No Turning Back Now

 

Well, things took another step forward today. I was contacted by the owner of the therapy group that I hope to get into. She was very understanding and agreed that I should at least do a consult. She even mentioned a support group that she thinks I might be able to join and she is going to check for me. I have some things that need to be checked before I can schedule an  appointment, so I’m waiting to hear back… hope I have some news soon.

Again, I have to say that the further things move along, the more nervous I get. This is something i never thought I would actually do…. at this point I have the shakes so bad I have to keep getting up because I can’t hold the mouse or type well enough to make complete sentences.

I have to say, speaking to another person about this was nerve racking. Although I have written about this all through this blog, it is such a different experience to speak the words out loud. To tell someone I have never met this secret. Don’t get me wrong, the person I spoke to was very kind and understanding and didn’t seem bothered in the least. She also recommended that I see one of the female therapists without being asked. I thought that was very nice. The thought of trying to talk to a man about this wasn’t something I could ever consider.

The funny thing is, despite everything, I feel rather relieved. As I said, things seem to be moving forward. Such a nice change from the up and down way of things as I’ve tried to work though this pretty much alone. I guess that in the end trying to deal with all my other issues on top of this has just been more than I can handle. That I have managed to deal with my episodes of depression, even when they got to a dangerous point, is a miracle. Though maybe, just maybe, had I been seeing someone for that alone I might have avoided the truth about myself. I don’t know if I could have admitted any of this to myself, let alone anyone else, (even a therapist), is a question I will never be able to answer. The fact is that my repressing this likely caused or at least aggravated my depression, even knowing that, I don’t know if I could have told, especially if I was seeing a male therapist. 

No matter what, there is really no turning back now… though to be honest, I think I passed that point the moment I let myself admit the truth of who I am…

Talking About Myself

Has anyone else tried to look back at who they were before they came out? I have just to get a sense of where I was compared to where I am now, and you know what? I can’t do it.

I have a boatload of memories of course, but as I get closer to the night I broke down, they get pretty fuzzy until they become an indecipherable blur. That isn’t what I’m really talking about though. I mean emotionally. 

I tried to step back and look at what I was feeling in those last days and weeks, even months and I find that there is a blank there. I simply cannot connect with those emotions. It’s like who I am now is so far removed from that other person that we simply cannot connect at all.

I don’t understand what he was feeling, why he was feeling that way, or what his thought process was. Again, I have some of the memories but it’s like years of my life have all but vanished into a smear where everything is jumbled and disconnected.

<Sigh> I know I’m not making much sense here, it is such a strange feeling that it hard to describe. It’s like watching a movie for the hundredth time, you know the lines, you remember the scenes, and your pretty sure you remember the actors, but there is no real connection at all. No emotion, everything seems strangely flat and well. poorly written. Whats worse is that you know your the writer, the director, and the actor and still your left wondering what’s happening and what were you thinking when you wrote this mess?

Really, did that help explain things at all? I hope so…

I know that in the weeks following my life and mind were a jumbled mess that was racing along at a thousand miles an hour and i can at least go back and read those old posts and gain some understanding of what I was doing, and why, but from before? It’s like trying to understand an alien life form.

And I’m talking about myself here…

I Hate Scrambled Eggs

 

I took a step forward today.

I finally contacted the therapy group here in town to inquire about their services; I’m waiting to hear back from them to see if they provide the service I need.

I won’t kid you, I’m scared to death. I have never talked to a complete stranger about what’s going on with my gender issues and the very idea of it fils me with dread. I know that these feelings are silly, that I am seeking to talk to a professional. That doesn’t stop something deep inside from insisting that I am making a terrible mistake.

Maybe it is the fact that I have had to hide for so long, keeping the truth of who I know myself to be safe from view. Maybe it was knowing that letting anyone see the true me would lead to nothing but pain.

Whatever the reason, I find that I am getting almost physically ill at the very thought. 

One thing I wasn’t expecting was in filling out the contact form I had to put down my name. I started to put down “Kira” without thinking about it. I had to backtrack and use my male name. I was afraid that they would think I was trying to prank them if I didn’t. What surprised me was how ambivalent I was about writing that name. It is a name I have to use every day, and often do so without too much thought, but that has changed.

This is what I was going to write about today, before I took the plunge and started the process I hope will lead to me talking to a therapist, that fact that when I woke up this morning it hit me that I can’t clearly remember the last time I thought of myself in terms of “his” name. I know it was some time last week, but I can’t recall the reason it happened or what day it was. I have been thinking only in terms of my real name. Thinking in terms of who I am now, not who I was. I am thinking in terms of the real me, not the facade I have been wearing.

