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Hi, so I'm Krumlink. It's been 6 years since I left, my story inside.

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Toxilogic

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Hey there Electro-Tech,

Some of my fondest memories were spent on this site, as a young, inexperienced and quite curious young kid being exposed to the internet for the first time. I was fortunate to come across this forum, filled with brilliant people willing to give a new kid a helping hand. In those 6 years since leaving the forum, I've experienced an incredible amount, and decided to come back and tell my story, and maybe stick around for a while. I have quite a lot to tell, however you just may want a stiff drink for this one.

When I first joined Electro-Tech-Online, I had just finished some of my first projects using discrete analog and digital logic IC's, such as the venerable 555 timer and miscellaneous 74 series logic. I had gone through the entire Radioshack "Electronic Learning Lab" kits, and was looking for more difficult, challenging projects, thus leading to my search for electronics projects. As many of the older users remember, Electro-Tech-Online used to be nicknamed "Electronics Projects diagrams free", or something along the lines of that. My search had brought me upon this forum and after spending a brief time browsing through the various threads and topics, I hastily signed up. I was 13 years old and many of you can remember all of the "interesting" things to come.

When I was 13-15, I was a loaner. I was the kid in school that had no friends and just built projects and stayed home a lot. This circle of wonderful, talented people were my closest friends and mentors. I buried myself in my projects and I would spend days reading every bit I could, whatever was suggested to try and learn more. It really became a process where I felt like I had some real friends in my life and I wanted to impress them with what I was learning. Being that young and on the internet, unsupervised of course lead to my outlandish behavior, but as a young kid that was really the worst of it. As many of the veteran members remember, my outbursts were just a product of me literally being a young, stupid kid.

Around the time I threatened suicide (as many of you will remember), I actually was coming to terms with many feelings pent up for years prior. I knew since I was young (I vividly remember at age 12) feeling envious of girls, and feeling out of place in my own body. Also I was coming to terms with being attracted to males. Basically, I was struggling with my sexuality and gender identity, and it lashed out. At the time I didn't tell my parents, because I didn't realize it would become such a significant part of my life, and that I didn't know that "coming out" was such a thing. I went to therapy, and didn't really make much progress. I buried my feelings and returned to working on my projects. In a way, this forum and my hobby was a way to escape and ignore what I was feeling.

The next couple years were spent exploring my feelings, trying to distract myself with my projects and hobbies. I was working towards keeping my grades up so that I could be accepted to the local University for Electrical Engineering (which I was later accepted to, and with several large scholarships for my time spent on the High School Robotics team).

Fast forward to July 2010, Just after my 17th birthday. I spent the previous year really trying to understand my feelings, talking with the couple friends I made in High School, it was at this time I could truly label myself as Homosexual and Transgender. Wow. I really knew how to describe how I felt. As surprising as it was, I felt relief, I wasn't just "mixed up" inside, there were other people like me out there, living normal lives and still being who they wanted to be. I built up the confidence to tell my sister, and the conversation that ensued was rather disappointing. Plenty of put downs about how I would make an ugly woman, how I don't know I'm gay because I've never been with a man, various other things were said. It was an upsetting conversation, I was done talking with her and I went to bed.

Next morning, I am enjoying a sandwich (mind you this is during summer vacation at the time for me) and my mom comes home, and very sternly asks me if there is something I need to tell her. I can feel a pit form in my stomach in an instant. I start shaking, I know that this is going to go very wrong. I eventually am able to stammer out that I think I am gay and transgender and she immediately starts screaming. Telling me I'm wrong, that someone told me that I was this way (on the contrary, I was the first gay and transgender person I knew). I immediately started crying and ran to the basement. I spent the next 3 days in the basement just crying my eyes out. In that moment I felt so broken, like I was such a failure and I did something wrong. Before that moment I was a confused, but otherwise happy kid. It started a long spiral of self destruction that took years to get over. My parents tell me that I need therapy to get over this "phase". I spent months in therapy with a therapist that caused more harm than good and I refused to talk to him about what had happened.

