To start out, I must say, I'm always initially uncomfortable doing introduction posts. Most of the time I just want to come in, say 'hi', and then run away as fast as possible... and then I always end up writing a great deal more than I expected to.
So anywhere, hello.
Do I start off with my name? My name is Sal Eli H., even if it wasn't my birthname, it most certainly is mine. As my dad likes to say, I was found in a cabbage patch. My mom wanted to take me home, and my dad was all 'just leave it... if the mother smells our scent, the thing will die.' They ended up taking me home, and I ended up being bald for two years. I'm sure you don't want to hear about all those interesting years where I burped and slept, and had the most awesome teddybear ever (his name is David, he's still around... I think I threw him across the room the other day. He stole the remote control. Jerk).
Oh no, infant years, you don't need to hear about. Perhaps you'd like to hear something more exciting? Let's see, in a nutshell. I have a mom, and I have a dad, and I have a younger sister (that often gets mistaken for being the older sibling... of course, I guess if she's compared to the guy who wears a pikachu belt, well... I guess there's a point). I started school when I had already turned five, and I within kindergarten I made the wicked sick hand turkey. I used colored rice for the feathers. It was epic, you should see it, jealousy will abound.
I guess I was like any average kid when I grew up. Did what my mom told me to, buried my sisters barbies in a mudpit (and then had to buy them all back -_-), got stitches, played videogames, hung out at the shack of a beach house we used to have. I grew up with a love for fantasy, and cartoons, and being against the grain. I've never been a social butterfly, and for that, never really had more then a few friends at a time, if any at some times. I was a bit sheltered too, my mom talked to our cable provider to block certain channels out, so that me and my sister where fed a delicious diet of Disney, and Nickelodeon. Never had a reason to question it until years later when I was upset we couldn't enjoy Beevis and Butthead. I never knew about alternative lifestyles, or those who felt they were different from how they were born. There were certain things that were obvious to me, Rabbit and Tigger were married, dresses were gross and meant to be dirtied, and school was fun.
Was fun.
It was around 6th grade that my best friend moved away, she was going through what me and my sister had gone through three years ago, divorce. My mom got custody, and I never realized that her dad would. She moved away, and like that my world turned unbearable. I should have known, but I didn't, that I didn't follow the same drummer as others. I'd come in with my hair cut short after having a tantrum because my mom was, yet again, growing it out to my hips. Or cornrows, or wearing tie-dye, or my lovely hawaiian shirts. It was a town of... more expensive tastes, and I just liked to run around, and wear whatever. There were other things, but I can't remember them now, or an utter hatred for what was considered 'girly' endevours. I would withstand makeovers, and using those painful rip you nose off cleansing strips because it was considered bonding activities at that age, trying to sort out what kind of 'girl' you wanted to be. I just saw it as a chance to be close to others. At one point I must have said something... except I can't remember it, I blocked it out, I guess. I knew it wasn't of the norm, not for them at least. Something that made them uncomfortable, and suddenly put me in the spotlight of 'wrongness'.
Can't say I really want to remember.
All I know was 6th and 7th grade became the most miserable time of my life. You know those movies you see when that 'weird' person comes into the cafeteria, and sits down and everybody moves away? I got to experience that, with people who used to be my friends, or I thought they were, they just moved away from me. Or they'd let me sit there and ignore me. I tried to do what they did, tried to wear what they did feeling distinctly uncomfortable the entire time, tried to listen to the same music. Nothing worked, it was like I had a disease, and when I look back, it's possible that they think I probably did. A girl who wanted to be a boy was strange to them, scary, uncomfortable. But they didn't stay away, not for long.
I took to sitting at a table by myself. A 24-seat table. The teachers saw this as a good opportunity to punish other students, so when there were troublemakers, they were made to sit with me. At first it was punishment, until the guys that had to sit with me, found out that I could talk, and that I wasn't an idiot, or weird. That didn't mean they sought me out though, they had their own friends, I had no friends. Sometimes people forgot on weekends, and I got to play flashlight tag, that was fun. In seventh grade is when depression hit for the first time. I was miserable, isolated, lonely, confused, and to top it off girls that were my friends were threatening to kill me. I couldn't understand what was so wrong with me that people would hate me, and want to kill me. I tried to think of how I would do it for them, pills were the easiest, but I stared with longing at knives. I never let anyone know, not until years later.