In some ways this scares me a bit, the loss of that comfort zone I worked so hard to build and maintain, but that isn’t who I really am and I cannot continue with the lies any more. It is sort of disturbing and confusing because in my public life I have maintain that other persona. 

I know that now I am going to have to watch myself but for different reason from before. 

It makes me feel almost like I’m now living in a parallel universe where every thing is switched. Where before I had to watch and make sure I kept my female side hidden, now I have to watch and make sure I maintain a visible male side. 

It may seem like the same thing, but it isn’t. The focus is different. The thought process is different. The concerns are different.

I don’t know, this is really hard to explain in a way that makes any sense, even to me.

Honestly, my brains feel like scrambled eggs…. and I hate scrambled eggs…

Why?

 

From the very beginning of this crazy ride I’m on, I have struggled to understand myself, who I am, who I hope to be. I have done this within a self constrained framework. What some are wondering is why? Why don’t I just let things happen as they may. Why do I insist on moving forward at such a pace, keeping myself hidden behind my male facade, why don’t I allow myself to be completely free?

There are a number of reasons for this, and yes, they are are my reasons, imposed on myself. It is one of the things that is the hardest, this deliberate pacing of how I move forward. It is one of the things that frustrates me the most, one of the things that more than once has made me grind my teeth and want to scream at the walls. 

But.

I wouldn’t do anything differently, no matter what I might think or say.

 

All my life family has meant something special to me. It might be the fact that I never had what could be called a normal family life growing up, it might be that I vowed that I would never do to my own children what was done to me, it might be that I simply have this ideal of how parents should sacrifice anything for those they help bring into the world.

Should I as a parent still be allowed to be happy? Yes, as long as that happiness does not bring harm to my children. And I do have times of happiness. I have three great kids, who while they sometimes make me question my sanity, I would never give up.

Besides the kids of course, there is my wife. She has be incredible through all of this. Honestly, I don’t know how she put up with me even before I came out. 

In all of my decisions, in everything I do, I take her into consideration. How much can she handle in regards to my needing to express myself? How much does my thoughts and feelings impact her?

For me, those around me are more important than I am. None of them asked to be drawn into this, nor did I really, but that they are here, dealing with this too, is because of me.

I would do anything for them,

Including again becoming “Him” if that is what was required of me.

 

And what of me?

 

 

Who am I that anyone should care?

I am someone who was born wearing the wrong skin. I am someone who dreams of being what she can never be, not on the way I would wish.

I don’t have very many memories of my youngest years, they become clearer starting at age six, but it wasn’t until I was ten that I realized why I was different from the other boys.

When I first came out, indeed when I started this blog, my strongest memory was of dressing in my mothers clothes when I was ten. Because of that I at first thought I was a cross dresser. I have come to understand that I am much more than that. 

Over time I have drawn up more and more memories. I have remembered more and more dreams, thoughts and emotions.

From that very first time putting on women’s clothing, I knew that no matter what my body might look like, I was a girl.

That didn’t make sense of course and caused me a great deal of confusion and more than a little fear.

I was already in an abusive situation and to be sure, this was going to only make things worse. That confusion and fear led me to repress my feelings, my thoughts, my emotions, everything. I went into a full shut down and just tried to be the boy everyone thought I was, that my body told me I should be.

That didn’t stop the dreams. It didn’t stop the fantasies. It didn’t stop the thoughts that forced they’re way through.

It didn’t take away the knowledge that I was female.

Over time the stress of keeping this secret built to the point where I either came close to attempting suicide or making an actual attempt.  I was miserable. I hated myself, the world and everything in it.

The night I finally broke it was a close thing, I had to either come out as who I really was or I would have killed myself. I have no doubt about that. 

 

There would be no more attempts at death, no more attempts at life.

It had finally become a matter of life or death and I chose life.

 

Everything that happened since is in this blog.

Forgiveness

 

I have reached what is proving to be the most difficult time I have had up to this point. 

On one hand I find that I am struggling to understand what I should do now. I feel like I’m stuck in neutral, going nowhere. On the other I’m trying to understand where I should be going when and if I manage to get moving again.

At this point, I really don’t have that feeling of constant conflict that I had in the beginning. Really it has become a matter of working through my emotions, though there have been plenty of times of confusion and the occasional times when I have found my self falling back into “boy mode” and getting angry with myself.

