Come Out Of The Closet, Dan




I don't know what I'm going to do about work. 
They keep calling me my dead name. 
I don't know how to tell them all that's not my name.
I've only just started there and I don't want to be left out or isolated.
I already feel uncomfortable as it is, I'm learning the new tasks, the floor plan and the in/out of the store. 
It's like every day that I wake up, it's the worst day of my life. 
What a fucking existence. 

I don't really have that good a feel for all the people that I work around. I have a general idea, but not enough to say it's safe to come out. I don't know what to say. I'd love to be able to be myself there and not have to wall away even more parts of myself. Coming out has been a mixed blessing. For the most part, nobody respects it. The people in my everyday life fail to respect who and what I am. They disregard my asking to call me my proper name. It leads to even more anger, resentment and flat out hostility. I feel like one of these days, I'm just going to choke one of these cunts. The pressure is immense. I have to use my legal name for other paperwork, obviously, since I'm waiting on a few things to be able to give them the switched documents, but at work, you could choose the name that you go by, and I entered Daniel. When they gave me my name tag the first day, it had my dead name on it and I didn't want to make much of a fuss. HR always referred to me by the dead name. I guess those dickheads didn't get the memo, despite my work login welcomes me as Dan.
I don't want to seem like a dick or anything, but it's like "get your fucking shit together". Why even bother asking if you're not going to honour it? I hate having to go and work and be called the wrong name and wrong pronouns all day long. I'm worried that if I say something I'm going to lose my job despite the companies promise and pledge that they are LGBT friendly and support pride. The company may support pride, but it doesn't mean the employees do.

I have such dread and anxiety going into work. I never know what to expect. It's keeping me awake at night. The anxiousness over the next day is kicking my insomnia into overdrive. I either can barely sleep or I wake up every hour on the hour. Most of the time, I just can't sleep and I have to be up early to work. The schedule rotates, but like I have a 2-hour commute on the bus. Technically, it's an hour and a half on the bus, but you have to allow for any bus upsets and they're almost never on time. All this for minimum wage. I don't know how I get myself into these kinds of situations. It's only about a month into the job and I'm cracking. 


LATER ON 
I talked to blonde smile girl from work and came out to her, explained who and what I am, the name I prefer and everything. Then I waited for a text back. I almost couldn't breathe. I could have lost the one person I'm really friendly with at work. Then I see the three dots pop up. Jesus wept. Then she tells me its okay, she sort of suspected it and is more than happy to call me my male name. The clock on the explosive stops ticking. She's okay with it. This-I'm almost not prepared for this. She's completely supportive and thinks that more people at work will have the same reaction as her. I'm wanting to come out, be me and maybe this will take some of the stress off me, but I'm so unsure. 

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