Name changed as possibly too outing. Subject title explicit, so that nobody inadvertently reads the thread (if it would be better for their mental health not to). I have a feeling this might be long, so I'll try to summarise at the end.
I started this thread because I've read and recognise the strength of the women on the trans widows' escape forum
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3471122-trans-widows-escape-committee-2-the-trans-widows-strike-back
and I saw that a sister of someone trans who committed suicide posted there, and was encouraged to start her own thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3563514-I-feel-that-transitioning-contributed-to-my-siblings-death?messages=100&pg=1
My situation is in no way comparable to theirs, in terms of the all-encompassing effects of a mid-life (mid-marriage, mid-mortgage) transition, nor is it as devastating as the suicide of someone you've shared your life with since birth. But my situation is real, and my emotional dislocation is real, and my distress and sadness are real, and I can't be the only one to find themselves in this place. Or even if I am the only one, I thought MN would be a good forum to off-load, and hear your perspectives.
In my mid 20s I moved to the big city and made friends, including with someone at a similar stage of life; let's call him Dave. Friendships developed, as they do, and I fell in love with Dave. He didn't pretend to reciprocate my obsessive high-burning mind-and-heart passion sort of love, but he certainly had a high regard for me, for what I was doing with my life, and unsurprisingly our friendship became sexual. The relationship was casual, in that we weren't living together or planning a life together, but for a few years we were close, spent a lot of time together, hung out in the same circle of friends. Gradually it fizzled out, without any great drama. My life moved on. As I lost touch with most of that circle of people, so I lost touch with Dave.
Decades passed. A few days ago I got a private message from one of our few remaining mutual friends: "The person we used to know as Dave has died." I wondered if I'd read it right: Dave has been reborn as someone else? Some deedpoll belated April Fools joke? But no. A real death. And by suicide. "The person who was our friend transitioned to live as Crystal. She'd been unhappy for a long time." (Not the actual words, and not the actual name, but close enough.) I felt knocked over, bereft, but also at some level unsurprised.
Our mutual friend Ben (not actually Ben), met me for a drink and a cry and a reminisce. Ben wasn't all that close and didn't know all the details, but reassured me on my first question, that as far as he knew there were no children left orphaned, and no partner. There had been a funeral fairly quickly, presumably for close family, and a memorial service planned for the summer, which I've asked to be informed about.
So I am left more or less alone with my feelings. Sadness that this person I once held so dear had felt such despair and no way forward. But then many other layers of emotion. That sadness is a feeling everyone would understand, and is easy for me to express. But I also feel constrained, and awkward and angry and so many other things.
This is my plea, to the MN mods and the real-life friends I have yet to mention this to: I knew Dave as a man; to honour my truth, I need to speak of the person I knew. I look forward, if that's the right expression, to meeting other people at the memorial, and finding out about Crystal, the person I didn't know.
I feel constrained because I don't know how to speak now of my dead lover. Until I received the sudden news of sudden death, I had never thought of Dave as anything other than a man. Without wanting to be crude - we had sex, quite a lot, for several years, and I never had any reason to think of him as anything other than male, with a male body and straightforwardly male sexual interests. The circle we were part of included several people who now would be considered trans or gender variant or one of the more particular terms on the Facebook drop-down menu, so on the face of it there's no reason he couldn't have told me he was "a bit feminine" or "experimenting" or whatever the cautious phrases were then. But he didn't, so either he didn't feel comfortable telling me (which makes me wonder in retrospect whether I could have been a better friend, lover, and sounding board) or he had not yet reached that point on his journey.
I feel unable to discuss my sadness with my current friends, as none of them knew Dave, and yet I fear they (in their wokeness) might tell me off for not thinking and speaking of Crystal. But I can't - I never met Crystal.
I feel angry - and not possessed of all the facts, in fact hardly any of the facts, I don't yet know how much anger is valid or useful. Dave, when I knew him, was open about his mental health issues, including bipolar disorder. I thought the openness was a good sign. At the time I first knew him, he spoke of weekly visits to his psychiatrist, and I gather it has to be a fairly serious condition for that level of NHS resource. Dave was a young man with a good job and was advancing in his career, so I guess that is classic "high-functioning". A year or two after we parted, I heard Dave had had a breakdown, and recovered.
I want to be angry at something, to point at something that will undo the pain. I am angry at the NHS mental health support that couldn't prevent the suicide. (But maybe nothing could have.) I am angry that the transition didn't make life more liveable. (And I don't know what the transition involved: pronouns only, or multiple surgeries.) I am angry that activists and medical / psychiatric advisers give the impression that transition is the answer. (But I acknowledge that it may well be the best way forward for some people.) I feel angry at myself, for being out of touch so long; maybe I could have helped somehow. (But it's so easy to blame myself.)
So here I sit, wondering what could have saved my ex from suicide.
TL;DR. Once I had a male lover. We split up, without rancour, but our paths didn't cross again. Decades later, I am told that she committed suicide. I don't know how to get my head around this.