Topic: Allie’s Blog (or “The Blog Absolutely No One Demanded!”)

[davina61]

Didnt put my point over very well either , yes the thought of going out dressed and being pointed out/mocked put me off for a bit but turned out to be fine.

[jennifer7020]

Also guilty of a poor read. Although I plead that I am in a kind of fog as things are reaching a head here.

[ImAllie]

Also guilty of a poor read. Although I plead that I am in a kind of fog as things are reaching a head here.

How dare you try to claim that your imminent real life drama is an EXCUSE for giving me less than your full attention and perfect advice? I mean... REALLY. For Shame!!!   

Hang in there Jenn!!!!

Love,
Allie

[ImAllie]

For those who have come out, do you remember the time just before you did so? Did EVERYTHING seem like a coincidence? Did you see signs all over the place? I’m trying not to overreact to stuff, but you know what they say… you’re not paranoid if you’re actually being followed! 😂

Today, my wife and I drove out of state to go visit my sisters (who all live near each other). All of us (and my brothers-in-laws) went out for a nice lunch. It was great.

As it happens, all my sisters and my wife were wearing pink. And one of my sisters said, “oh it looks like all the women got the pink memo.”  And then she paused and added. “Well, all those who are assigned female at birth, anyway.”

I was sitting at the other end of the table from her, with sunglasses on, talking to another sister, and I think she was just making a joke maybe? Or being PC? Or … I don’t know. But I’ve NEVER heard her use that terminology before.

No one (including me) reacted to it at all so I’m guessing maybe I’m the only one who even remembers her saying it.  But as the day went on, I started to think… does she know something? There’s no way, I don’t think.  I’d be glad if she did, in many ways.

Or was it just another coincidence that I’m seeing because I’m in the mode of seeing coincidence in EVERYTHING right now?

That’s why I’m asking if people recall being in this mode when you were close to coming out… is this going to be an every day thing? Did I overreact to that? I mean, in the moment I didn’t react at all.. but here I am, writing about it.  LOL

Love,
Allie

[TXSara]

Allie --

That's an interesting one. 

Going back MANY years, there were times that my wife would make little remarks that made me think that she knew I had these tendencies.  At that time, I didn't really know I was transgender -- I just thought I had some sort of weird compulsion for wearing women's clothing.  By the time I told her that I dressed, I actually thought that she already knew somehow.  She didn't. 

She was wonderful that day, BTW.  I was completely freaked out and shaking while I told her.  Her first words were, "That's IT?" LOL.  She thought I was about to tell her that I was leaving her, having an affair, etc.  When it was ONLY crossdressing, she was relieved.  She did say, though, that she wouldn't be able to handle it if I ever fully transitioned.  At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal because that wasn't on my radar at all.  Oops.

Chances are that the little jokes leading up to that day were (a) because I have pretty feminine tendencies in how I walk, gesture, etc. and (b) I was really sensitive to them, so I would remember every one.  It might be the same for you.

~Sara

[ImAllie]

It’s likely   that my sister, who is a psychologist, has a transgender client? Or was reading a journal article or something? It could be any number of non-conspiratorial things… but since I’m in paranoia mode, everything reads “suspicious” to me.  LOL

I’m glad you experienced the same thing, Sara.  Like I said, I’m sure it was nothing… it’s just funny how I can tell even when I’m not thinking about all this, I very much AM thinking about all this. 

[ImAllie]

Ok, I give up.

Not in a bad way... just in a "Ok, universe... I'm sorry I doubted you" kinda way.

You know those things I keep asking about? Am I seeing too many "coincidences"? Is it all in my head?  Well, you're not paranoid if someone is chasing you, right?  Tonight, I realized I'm Indiana Jones and the Universe is the boulder.

Went to a minor league baseball game with my wife. We have season tickets.

Pregame we grabbed some food and sat down at a table.  I guess it was starting to get crowded, because this woman comes up and says "do you mind if we share your table?"

Now, this is the second year of the park. So probably around our 50th game? This is the 1st time anyone has asked to share a table. I mean, you know, who does that? Especially in COVID times, right?

When we were NYC last summer at a game, standing at a much smaller table a woman and her kids walked up and asked to share our table and my wife very calmly said "are you vaccinated?" and the woman freaked out, screamed at us and left.  We took that as a "no."  LOL

So when this woman asked, I was expecting my wife to ask that question.  But she just looked up and said "sure."

Bigger table, we're quadruple vaxed..rates are lower... I guess things like that.  Anyway, the woman sits and then another woman sits too. I immediately realize that the second woman is a transwoman, and the husband of the first woman. She looks great, at least 15 years younger than her wife, honestly. Her wife looked really tired and was all bundled up... and she was dressed brightly and more summery (it was like 70 degrees at game time).

Anyway, we had a nice chat with them. Her wife didn't talk much but she did... she and I chatted, my wife chatted too. and since we had been eating when they arrived we finished first and left the table to them and told them to enjoy the game.

I waited for my wife to say something when we walked away and she didn't say a thing. I didn't think it made any sense to bring it up... but I did mention the fact that the let the "no vax" thing slide and she just laughed and said she "made a judgement call" as they looked like nice, vaccinated people. LOL

Again, she said nothing about anything else.

But this is probably just another one of those coincidences... that probably happens to me every day and I'm just making more of it than it really is, right?
Right?
LOL  Seriously... like I said... Universe? I give up!!

