How does the scream (painting) portray alienation, confusion, identity etc?

Is it possible that the devil is causing me to be confused about my gender identity?

• This may sound silly but this is a serious question. So serious answers only please. Anyway, I am 20, I've had gender identity issues since I was 14. I'm so stressed out and confused I want to scream. And I get mild tension headaches all the time.. I don't know what my gender is. I find myself asking myself ''Am I male or female?'' all the time. I feel trapped and like everyone is moving forward with their lives while I'm just sitting here, dwelling on these gender issues... I've been feeling confused for a really long time. I looked into getting a sex change when I was 15. I don't know why I was looking into that; if I ever got a sex change my (very religious) family would disown me, and that terrifies me. Is it possible that the devil is causing me to be confused about my gender? If so, Is it also possible that the devil wants my family to disown me and that's why he is causing me to be confused? Another reason why I think the devil is causing me all this stress and confusion is: I've been having dreams about demons. I've also been having terrible recurring thoughts about God and satan every single day. The most recent thoughts I've been getting are ones that say ''I accept.....into my heart'' I am too scared to say the name in that sentence but I will say the thought does not say Jesus/God/Lord. These thoughts aren't mine, I feel like the devil is putting them into my head. Also, whenever I start to say to myself ''I love Jesus'' I can feel a part of myself starting/wanting to say ''I love s....'' not Jesus but you know... I really do love Jesus though, not satan. All I want to do is get away from satan and get closer with God. I also get homicidal thoughts a lot. And get constant images in my head of demons, i can't even think of a happy image without a demon appearing in it. Also, yesterday I was singing a Christian song inside my head and I kept accidently slipping into a voice that didn't sound like mine at all. it was a creepy sounding male voice. I am female. I also feel like my heart is full of darkness and hatred but I don't know why.... I'm really scared, I feel like the devil is trying to take over my mind and heart. I've prayed to God many times to help me and to get rid of anything evil. But that doesn't seem to help. I don't know why God isn't helping me. Is it because I don't go to church? I don't know. But can someone please help me? I'm really scared and I don't know what to do... Thanks

• Answer:

  Are you aware that some people are capable of making themselves seriously ill, simply because they THINK they're sick? My friend's mother, for example, wanted to be pregnant so badly that her body actually began to have symptoms of being pregnant, even though she was never pregnant. People who believe they've been posioned somehow have been known to have lowered heart rates, fevers, ticks, paralysis---any number of symptoms associated with poisons---even though they have never been posioned. My point is that I think you're doing the same thing. You are so afraid that having an unusual gender identity would be sinful and force you into the hands of Satan that your mind and body are inventing the symptoms of demonic influence. What you have is not the devil making you think things, but you being so obsessed with NOT thinking things that you can't help but think them. The fear and obsession force you to think about it so much that your brain starts just thinking it instead. I would say that the "darkness and hatred" you feel is partially just your fear and partly the problem I just mentioned above. It's not the devil, even though it feels like it. I promise. You're just so afraid that it's the devil that you forget the other possibilities. Now, as for the gender identity thing: It's okay to be transgender of some form. Maybe you're fully transsexual, maybe you're androgynous, or neutral, or fluid, or something. Even if you think your family would disown you, that doesn't mean that God would think your family was right to do so. Let's assume your gender issues were sinful. Didn't Jesus say that you were to love your neighbors? Well, when he specified who counted a "neighbor" it sounded like just about everyone. So, you are your parents' neighbor. If they kick you out onto the streets, they are failing to love you. Well, loving God and loving your neighbors are, by Jesus' own words, the two greatest commandments. If your family kicks you out, they are failing far more than your gender issues could possibly make you fail---which, to me, means they aren't very good judges of what constitutes a sin. Let me tell you this: God made you exactly as you are. If that happens to be someone who has a male mind, but a female body, that's okay. He still loves you just as much as he loves people with female minds and female bodies, or male minds and male bodies. How do I know? Because I know that God loves me, too. I can't claim to know that the "God" I interact with is the Christian "God," but I do claim to know that the one I interact with is present and personally-oriented. When I was on the verge of suicide, he gave me a verse that not only combatted my issues, but was accepting of my transsexualism. "Let no eunuch complain, 'I am only a dry tree'" it said. What's a eunuch? A man stripped of his proper male genitalia. By being a transsexual man, I am, in fact, a eunuch. Later, when I was depressed once more because I was convinced that no matter what I did, I'd never be abel to live properly as a man--I'd never transition, I'd never be happy, etc---he spoke again: this time by directing me to the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. He highlighted for me just the verse where she stopped bleeding. Well, one of the first things that starting transsexual hormone treatments does is stop menstruation. I can honestly say that in all my interactions, all my life long, I have never once felt that GOD despised me or rejected me for being the man that I am inside. That feeling has only ever come from the humans who comprise the "Church," the humans who so often seem to fail at the one thing that Jesus himself said was more important than anything else: Love. God isn't helping you because he's waiting for you to ask for the right thing. Ask him to help you calm down, let go of your fear, and face who you really are---see where that gets you.