We moved.
Not because of me, but because my mom got remarried. I ended up crying on my last day of seventh grade. People filling out my yearbook with nice messages, about not waiting to be able to see me next year, phone numbers, happy faces, 'you rocks', 'remember science class'. Where were these people when I was being bullied? Where were they when I was all alone. I was glad I was moving, but so upset too, because what if next year would be better? What if these people wanted to be my friend!
I never found out, and looking back, I'm glad, because I didn't need death threats when puberty started in eighth grade, myself was enough. Now, it should be noted, my sister started puberty when she was in sixth grade, before me even (I am 2 years older), and I thought 'good, now I don't have to go through it'. How wrong I was, it attacked, visciously. And I hated every second of it, it brought on terrible thoughts that I still haven't been able to share with my mom. The day I had to get my first bra, I just wanted to take a knife and stab until they were gone, to cut them off. They weren't me! I wasn't suppose to have them! How did I explain this to anyone without upsetting anyone. Because that was a main concern of mine, I had already lost people in my life, I had already been treated like an outsider, what did I say? How could I say it without getting others upset? So I didn't, I stayed quiet, daydreaming about things that weren't happening. I took to wearing baggy clothes, and a sports bra if I could, but it didn't help when I finally stopped 'growing', and DD. I cried, and wrote fanfic about myself, of when my body would be right, of waking up and seeing that they had come off like suction cups. To me, that was the only thing that made me different from who I wanted to be, I didn't know about others things.
What didn't help was my homelife, it seemed that when puberty for young girls happen, all everyone can talk about it one day getting married, and how many babies they wanted to have. The idea of it not only disgusted me, but terrified me, like I would have nightmares about it. My mom was sad, but supportive, but her second husband wasn't. I can still remember his words, and the fear they invoked, the anger. 'Oh, you're going to end up with like seven babies, in the kitchen. It's what you were made to do.' 'you'll have babies, a lot of them, and you'll like it.' 'you'll find a husband and he'll make you want babies.' I know now how abusive it was, but at the time I didn't know how to handle myself, I replied with tears and yelling, and the walls suffered more than once (and my hand, because walls are hard).
Things got better though, after the man showed his true colors to my mom, she divorced him, and we moved to another house in the same town because me and my sister actually liked our school, and the kids in them. Oh wow! I forgot to say, I had friends! Friends that liked watching anime with me, like Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z (ah toonami). Everything was going pretty good, and I was starting to become happy. And then I met my (now ex-) friend.
She was... well... goth. Remember how Hottopic used to be? Wideleg Jenco pants? All that stuff, that was her. She accepted my weirdness once we got into highschool and my other friends started cheerleading, or went to different schools because of the district. When I got a bloody nose in class, she thought it was cool, eventually a friendship was made. She gave me bands to listen to, like Godsmack, Orgy (still one of my favorites), Korn, Rammstein. Bands that let me scream. I taught her how to enjoy books, to go out and do things, I taught she didn't have to grow up to be like the rest of her family. We started rping, and that's when I finally got to be myself. Male character after male character, some gay, some straight, some bi, always male. I found a release for my confusion, and she was alright with it. I didn't realize that she was doing a good job at alienating me from other people my age. I was too happy that I was able to act like I felt, even if I wasn't able to look it. Of course that turned weird as well, because eventually she took to pining me down and kissing me. Now she wasn't a small girl (240lbs? at least), and I didn't want to make her angry, because I wanted to be her friend, so I let her do it. I didn't enjoy it, nor did I prompt it. It never went further, but maybe it was because I had no interest, nor was I attracted to girls. Oh, I tried, I had a girlfriend, and I had a boyfriend (for four days... he wanted me to be his subserviant little girlfriend... ah yeah, so not happening).
Around the same time I had did the final cut to my hair, my mom had been keeping me growing it out, by not it was down to the small of my back, and I cut it all off at the nape of my neck. My mom cried for a good three hours after... but I just, didn't want to be that person anymore. I also started to read a webcomic called Boy Meets Boy.