That August, I was very depressed and lonely, and started to talking to guys online. I was in a very terrible state emotionally as I had no support from my friends or family, and was desperately looking for some sort of emotional attachment to help. I met up with a guy I had talked to online, alone, and he proceeded to rape me. He was much bigger than I was and I was just forced to be used by him. After that moment I felt many times worse than I did prior and when I started my senior year my previous grades of A's and B's slid into D's, and I even failed a couple classes. I came to school, slept and cried, that's the best way to describe my senior year.

I was hospitalized in October for suicidal ideation, basically I was deemed suicidal by my therapist and sent to a hospital for 3 days to deal with my depression. After I got out, I was prescribed antidepressants that made me feel empty and I began cutting, trying to feel some emotion. my forearms were covered in cuts, but covered by my baggy clothes and no one knew. I had no one to talk to. The few friends I could talk to didn't want to deal with my issues, and I had given up on life. I learned that I was accepted to my University of choice so I didn't give up hoping that it would change things for me.

I graduated, just barely hanging onto my chance to get into school. If my grades had slipped much more I would not have made it in. I started my internship at Bosch Engineering and things were... disappointing. I wasn't enjoying the work, I was tired of trying to convince my parents to let me see a doctor or a therapist that would help me start hormone replacement therapy. I decided to buy hormones (Spironolactone and Estrogen) online and began taking them in September 2011. I began buying more feminine clothing and I was feeling a bit more comfortable about myself.

My internship ended and I began classes and I struggled to adjust. I was still extremely unhappy, both from myself and dealing with people in general. I didn't feel like I was making any progress in my transitioning and ended up in the hospital again for suicide. After I got out, I had an old friend from my home town invite me to dinner, with him and another friend of his. I go over, and his friend is a skinny, attractive guy. We began talking and pretty much instantly fell in love. He came with me and we spent the weekend together at my dorm, and just talked about everything, it was an amazing feeling to have someone really, truly love and care about you.

He got into a massive fight with his step dad and was kicked out. Not knowing what to do, I let him stay with me in the dorm. After a few days he was asked to leave, or I would be ejected from the Dorms. Having no clue what to do (that's a common theme here), I thought maybe he could stay the night at my parents house until we figured things out. I introduce him to my parents and they immediately freaked out. They kicked him out (he was 5'9", 115 pounds, a very non threatening skinny feminine kid) and he walked in the cold 5 miles to my friends house. I was stuck arguing with my parents, and gave up and slammed the door. My mom opened the door and grabbed me by the hair, dragging me in and began beating me. I was cut up and my dad offered to take me to my friends house (luckily the same friend my partner walked to). I walked in the door and broke down and collapsed, crying, in his arms.


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This was taken about Febuary 2012, Nolan (later Emily) is on the left.

Our lives revolved around each other, since we had no real incentive to try and live for ourselves. It was a relationship built on helping the other person cope with all the things we had dealt with. I hated school and dealt with harassment and discrimination at my following internship, and the entire experience put me off of wanting to try at all at school. We had a tense relationship at times, both from our own in-maturities and just the broad spectrum of issues we had. Having high amounts of estrogen didn't help.

I gave up and dropped out a semester later, and things with my partner didn't work out and we broke up on bad terms in December 2012. I moved back home and my parents would hold "interventions" to try and set me "straight" and talk me out of who I was. I was extremely depressed and reached out to my local LGBT organization asking for a place to live while I tried to get my life together. On Feburary 2nd 2013 I met with someone who had a place for me to stay in a month or so, when he moved out of his apartment to a trailer in a very tiny city about an hour north of where I was living. I would take care of the house and try and work towards getting a job. We had a plan set out and he dropped me off... to a house completely locked. I couldn't get in, all the doors were locked (we lived in a relatively rural area so we never locked doors) and my mom opens the door and says "I found the hormones, you need to go". I wasn't about to argue, I was more than happy to get my stuff and leave. I packed a backpack and a duffel bag full of clothes, all the while my mom is threatening to push me down the stairs. I was terrified, since she had attacked me before. I called the police and my roommate, and I left that night.

AIaMFcb.jpg

Taken about March, behind me is a computer I built by accidentally screwing up my taxes and getting a ton of money back, turned out okay. I was really unhealthy in this picture. Yes I have a septum piercing. When you make 8 bucks an hour you don't really care much eh?