Over all I think I am confused of the matter of what “Transition” means for me. I know that for so many it means seeking to change physically and in that case, they have obvious points of reference by which they can judge where they are at. It becomes much more difficult when the changes I’m seeking are mental. 

I have already experienced a hugh shift in the way I think about myself. The name I refer to myself, the pronouns I use in my internal dialog, and yes, the way I am trying to see myself in the mirror, (though that is very difficult). 

What I don’t understand is what other changes I should be aiming for. This is uncharted territory for me and though I have been doing a lot of looking online, no one has really talked about how their thinking changed and I haven’t found an online resource that addresses this. Maybe I’m just missing something.

 

Having said all that, one thing has changed, something that I know has been somewhere in the back of my mind for awhile…

Forgiveness.

In this I mean being able to finally forgive myself. To forgive myself from both sides of this whole thing.

To forgive the “boy” that I was. To forgive him for the choices he made when there weren’t any choices that he could make. He was there in the forefront for most of my life, taking the brunt of what the world dished out. He did the best he could and for that I am thankful.

I had to forgive him for keeping me in a box, locked and hidden from sight. Why it was done doesn’t matter anymore, I understand that he was doing what he thought was best when he didn’t know what else to do.

I also had to forgive her, that girl inside, who I am now in so many ways. I know that she could no longer remain in that box, that she couldn’t sit quietly any longer.

Now is her time.

I know that in coming out she has turned my life inside out, caused pain and confusion. That wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her intention. It was just the way things had to happen.

In this understanding I know this. She has forgiven him, just as he has forgiven her.

 

I don’t want this to become too confusing. I have been and indeed am, both of these. They are me and I am them. In this I have to make peace with “him” who is my past just as I have had to make peace with “her” who is my present and my future.  

I cannot think of moving forward as long as I have regrets from my past, what happened, happened and I cannot change that, nor really should I want to. It is that past which brought me to where I am now.

I also cannot move forward as long as I look at where I am at this moment and blame “her” for what my life has become. She has always been there and I cannot deny her existence any more than I can deny the need to breath.

I don’t want to deny anything anymore, not to myself I don’t. It isn’t fair to myself to try and act like half of myself doesn’t exist. In fact, i couldn’t do so even if I wished.

And so I must forgive myself. 

And I do.

I want nothing more than to be at peace with myself. That is what forgiveness will give me.

Where will I go from here? As I said in the beginning, I don’t know. 

I just hope this is a step in the right direction.

 

 

Acceptance?

 

 

Knowledge, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness.

Are these the steps to finally coming to peace with yourself? Coming to peace with your thoughts, memories, emotions?

I find myself wondering what it means to accept myself. 

This is something i am told that I need to do.

“You have to accept the truth about yourself.”

What “truth” is that? 

How do I know when I have achieved it?

In figuring out what questions I think I need to answer to figure this out I have come up with the following information that I cannot dispute;

I have physical, phycological, and emotional scars. I know where some came from, others I do not, but they are there.

I have lived with depression and suicidal thoughts from at least the age of ten.

I have have either cross dressed or thought/dreamed/fantasied about doing so since the age of ten or eleven.

I have thought of being a girl/woman since about the same age.

I have on more than a few occasions wished/dreamed/begged to wake up and be a real girl/woman.

I have been a girl/woman as my dream self.

I have wanted desperately to be included in the groups of women I have found myself around, I have wanted to be part of the conversation, part of the unspoken sisterhood that they enjoy.

I know that if I could take a pill, make a wish, be part of an experiment, that would allow me to change genders, I would do so without hesitation even if it might kill me or I could never change back.

When I finally broke and admitted my feelings I felt as if a ten ton weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

These are all things I have long known about myself. I cannot deny them any more than I could deny having blue eyes.

Where are the questions? 

Well it is in how I react to some things. 

I don’t feel any change in myself while wearing women’s clothing. I enjoy wearing them, I enjoy the way I look in them after all it allows me to have a physical connection to the way I see myself inside, but really, when you cut everything else away, I feel the same as I do while wearing mens clothing. I am still me, that’s all, nothing more. There is no “charge” or excitement. 

Wearing make up does nothing more than improve my looks a bit, because honestly, I don’t see myself as very attractive and no amount of make up is going to change that.

Even when dressing stealth I feel that the things I am wearing are really nothing at all, I have the right to be wearing them, they are the things I have no reason to not be wearing.

