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"Confronted with the realization that Luc's behavior could no longer be chalked up to boy-being-boy, Judy turned to the family's pediatrician, Dr. Jeff Richker, for help. (The Martin family gave their doctors and therapists permission to speak with me about Lucia's case.) Richker had been seeing Luc since he was two. "What I saw was extreme anxiety," he says, "and I wanted to treat that." He prescribed the generic version of Prozac, fluoxetine. The drug worked wonders, but only for a few months. In 2005, about a year after Luc began taking the antidepressant, Judy found Luc in his bedroom closet with a child's toolbox that had been given to him as a gift. He was crying and holding the little metal blade of the saw over his bare wrist.
Judy ran to him, grabbed the saw, and asked what was going on. "There are too many expectations," Luc said. Then he said it again, "There are too many expectations." He was crying. "Maybe if I were an animal, like a bear or an owl—animals don't have expectations. They're just happy. I don't think there is a place for me in this world."
this child, this little male-to-female transgendered child, now named Lucia, wanted to kill herself at age seven. seven.
"I don't think there is a place for me in this world."
i will admit right now, to all of you, that the moment I read this line, tears came more freely to me than they have in a long time.
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drained![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}