I want to be a Japanese man more than anything. I want to feel my face and body and know that I am what I consider to be the ultimate beauty. Some days I can’t even look at my disgusting flesh. I get images of tearing off my skin.
I recently came back from some time living in Tokyo (not the big city but a city within Tokyo province). I have to finish something before I can go back. I felt very free there. I got a manual labour job very easily. I took public baths although they were on the women’s side due to my current physical attributes. I mingled in independent art circles. I felt like I belonged except the few times someone would say something like “you wear Japanese clothes well, for an outsider”. I would obsess over those times for weeks. At night I would cry and pull my hair.
But I’ve had the desire to be a Japanese man before that. It pains me to say it since I’ve hidden it from everyone. I’ve even lied to counsellors. I don’t want to talk about it but I know I need help so I’m trying to practice saying it.
Since I can remember, I’ve been s******* interested in pretty stereotypical features like narrow monolid eyes, that small line under the eyes most Japanese people have, teeth that stick out. I just think that’s beautiful. People with those features are the most beautiful in the world. I don’t think I need to discuss the very awkward and shameful moments of arousal as a scholar of 20th century history… Hahaha.
I want to look like that too. I want to be beautiful too. I don’t care what people would insult me with if I looked like that, because I would be able to feel secure and confidential in myself and my identity.
I get intrusive thoughts and obsessions and this is one of them. It makes me feel awful. I am a historian and social activist and I get thoughts that suggest I don’t really care, that I’m only interested because these people arouse me. I know it’s not true and I really do care, but my brain disregards the truth. So I just keep thinking about it forever and ever.
I hate having these obsessions. I don’t like having such a socially unacceptable desire like being a different race. But when I indulge these thoughts, think about how nice it would be, I gain a lot of emotional pleasure. S***** pleasure as well to be honest. You’re supposed to be only disgusted by intrusive thoughts, right? I feel so wrong, so broken in so many ways.
I don’t know if I can ever be rid of it. I’m trying to get help, but it’s so shameful to discuss. I still haven’t told anyone but every night for many years I contemplate what it would be like to wake up and have been magically transformed in my sleep.
When I go back to Japan I want to truly belong, not be plagued by random delusional freak outs.