I know that when I look in the mirror I see a face that doesn’t really belong to me. Yes, it is the face that I have worn all my life, but it’s more like a bad joke, like I someone came along while I was sleeping and glued this face over my real one. 

Having male “parts” isn’t something I find distressful, I would rather be a physical female, but I can live with what I have. I guess that I have had this body long enough that I’m simply use to it.

The hardest part of this is not seeing any change in myself. Because to this point everything has been internal… changes in the way I think about things, the way i feel about things, and even those couldn’t be called major. There haven’t been any large scale shifts in the way I seem to see myself in my minds eye, when I just let myself drift, I don’t notice any real difference in the way things work.

There are no physical reference to mark any change. There isn’t any effects of hormones or surgeries that I can point to and say, “There! There is proof I have made these changes!”

Just how am I suppose to be different from before?

How can I tell if there has really been a transition? How can I tell what is the “new” me and what of the “old” me is gone?

It is not having any markers to show my progress, or lack there of, that I am having such a problem with. How am I suppose to know that all of this isn’t just in my head? Maybe I’m just plain out crazy…

 

Heh… I guess as long as I think things might just in my head, then I haven’t accepted myself…. 

 

 

 

 

Just A Strange Day

 

Today has been really strange. 

Personally, I would describe the day as mushy… though I know that doesn’t make sense.

My thoughts seem to be padded in cotton, nothing is urgent or pressing, Nothing has made me feel anxious or even uncomfortable.

I spent the entire day trying to figure out what I could post about and really nothing came to mind. I read other posts and even spent time on one forums that I frequent. 

The only thing that caught my attention was a thread dealing with the issue of being TG without the driving need to transition physically.

That is where I am right now, and I read more than a few people who have come to terms with their feelings on the matter. People who were where I am at one point, that is feeling as if they didn’t fit into the TG conversation because they didn’t share the experience of going through physical tradition. That maybe they weren’t really TG at all because all they had read, the only conversation they had seen, was about those who were not only going through that physical transition, but were also spending more and more time living as their target gender while they were not.

I understand those feelings completely. Time after time I have questioned if I am TG when I am reading about those going through the process of physical transition while I do not have that driving need.

My needs are more in regards to my mental and emotional transition. 

There are many reasons why I’m not concerned with my physical transition, reasons that I cannot do anything about and that I am coming to accept. My mental and emotional transition is another matter all together. 

That is something that I can work on, it is something that I can get help with. It is something that I want and need to become comfortable with, it is something I want to fully accept and embrace.

Fears

 

My last two posts were really dealing with the same issue; fear. I’ll admit that in the end I am scared to death of facing myself. 

I am scared of invalidation.

I am scared that when I finally face myself in the reflection of someone else’s eyes, I will find that I am not what I have come to believe is true of myself. 

I imagine this is nothing new to all the others who have walked this path before me, I’m sure everyone has had doubts. Everyone has had those times when they look in the mirror and wonder what they have been thinking. After all, if you talk to most of the people around you, you will find that they have never had any of the thoughts or questions that have been driving you to distraction. I know that is where I am right now. I have asked questions, I have sought opinions, and I have looked for validation from those around me and have found that they, one and all, have never really even thought of the things that I have.

Never thought, fantasized, or dreamed of being the opposite gender, the thought never even crossed their minds,

They have never thought about dressing as the opposite gender other than as a joke for Halloween.. and most times not even then.

They have never really wondered if they were in the wrong body.

They could never imagine, even for a moment, waking up one day and being the opposite gender even for an hour.

They have never questioned if they thought or acted as the opposite gender. They never wanted to and if they did it would mean that they were acting “gay”, not as an actual member of the opposite gender.

When forced to consider gender roles they never wondered if they were in the wrong one.

The question is then, why do I think this way? Why do I ask myself these questions? Just what is wrong with me?

In trying to find answers, I have basically self diagnosed. Doing research online, looking to blogs and forums and web sites.

I have taken the stupid online tests that really don’t tell you anything that you don’t want to hear.

I have tried to question myself, my motivations, my memories, my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams.

I have, and continue to question everything, not to talk myself out of accepting who I am, but to know.. to know with as much certainty as I can, that what I believe to be true is indeed true.

I have lived one lie after another, after another until I am at a point where I simply do not trust myself. I don’t trust my feelings, my thoughts, my memories.

Nothing.

So in the end, I fear that I will be invalidated, that I will find that this is nothing more than another self deception. That I am the worst kind of liar… someone who can’t even be honest with herself.

