This was a comment that I posted in response to the "Ellen" post on the front page today. Ask me anything. Your questions will only help me better understand myself and to better tell my story, so that I will be able to gain strength and really strengthen my feeling of comfort in my own body.

I identify with Ellen, actually. I am nonbinary, and I just reached this realization over the past 48 hours. Here is the thing that you have to understand about me. I am a woman with a mental illness, and a very serious one at that. I want to be able to tell my story honestly and powerfully without needing to memorize everything about the DSM5. I understand that it is important for me to get therapy, and I am doing just that. But then, my story and the arch of my life is just so painful and so inexplicable due to my mental illness. I just hate myself, and I just feel inadequate in all contexts. I am a Christian, and I was baptized. But my baptism never prevented me from doing all of the horrible things that I did during the course of my mental illness. I want to take responsibility for myself, and I am just a college student. But I've been hospitalized five times already, and after each time, I just see more and more very sick people with my same mental illness taking tons of medication, and they are all older than me. So now I really am in a big crisis of confidence, and I don't know what the future holds for me. I myself am taking a little medication, and I am in the process of learning to live with a mental illness. I just want to be normal, but my story already marks me as someone who can never be normal due to my personal history. And when I am actually honest with myself, I know that I will never ever be able to be normal. And the gender binary just forces me to go into hiding. I am a woman at birth, but then again, I know zero women in my family and in my immediate community (people of the same background as me from my high school years) who are of my race and going through the same stuff that I am going through. In fact, the women in my family believe that downplaying the significance that the mental illness and my past indiscretions and misadventures would have on my life trajectory is the best way to move forward. I agree with them that in terms of the actions that I do, I can definitely make a new life for myself. But then you also have to understand that I am dealing with intense emptiness and worthlessness on the inside, no matter what I do. And I feel that way especially when I do something positive and good for others, since I know that on the inside I will never truly love myself for that. And my family and the people in my immediate community (those people of the same background as me) will never truly understand what I am going through, since they believe that there is no reason for me to feel this way. What hurts me the most is that my family can't truly relate to me in a way that makes sense to me, and that I cannot truly communicate with my family without mistakenly assuming the worst intentions from them, even though they intend the best for me. I guess when I was younger, I was even worse mentally and emotionally than I am right now as a college student who is seeking help. And I guess old habits are hard to break. Anyway it almost feels as if the only way for my family and for people to recognize the extent of my shame, insecurity, and self-loathing would be for me to be nonbinary. Otherwise, definitely nobody will understand, but if I am nonbinary and truly making a statement, then maybe people will understand the emptiness inside of me. And additionally, now I can incorporate my mental health journey more seamlessly into my identity. Having my identity reflect my mental health journey is so important because all of the stuff started to unravel right after I graduated high school, and my five hospitalizations over the past 4 or so years has definitely battered my sense of self. I feel like I need to be nonbinary as opposed to a woman because I feel like that's the only way that would allow others to truly know me, since I myself am deeply aware of what harms and ruins will befall me if I feel as if I am living a life in hiding from my true self.