This was written November 26th, 2020. I had been struggling with the death of a friend; it happened to hit a little too close to home for me. I had a sense of survivor’s guilt. I felt that it should have been, could very easily have been me. It wreaked havoc on my mental state for months, thus my therapist suggested writing this in her memory. I remember it as if it happened yesterday, my therapist being so compassionate but also cautioning me, bracing me, making sure I understood that being a part of this community, Emily will not be the only person I lose to suicide or even murder. We as trans people do not have a long-life expectancy.

So, we need a little back story. I met Emily in December in a support group on Facebook for depression, anxiety and suicide. She is a transgender woman like myself. She is 25 years old and would have been 26 this month. Her and another transwoman we met in that group bonded rather quickly over not just our suicidal ideations, self-harm and depression, but also from all 3 of us sharing the trials and tribulations of being transgender in this shit hole of a country.

Her family disowned her for being trans, and very rarely used the correct pronouns. She was kicked out of her home yet was able to find an apartment where she lived in Atlanta. She hated being trans. She was happier on hormones of course but still hated the fact she was not a cis woman. She was in enormous debt from so many medical Bill’s due to numerous suicide attempts and being hospitalized in psych wards. In the 4 months we knew each other she probably spent 5 or 6 weeks in a psych ward. She was of the mind she would fake it until she made it, meaning whatever she had to do to get off suicide watch. She swore once her medical bills were paid off, she would end it. She planned to wait because she did not want to stick the family that disowned her with the medical bills.

She was always thinking about others and loved to please people. We all became very close in such a short amount of time. When she was in the psych hospital, we would call daily to check on her. She attempted three times in the time I knew her, once with a noose but the rope broke. Twice with pills, the last one resulting in seizures and a hospital stay before another psych stay.

We had an agreement between the three of us. We knew how depressed we were. We knew we all longed for death, and we hated how people were trying to keep us alive when all we wanted was to die. How could people be so selfish? So, we gave each other permission to die. We would not try to talk each other out of it because we understood each other. We agreed that what we would do was to at least say goodbye to the others in the group. Give the others a chance to say goodbye and that we love each other one last time. That did not happen. Emily left us and we did not get to say goodbye to her.

I really want to be mad at her for that, but I understand her pain. I understand her fear that we would try and talk her out of it. I am so very sad that I lost her, but I am comforted in the knowledge that she Isn’t suffering anymore. Emily confided in me outside of our group chat a couple of times that one thing that was keeping her going was she did not want others to be sad about her loss. And that she feared Rose (the other one in our group) would kill herself if in fact either one of us did kill ourselves. Rose mentioned as much that she would do that.

We must do better as humans. Misgendering takes such a toll on us. The things we go through daily wears us down every day, and it seems like this entire country is on a witch hunt with us being the witches (I’m pagan but people just say witches). We are slowly being killed off by mental illness due to the struggles of being transgender. And those struggles, those mental illnesses are caused from outside influences 99 percent of the time.

We need to talk about this more openly. So many suffer from depression and suicidal ideation. We must remove the stigma from this topic. People have to stop being afraid to talk about it. RIP Emily Nicole Brown. I will miss you.

Here Is the link to her blog. You will get a better mindset of her thinking. http://www.emilythetransgirl.wordpress.com