Marisa

It is heavily implied that the Highbane are there in purgatory because they committed suicide in the real world and must learn how to accept love and care.

There's an image here.

It gave structure to feelings I couldn't articulate.

I never believed there was any possibility of becoming a girl in real life, so I didn't fantasize much about that.

But for a couple years I daydreamed frequently about dying and becoming a highbane.

My hair was long enough at this point that I passed.

I was frequently assumed female in social situations, and men would often tell me I was in the wrong bathroom.

I longed for delicate reciprocal care with others who somehow understood what I was going through, even though I could hardly understand it myself.

Haibane Renmai showed me this but I had no idea how to find it in the real world.

At 16, boy puberty hit me like a truck.

I became ugly.

I still had no social skills and no friends.

I dressed like a hobo.

The summer after junior year I confronted myself in the mirror and admitted I would never be cute again.

I still desperately wanted to be loved and I believed that the only path to achieving that was becoming a man girls would want to date.

That meant improving my appearance and social skills.

I knew that women find wigs unattractive.

And my long hair was definitely unattractive.

It all melded together.

I had no real-world outlet for my femininity so I'd poured it all into identifying with anime characters.