But as I said, I can’t live in constant fear, I cannot refuse to face myself. To face the truth no matter what that truth might prove to be.

I have to know.

Once and for all, I have to know.

When I strip everything else away, this is the truth I cannot escape.

I am afraid.

I am terrified.

Of myself.

 

Be Careful What You Wish For

 

“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.”

How many times have I heard that saying?

How many times have I said it myself?

At what point did I decide to ignore the simple truth it relates?

 

Ugh! 

I’ve lost track of how much time I’ve spent on this post. How much time I have spent thinking about it, about what to write, how to write it…. should I write it at all?

 

Weeks…. more weeks that I care to think about, but this just won’t leave me be. It won’t just shut up and go away.

 

I have written, read… rewritten and reread…. rinse and repeat.

 

What has me in such a tizzy? 

What has been eating at me, gnawing at my brain and my resolve?

 

I find myself all too close to taking a step that I have said I need to take. A step that I must take if I am ever going to move forward from being a ghost on the internet. 

 

Talking to someone in the real world about my TG/TS and depression. Going out and talking with a professional.

 

Soon my oldest has an appointment with his therapist and A wants me to talk to him about who he would recommend for me. She hasn’t pushed me exactly, but she has made her wishes known and I have to admit that I agree with her. I need to talk with someone who has dealt with others like myself, someone who can help me work through all this crazy stuff that has become my life. Some one who might be able to point me to local resources I haven’t been able to find on my own, such as support groups.

 

I know this is the right thing to do, I know it’s what I need to do. I can only do so much on my own.

 

 

 

 

And yet I find myself dragging my feet every step of the way. I have already spent hours looking into local therapists and I know who lists TS issues as something they treat, and yet I haven’t so much as called for a consultation. 

 

I swear, you’d think I didn’t really want to deal with this.

 

I do…. I do want to deal with this. I want answers, as much as I can ever have them. I want to understand what I am dealing with, I want to understand myself…

 

 

 

 

Yet I am terrified of what lies before me. I am terrified of the truth I might find.

 

The very thought of opening this Pandora’s Box leaves me shaking and very nearly in tears.

 

I dread the idea of talking to someone who knows enough about these issues that they can tell me I’m full of crap. That everything I have dealt with over the past months isn’t anything to do with being TG, that I have done nothing more that convince myself of something when it’s all in my head.

 

I dread being told that it’s not all in my head. That what I have been thinking, what I have been feeling is real and valid. That I am everything I have thought myself to be….. and more.

 

I dread finding that in the end I will need to make changes that will destroy my life.

 

What I am dealing with now has already put a tremendous strain on me, finding myself facing full transition is more that I can think about.

 

I may never have to make those decisions, but the fact that they exist makes me sick to my stomach. I never wanted to have everything turned upside down and inside out. 

 

I never wanted this.

 

I never asked for this.

 

 

 

 

I’ll be honest with you, I am scared. So scared that it is everything I can do not to get up from this computer and just walk out the door. Not to break down….

 

God, I don’t want to cry again.

 

I hate this, you know that? I really, really do. Down to the very depths of my soul, I hate this.

 

I never wanted to feel like this.

 

I never wanted life to be this way.

The Land of the Free?

 

There were two stories that came out that got me thinking. The first from RollingStone: Tom Gabel of Against Me! Comes Out as Transgender. The second from Thinkprogress: President Obama Endorses Marriage Equality.

The first, about Tom Gabel transitioning to become Laura Jane Grace has me asking the questions, will she be accepted? If so, why? If not, again why? With so many others out there going through the heart breaking decision on wether or not of even come out of the closet, never mind going through full transition, why is Laura’s story news worthy when others are not? Is is because she is in the public eye already? Is it because she has access to a prodigious news outlet and thus can get her voice heard? I don’t know the answers, but I believe it bears thinking about.

The second, President Obama finally takes a stand on marriage equality. In this, I have to ask, why is this even an issue? In a country that makes such a big deal about the separation of church and state, why is there even a debate over an issue that is so deeply rooted in religious beliefs? If we truly believe that one person doesn’t have the right to force their religious beliefs on others then a civil matter such as marriage as it relates to a persons rights should be legal regardless of who the people involved happen to be. Regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. I’m not saying that a church or denomination should be forced to perform those marriages if it goes against their beliefs, people can go to the courthouse. I will say that those same churches and denominations do not have the right to force their beliefs onto those who do not share them.

In a country that claims to be “The Land of the Free”, is is disgusting and disturbing that so many are anything but.