General Attitude towards life and people before transition

[Lori]

For those that are well into transition, or have already transitioned and can remember, what were the days like before you transitioned? I dont mean the previous 20 years or so I mean the weeks before things just caved in and you said..."NO MORE!!!!".

My attitude sucks. Its not bad, its horrible. I hate everybody and everything. I dont want to talk to anybody, deal with anybody, be seen by anybody, see myself, go to work, go outside, don't want to eat, cannot sleep, its sucks. I've only lost 50 lbs and have 30 to go before I reach my goal. Getting old has done its damage. After my first failed transition attempt and gaining untold amount of weight, I've learned everything I need to know to get through it a second time. Perhaps I've learned too much because the first time I was basically going into it with ignorance...and bliss. I wasnt afraid of society and christians or bathrooms. After "studying" I have probably become too educated on the matter. Now I'm scared to do it. I know I have to face this "pink elephant" that is in the room and soon. It's just something that is not going to go away and I know that now. No matter how much I love my son, my job, my house, If I cannot love myself its got to end. I have lost my choice of death with the birth of my son, I must live to help him. If that means being a woman to do it then that is what I must face.

Many say I would know when my bell was rung, it rang hard last year. I've been suffering in pretty much silence. My mom knows all about me from the first transition and knows I have to do this and soon to its finality. She even offered to help by paying for some of the electro and orchi and other things to get it started. I'm out to all my friends and a few co-workers and an office manager. I am not out to any of my bosses. I work for a group of Dr's and although you would think people in the medical field would be understanding, many are very religious 

And there are 26 of them that own the practise so I have 26 bosses. That is a lot of convincing and coming out to do in the future and I absolutley am terrorfied of that. I have been using my "alone" time and buried my nose so far down into Fedora Core6 I can set up an HTTPD Apache web server with PHP and CGI scripting, Dovecot, Postfix, SSH, Squirrelmail Webmail, SSL, MYSQL, LDAP, FTP, DNS, Webmin, ISPCONFIG, and Hylafax fax server, etc.....and do it blindfolded. Guess I'll find some forum software and load it next because I have run out of things to do on it. I belive I know why TS are so intelligent....the hours I have spent dealing with the most complicated crap to escape who and what I was has taught me some very interesting things over my life.

Back to the original question, what was your life/attitude like just before you caved in?

[rhonda13000]

I feel like something that the cat dragged in, but I'll be going to bed, shortly. I just wish that a good man was lying next to me.

Prior to initiating transition, or prior to fully transitioned?

Before I started, I was a socially and emotionally stunted reclusive shell of a human being, shunning people but concomitantly craving contact with the same.

But I just couldn't. So, I 'projected' out of emotional self-defense negativity and negative perceptions toward and of people.

I lived an anhedonic existence; I hated life.

That all changed, when I began transition.

I feel for you and I understand. Perhaps, you can relate to this: Superior intelligence proved to be an effective social weapon, defense and survival tool.

But not without great cost. I used it as an additional reason and justification for social distancing and isolation.

But it was unnatural and only served to greatly exacerbate my pain.

I pray that you cannot empathize with this, but I suspect that you really can.

[cindianna_jones]

I had a breakdown and checked into a hospital.  I got over it pretty quick after talking to the first psychiatrist who understood me.  After I came out of the funny farm, I never looked back.  I wrote about it in "The Rise from the Fall" from my book. It also will sometimes come for a stay in my blog space here. 

Cindi

[Elizabeth]

I tried to kill myself with a handfull of painpills. Six days later I went full time. I simply had nothing to lose.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[cindianna_jones]

Elizabeth, my story is not unlike yours.  At that moment, I felt that I had lost everything of value in my life. I had been stripped of every ounce of dignity. I felt that no one, not one single person, could understand me. I know that I would have shot myself had it not been for my secretary who encouraged me to get a hold of my therapist.  And after that, they could take no more from me.  I had nothing else to lose.

Cindi

[rhonda13000]

Elizabeth, my story is not unlike yours.  At that moment, I felt that I had lost everything of value in my life. I had been stripped of every ounce of dignity. I felt that no one, not one single person, could understand me. I know that I would have shot myself had it not been for my secretary who encouraged me to get a hold of my therapist.  And after that, they could take no more from me.  I had nothing else to lose.

Cindi

You know Cindi, I find you terribly interesting and intriguing...a woman of thought, a woman of mind...

It's an honor and a pleasure to be acquainted with you.

"The Breaking Point..."

What are the limits of human endurance--of one's endurance?

I think that the vast body of the populace really has no idea; most have never found themselves driven to that point....

It's distantly parallel to what has been stated about being in combat: one cannot be certain how one will react and function in combat, until one is actually immersed into the same.

But if there is anything that strikes me about this thread lo, about us in general, it's that we have probed and oft discovered those limits.

We know, don't we?