I was now sleeping on a couch of a guy I barely knew. I had no money, no food, just a bag full of clothes. For about 3 weeks I slept on his couch, and eventually we moved into the trailer. My room was barely big enough for a bed and a desk, but I felt safe. He was very friendly and things were okay... until I had no food. I applied for food stamps (welfare in Michigan) since he would be busy at work and I would be at home with nothing to eat. For about 2 months, I had almost no food, starving, just barely enough money to eat once every couple days. I lost about 30 pounds in 2 months just from lack of eating. I slept around with a lot of guys just so I could get money and enough food.

V4dvCLp.jpg

This was in late april 2013, I was struggling with my eating and having a lot of issues. I looked okay I suppose.

In April, I was hired at a small computer repair place about 20 minutes away, and my dad offered to let me borrow the car so that I could get to work and back. I was working for just barely above minimum wage, but I was finally working and making money. I thought things were smoothing over with my parents, and in late april I moved back home. Huge mistake. Things were immediately off to a terrible start. I could not present or dress female in front of my family (I was skinny and on hormones for about 4-5 months so I looked fairly feminine) and I would leave the house in baggy clothes, then change on my way to work. Luckily, working in IT is fairly accepting of LGBT people so my work had no issue with it. My boss was a scumbag that would make rude comments but I was thankful for a job. In June my Ex, Emily (formerly Nolan) messaged me.

oe6u3Jv.jpg

We were back together shortly before this picture was taken. I kind of have a hard time smiling in pictures. Roughly June 2013

We chatted and met for lunch. We instantly fell back in love. We had a very strong bond and knew we made mistakes. We made plans to get an apartment together not too far from my job, and in early July we moved in together. About a week later I was fired for reporting a wage dispute, my boss was not paying us correctly and I told the parent company we worked for. I was later hired in full time for about 3 times more than what I was making previously. I was making enough to support myself and Emily. She struggled to find a job and that put stress on our relationship, and she moved in to a friend's house even though we still were together. I gave up trying to transition since I felt like I couldn't make any progress. I gained weight and felt really unattractive. Emily moved back in and really worked hard to get a job and things were fantastic.

It's now July 1st, Emily and I have been doing fantastic together, I was eating healthier and as far as I knew our relationship was doing great. We were very happy together and she had a job working as a field laborer in a local farm. I quit my job from doing computer repair and was working at a managed services company doing server administration. I hadn't heard from Emily almost all day, so I was anxious to get home and give her a big hug. I remember walking through the door and the entire apartment being incredibly hot. Too hot for someone to stay in. It really had me a bit upset because it must have been over 90 degrees. I called for her but I heard no response. Things felt too quiet. Normally the moment she hears the door open she would jump out of her hiding spot and hug me, and we'd talk about her day. Not today. It was silent.

I head to the bedroom and try to open the door, it felt like it was wedged shut. I pushed with some force and I heard something fall from behind the door, surprised I open the door and turn on the light to find Emily laying on the ground, with a belt around her neck, blue. She hung herself, about 4 hours prior to me getting home. No note, nothing. She just impulsively decided to kill herself. We didn't have a fight, we were doing okay. Better than okay I thought. I remember screaming as loud as I could, I just froze up and screamed and ran out of the room. I felt like if I screamed loud enough she would somehow be fine, but I knew. The once always smiling, beautiful face was a unnatural blue, she was cold to the touch. I panicked and threw a blanket over her. I called 911 and they were there in minutes. I called her parents and told her mom that Emily had committed suicide, she didn't believe me. She came over and just was in utter disbelief. I called my Dad and said that **** happens and I'll get over it. I also won't forget the cop saying "Hey look on the bright side, at least it wasn't a shooting!"

Emily's obituary:
**broken link removed**

July 2nd my car broke down and July 3rd was my birthday. I had a panic attack at work and freaked out, telling Emily's parents I was going to kill myself. The police came and I was in a hospital for about 6 days for suicide ideation... again. I was in a psych ward with schizophrenic gang bangers telling me that they kill f*ggots and how they're freaks. I was glad to be out of the hospital. I spent the next few months in a haze, going to work, coming home, sleeping. The panic attacks would be overpowering and unfortunately many new scars were added. I didn't know where my life was headed.

