Quote from: Sephirah on July 03, 2011, 07:26:53 PM
Honey, if I may pose an observation. I don't think it's being or not being transgendered that's actually the underlying issue here. I think the root cause is being unable to accept yourself as an individual, with a place in the world and a voice that has a right to be heard.
It seems from your posts that how other people see you goes a long way towards how you see yourself, and their opinion of you is what you use to gauge your self-worth. You say you can do good things in the world as long as cisgendered people accept you, which suggests that you don't feel able to do the same things by your own merits.
Maybe I'm wrong here, and if so I apologise, but I think the thing holding you back is that you appear to have no real sense of self. It seems like your identity is based upon other people's validation of it.
In order for you to be able to accept yourself as female / transgendered / whichever gender identity you wish to, you first have to accept yourself as a human being, with just as much right to exist, just as much right, and capacity to forge your own path and be happy, as anyone else on this planet. In order to see yourself as a valuable person, you first have to see yourself as a person, then the value will become intrinsically apparent. You aren't an amalgamation of how everyone else sees you, honey, you're a living, breathing individual. Don't let the world define you, you define yourself. Then you can begin to move forward. *hug*
[*hugs*]
I don't know, I've had this since I was very little, at least maybe 5 years old. I was always so aware of how others thought of me. I don't know if it was because my mother spanked me when I was very young (which she has denied to me in recent years, but I know otherwise) along with my dad being a lion when angry. I don't know if it was because I was sensitive and thus easily could be passive. I refused to learn to ride a bicycle at age six because I thought that I was too old to learn to ride one, because kids that were younger than me seemingly already learned, humiliating me. I don't know if it's sensitivity or a friggin ego, or if the ego developed at such a young age to mask the low self esteem.
It didn't help that not only was I always the last picked one in P.E. or in groups in school, but that I was bullied for six years starting at age 7, which really tore apart my self esteem, especially because my mom prevented me from fighting back (because I was in the Jehovahs Witnesses at the time and that I was told not to fight back.) My inability to defend myself contributed to the tearing down of my self esteem, and I moved far away and started fresh in a new school at age 13, but by High School, another tearer of self esteem hit me: I was living in an upper middle class area, and the high school there was full of overachievers which made me feel stupid compared to the other students who took these AP classes and frequently got GPA's of over 4.0, and I only got a GPA of 2.93 to 3.27. It didn't help that I'm half Chinese and there were a lot of asian students there and asian students tend to get ridiculously high grades, making me feel like an embarassment to my dad's race. In addition, I felt bad that everyone around me had romantic relationships except me, and despite my effort to get in a romantic relationship with a girl, my shy feelings were too strong to overcome and I felt so embarrassed at myself for trying to get that girl.
I still hated my inability to defend myself verbally, because others would lie, or throw me curveball answers that I had no idea in answering, because especially before I used to be a slow thinker (compared to others which seemingly thinked and responded at lightning speed). In addition, I'd get easily scared or my mind would side with the other person and tell me like "they are right, you are guilty" when I really wasn't after taking an objective look at the situation later. So my mind sided with the bully or the challenger, leading me to feeling alone when going up against other people. On the internet though, when I first started in 1996, a side of me that was mischevious and provocative came out on the internet to challenge and mock people in a PC vs Console debate forum, and because I had as much time as I could to think and respond to the answers, I actually reveled in getting others angry at me by debating them. This continued to at least 2003, when I got kicked out of a city forum till I came back only under good behavior.
Even yet again, when I was in college, more things to hurt my self esteem: seeing students that worked two jobs and were able to get good grades. For much of my 20's, I felt shame for not having a job and working hard, and felt worthless for it. I tried to compensate for it by wanting to be an entrepreneur (in Silicon Valley spirit) but I Even yet another tearer down of self esteem, was that I didn't go to a prestigious university. I went to Cal State Los Angeles, a state university but a 2nd tier university, and seemingly most people from my high school (as well as people in my dad's family) went to prestigious universities or universities considered higher ranking, like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, or UC Berkeley. I graduated with a bachelors degree but I didn't feel proud of it because I felt that others would look me down for not having a university from a higher tiered school. It doesn't help looking at students from these higher tiered universities making fun and looking down at people from state universities or community colleges. In addition, I had university professors that ridiculed me when I asked certain questions in class, making me feel like I didn't have freedom to ask questions unless they were "good enough."
I both admired and hated looking at stories of young entrepreneurs already having successful companies and making lots of money, because they make others look stupid because they made success look easy.
I still feel like an embarassment to my dad's family because I'm not a successful professional, which Is why I try not to think about it.
I moved to L.A. in 2003 and even though I still struggled with the job issue when I was in college, I felt Los Angeles to be a more accepting place than the Silicon Valley, because the Silicon Valley was full of snobs and unfriendly people that only cared about you if you had a certain status. The damage had already been done though, and I haven't been able to feel that kind of freedom and equality in L.A. that others feel.
Even now with my stock photography business idea that I'm making money out of, I've been struggling to make a sustainable system to be able to get lots of stock photographs put for sale on the internet. I need to if I want to be successful in it so I can move on to doing something else.
I guess probably I had a reason for sustaining a big ego, because I'd probably resort to the same self hatred, depression, and sadness that other with low self esteem would have.
So I guess I've struggled for much of my life in being lower in the ladder in terms of natural selection in society. So why would I believe that I would have a place in this world and a voice that deserves to be heard, especially when I feel like others would get all aggressive on me and push me around and tell me that my voice doesn't have a right to be heard?
Yet there is still a feeling of a fighter deep inside of me, that is fueled by rage, due to all that I've mentally endured in my life.
