyperactivity had nothing to do with a hyperactivity disorder, but instead was most likely because of my tendency to sleep to much, causing people to think I was being hyperactive while I was actually awake, and inattentive while asleep.

Still, nobody notices anything else that could be wrong with me. Once they give me one diagnosis the throw me into a pit inhabited by forgotten people with similar judgments upon their medical and mental states. I feel neglected and ignored.

I sit here now, eighteen years old, two hundred thirty pounds and dieting, with no car, a guitar without a band, and a voice that nobody listens too. J. T. Barker isn't even my real name - just a pseudonym. A false name for a false body.

-Have a good Valentines day everyone. If you're with a special someone right now, please - tell them that you love them right now. Even if you just said it five minutes ago or even five seconds ago, say it.