In September I knew I had to transition, change my name and get as far away from here as I could. I began taking hormones more regularly this time through a doctor, and in November I quit my old job. In December I changed my name (taking Emily's last name of Marrs for my middle, so that she'll always be with me in some way). I have been presenting female full time (basically means that old me is gone) and I feel like I can begin moving on. I've lost 30 pounds and I'm back down to a healthy weight and feeling confident about myself for the first time in a long time, in the end the only person I needed was myself, it just took me a long time and a lot of pain to find my inner strength.

I work for a small IT consulting company (and as a camgirl on the side) in a nice city, I just purchased my own car (2014 Malibu LS) and soon I will be going back to school to obtain my Computer or Electrical Engineering degree. I feel like I have been through more than many people could think of experiencing, and although some days are near impossible I still take steps forward and haven't given up. Nowadays I spend a lot of my time still working on projects, still just as curious and intrigued as before.

Hope you all enjoyed the story I had to tell,

Nikki

zQQSlbv.jpg
 
If you now feel better is all that counts.

What projects are those?
 
If you now feel better is all that counts.

What projects are those?

Just to name a few:

1KJ Coilgun, utilizing a 450V 10,000uF capacitor and a microwave oven transformer rectified by a beefy 1200V 600A three phase bridge rectifier (just using 2 of the 3 available diode pairs). This one now (thankfully) rests easy as a pile of parts. Unfortunately I lost many of my old pictures of my projects, but I do have a picture of the primary capacitor below, with a AA battery for scale.

vczabm6.jpg


Axiom, a small (1.4" square roughly) generic robot controller utilizing the 24FV32KA304.

6XXWJ5q.png


I also am rebuilding my binary clock as a smaller project. The lower board features the 1HZ clock source, power supply and time adjust circuitry. This one is not yet complete.

X4wJnrh.jpg


Dual DRV8835 (4 motors total) motor controller board. Personally I think these are great replacements to the SN754410 as they can drive a continuous amount of current at the entire specified input voltage. They have little tiny heat sinks (so cute!) and can output up to 1.2A per channel. This is just on a a small protoboard for testing.

5rOy1A3.jpg


SonarPiggy, what started as a "simple" HC-SR04 to I2C/UART converter has morphed into a quad sonar 12 ADC channel I2C/UART converter. However this will keep board costs down when I send them to the board house. I have literally just started laying out the PCB, and will keep working on this one down the road.

xIS7bLc.png


I also designed a dual output adjustable voltage regulator utilizing some cheap eBay modules that I can get for less than a dollar each. They can output up to 3A and are good for simple projects, or if I need a specific voltage as well as a typical 5VDC output.

qpbrZ24.jpg


I've worked on all of these projects (minus the coil gun) in the past several months or so.
 
Welcome back :)

Be honest to yourself and others and if they can't accept you, move on and spend your time with those who will. :)
 
Toxilogic,

Welcome back. I wasn't here when you were a member in your younger days. You have been through a lot and it seems you are one tough cookie to have survived it all. It's regrettable that you've had to deal with predudices, suicidal feelings and the loss of your friend. Hopefully this is the past and the future will be brighter.

I can't personally identify with a lot of your feelings related to gender and sexuality because I wasn't born that way, but I can identify with your love of electronics at an early age. I strongly encourage you to follow this passion if you still feel this is your destiny. I know for me, this has been a source of joy in my life through both good times and bad. At age 50 I still get up enthusiastically ready to solve problems and do the work I love doing. I hope i can say the same at age 80.

Good luck to you and I wish you all the best.
 
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Wow, this is quite a hardcore life story! I'm very new here, so didn't know you before hand either, but I dont wish that kind of alienation of anyone on any level.

Glad to see you've put yourself first now, and realised that its never too late to get your formal EE qualification.

All the best!
 
Wow, this is quite a hardcore life story! I'm very new here, so didn't know you before hand either, but I dont wish that kind of alienation of anyone on any level.

Glad to see you've put yourself first now, and realised that its never too late to get your formal EE qualification.

All the best!

Hi Cicero.

I watched the SONA tonight. An absolute joke.
I just wanna cry that we have gone down to these levels of stupidity...me I cringe that we are this low now...

Zuma, the Chief Thief is telling others not to steal.....

And then bullshitting about everything with the speech he could barely read or understand.