Love,
Allie

[davina61]

Trust the Universe, feel the force (had to put that in!) . Its looked after me so far, now where's my loto win---------

[ImAllie]

My time trusting the universe may be crashing down on me a bit... as events in the last 24 hours have conspired to, I believe, forced me to push my time table back 6-10 weeks.  I'm trying not to overreact. In fact, I think in coming to this conclusion I'm doing so by looking at this ONLY with logic and reason and by keeping emotion out of it.  But I'm also on shaky ground so I'm not sure of myself.
Luckily I have a therapy appointment on Thursday so I can talk it all through.

Here's the short (ish) version.

The initial plan was as follows: Mid June is our 30th anniversary.  Telling my wife before then seemed wrong, and since we have a little anniversary vacation planned... I thought the nicest way was to wait until we returned, let a little space go by (a few weeks) and then tell her.  Telling her right when we got home is as bad as telling right before we left.  So anyway, that WAS the plan.

Until yesterday.

I need to have some oral surgery. I'm having some dental implants put in. If any of you have dealt with this before you know... its a painful, bloody mess. It's a slow heal, but at least after a few days you're basically ok to do most things and eat soft things, etc.  And aren't changing gauze all the time.

I had them on the bottom and it took a while to heal and the swelling to go down.

The issue is not the surgery itself, it's the scheduling of it. Because even after our anniversary trip we have a lot of mini-trips planned this summer, when I tried to schedule the surgery, the available dates kept bumping up against these trips. Like it would be the day before we left. That wouldn't work.

So I had to push surgery off until the 3rd week in July.  And my oral surgeon is 90 minutes from me.  So I kind of feel that, while I'm hoping for the best, I need to prepare for the worst here. I don't want to have everything blow up in my face with my wife and then suddenly have no way to get back and forth to my surgery. Or to be dealing with it while we're in some heated arguments or worse.  That seems like an awful idea.

It seems like the logical plan would be to have the surgery, let it heal for a week and then tell her.  Which means instead of end of June we're talking about beginning of August.

And when you want the rest of your life to start yesterday, that really stinks.  Especially when what feels like, right now, the biggest part of the "rest of my life" - my wife understanding the truth of what I've learned about myself and who I am? To intentionally keep that from her for more time seems wrong.

But it does seem like it makes sense.

I don't know, maybe my judgement is clouded on this.  I really can't tell.

Would appreciate any feedback. Also, as I said, really glad I have therapy in a few days.

Love,
Allie                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

[Allison R]

I understand this completely, Allie. I have wondered for me if it isn't a bit of fear as well. I can honestly say that I am going to be able to come up with valid reasons not to tell her from now til eternity if I let myself. At some point I am going to have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and just realize there will never be an ideal time to have this talk. And just have it. Right now I am still realistically 2-3 months from my newest set of conditions being met. Will there be another valid reason to wait at that point? Indubitably. (I have always loved the way that word sounds.)

I am sorry that there has been more roadblocks put in your way. I know how frustrating and anxiety inducing it is.

Allison

[ImAllie]

Hey Allison - yes, exactly. There's never going to be a perfect time... and I worried that what I was doing was artificially creating another roadblock for myself. But after sleeping on it I really do think this is a legit reason to push things off.  And while it is frustrating, I also know that I get ONE chance to do it right... or at least one chance to do it as well as I possibly can, so whatever I can do to maximize the odds of it being a positive result for me, and most importantly, a non-traumatic experience for my wife, I want to do.  I can't control that last part... but like I said, I can do things that maybe can somewhat impact the liklihood of things going as well as possible.

So I'll run all this by my therapist on Thursday and see where she comes down.

I'm sure I'll never truly be ready to do this... but I do know that I'll feel so much better once it's done that going forward is inevitable and I want it to happen as soon as feasible.

Just trying to keep my energy positive

Love,
Allie

[ImAllie]

Had a good therapy session the other day. My therapist was in total agreement that waiting until after my oral surgery made the most sense. There is no “perfect” time, but there are “worse” ones.. and she felt that delaying was the best thing I could do both for myself and my wife, which was my goal.
I was so concerned that I was putting up artificial barriers and she absolutely said that I was not.  Just another reminder, for those who haven’t taken the leap, being able to speak to a professional gender therapist about all of this… is transformative. And now in the age of Zoom, you don’t have to limit yourself to someone just around the corner (although insurance-wise you do normally still need to be in the same state).

Changing subjects, I remembered something I did not mention to her… and something that I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t really pick up on until recently.

For YEARS I’ve had what I have called “itchy nights”.. nights were I can’t sleep because, well, I’m just incredibly itchy. Like I want to peel the skin from my body…I can’t stop scratching everywhere from head to toe.  I think my wife is the one that started calling them “itchy nights”.. like I woke her up in the middle of the night once and she rolled over and said “is it another itchy night?” And it stuck.  It would drive me crazy, I’d say I wanted to get up and go shave off all the hair on my entire body to make it stop.  Stuff like that. 

Well, I never connected that to anything gender related. I know, stupid, right?  Even once I started to understand what gender dysphoria was… and my body hair IS a big dysphoria trigger for me… I still never connected those nights with it. Until a few months ago when I was saying those things about shaving all my hair off and I heard myself saying it.. and I realized how much I really DID want to do it.. for so many reasons… and then I realized it was connected.

And also they frequency of these nights? They used to be a rare thing. Monthly maybe? Even less so? Now it’s weekly or even more.  And because I’m now aware of the connection… I try NOT to say those things outloud… and holding it in just makes it worse and more intense.. and the whole thing just makes me itchy sitting here.

This morning, in fact, my wife commented about how frequently Ive been having these itchy nights lately and she knows they’re tough for me as they’re so frustrating to me.  I don’t know really know what to say or how to deal with it.

On the one hand I’m glad I was able to connect the dots on this, but on the other hand, wow how dense am I that it took this long to do so? It seems really obvious now that I’m looking at it.

Love,
Allie