Prepared for him by his "advisers". Like the people in his pocket.

Sad hey :(

Probably time I leave ETO. Amazing people here on this Forum. I feel that many are getting tired of my moaning and groaning. Basically all I do these days. Nothing else to talk about.

It's very hard to do anything else though when there is nothing else..all broken.

Keep posting though....head's up and please take over from me :)

All the best,
tv
 
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You know the song "Same Love" By Macklemore? It comes to mind.

"When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are"


Progress will march on. Life is the greatest gift one has, full of trials and tribulations, so make it damned worth living, failures and all. Fight the good fight and march on. It gets better. I think I'll be going to the pride parade this year in NYC.
 
Hi Cicero.

I watched the SONA tonight. An absolute joke.
I just wanna cry that we have gone down to these levels of stupidity...me I cringe that we are this low now...

Zuma, the Chief Thief is telling others not to steal.....

And then bullshitting about everything with the speech he could barely read or understand.

Prepared for him by his "advisers". Like the people in his pocket.

Sad hey :(

Probably time I leave ETO. Amazing people here on this Forum. I feel that many are getting tired of my moaning and groaning. Basically all I do these days. Nothing else to talk about.

It's very hard to do anything else though when there is nothing else..all broken.

Keep posting though....head's up and please take over from me :)

All the best,
tv





Regards,
tv
Yeah tv, I didn't watch it but I've seen a bit of it on youtube today. Seems like a real circus.

On the one hand I dont like what EFF did, but on the other hand, this Zuma character is bringing it on himself and fueling this small uprising. His salary is R2-3mil a year, and he now has a R400+mil home?! Thats the same as a person earning R200k/annum, having a R40mil home?! WTF!
 
Side note: How do you delete posts on here?
An ordinary user cannot delete any posts.
But when a passing friendly moderator sees the duplicate, he will delete it for you.

JimB
 
The best you can do is EDIT it to <duplicate> and "report" it as a "duplicate". You do have editing capability for quite some time.

Welcome!
 
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I remember you!

Things changed a bit around here since then.
 
Welcome back Krumlink (Toxilogic).
Your life story is about a strong and wonderful person, which you are.
Thanks for sharing it.

This is a great place. Kept posting.

Hope the best for you.
prprog
 
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Hi Toxilogic, I never knew you as Krumlink, joined whilst you were away.
Seems you have been through far more in your short life than many people who are now old. If there's one thing that really makes me angry it's prejudice, especially like you have experienced, blind, ignorant hatred. Sincerely hope you never have to experience that ever again.

My childhood was in a time ('70's) when gays were still not accepted (to put it mildly) by most of society, I grew up seeing the change from that. Because I liked girls at a very early age, I was labelled as "gay" by the other kids, and because of the way society was then, they hated me for it, and unconsciously I feared it for most of my life. When an acquaintance said something that made me doubt my sexuality, that fear was revealed - now | don't care if I'm gay or straight, and thanks to the magic of the Internet I can pretend no one knows if I'm male or female here, because I don't really care what I am. (though in truth I think anyone here who wants to has figured me out!). Anyway I don't want to hijack your thread!

Your story made my heart sink and race by turns, and brought tears to my eyes where you told us about Emily dying. I am so sorry for your loss, and really very impressed that you seem to be doing well now, and quite envious of your clever projects!
 
Hi Krumlink, I'm very happy to hear from you! I joined in 2010 so while I've seen your posts i don't think we really had any interaction. I had no idea what you were going through. I imagine it must have been difficult to write this, but please know you can find support here. I know a few people in similar positions,but i still can't imagine how hard it's been. Thankfully this world is beginning to develop a better understanding for people in your shoes. I'm sorry you had to deal with what you did.

It's good to have you back :)

Stay strong!

Matt
 
Top notch writing skills by my standards. ;)

FWIW if we ever meet in person the only judgements I make of people are based on whether or not they are trying to make their lives better without making others worse. Color, religion, gender or what ever I don't really use those as any factors in who I will get along with. If anything the worse crap you go through in your life the more I will respect you for sticking with it and getting over it.

Trust me when I say I have rather rough backstory to how I came to be who I am today and some pretty wicked scars on the inside myself from the journey. :(
 
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