It was there that my epiphany hit. I believe I was in the highschool library when I saw one of the characters show up after they'd been gone for a while. Before they were last seen wearing a dress, long hair, and when they returned had short hair, and was wearing more masculin clothes. This was my first time finding out about being trans*gender. I wanted to stand up and start screaming. That's me! That's me!! Other people are like me!!! Look look!! It was like birthday and christmas all rolled into one. I did state before that I was a sheltered child. It was scary too, because, it hit so dead on that what did that mean for me? What could I do? What could I say? So I became introspective about it, kept it to myself, but it never left my thoughts. For that day in 2003 onwards, I considered myself male, I had accepted myself as such, I just didn't know how to share it.
Online it was easy, I just said I was and no one thought different. I couldn't do it in day to day life, even if I wanted to. I didn't want to hurt my mom, and I didn't want to be bullied again, I had already gone through that... not fun.
Cut to years later, and if I wasn't lazy, I would go check my livejournal. Well, actually, that didn't happen first. First, I moved out of my mom's house, and started living with a great person, she was loud, vibrant, open to all different things of the world. She liked anime, and sci-fi, and zombies, and it was wonderful. She fell in love with a beautiful girl, and later told me that this beautiful girl (Bettie Page look alike, I swear to gods), had been assigned male at birth. Like that, the floodgates broke open, and I spilled it all. Everything I had been thinking of for years, and what happened? I was accepted. Fully accepted, it felt, like.... like I could fly. I started binding, not very well mind you. Ace bandages cut into flesh sometimes, I still have a scar, I do not reccomend it. I did cosplay, always as male characters. It was a Saliberation! (get it, my name is Sal). Except, then my friend was moving to live with her girlfriend, and me, with a crappy gas station job, had to move back with my mom.
I lasted two weeks, before I told her everything, and thought my mom cried, she said she'd always love me. This wasn't without hiccups, she had, and still has, trouble accepting it. Crying, confused, angry, spiteful. But I was honest, and with honesty I got to order a real binder (I went with T-Kingdom, and ended up popping the seems... nice. Went eventually with underworks, and it has been the love of my life since). I started therapy, and I got to talk about everything that happened, and was told that she thought I should start taking it to the next level, and talking with a specialized therapist (we also talked about my social anxiety, and lack of self esteem). I didn't have the resources at the time, so I haven't been able to. But I continued in my own way. I gave myself a haircut, willed facial hair to grow (it worked... I don't know how), and never left the house without binding. The next problem came with my job, they wouldn't allow me to change my name tag, saying it would confuse the customers. Even when I said that I don't care, it became a huge issue.
Eventually I found out that people were being hired on making more money than me, when I had been there for three years. I quit, it was very nice. I got a job at a liquor store, where I was much more extreme in my attitude to be called Sal, to have the proper pronouns used, if someone asked, I wasn't shy... it all depending on how they asked too. I think working at the liquor store was good for me, since I got to learn how to be more aggressive. I eventually quit there too, I got a better job opportunity, working with computers, but it fell through.
I had money saved, but I was still up a river. So yeah, homelife, not that much fun, but internet? Lots of fun! I was on this terrific roleplaying website, or it was terrific for a while, I had been trying to live as male for at least a year now (without much success), but I had already been male online for years before that. I met one person, a girl, who snooped around my lj, and yes, I put personal things on there (not always locking it), she found out that I wasn't born male, and instead of this turning explosive. She accepted me, and encouraged me, and was always there, she did get angry with my mom, since my mom was still having problems, especially when I passed in public 'What can I get for you, Sir?' 'I-' "she's a girl you know!', 'I'm sorry, men are not allowed in the dressing room.' *starts to walk away, is grabbed by mom* 'she's my daughter!!' Awkward, and even talking about it seemed to not help. My friend did though, even when my mom wanted me to go to the doctors because I probably have PCOS, and get put on birthcontrol (which I did serious rage at, I am not, and have never been sexually active), she was there to say something I still remember. I mentioned in an lj post that my body prolly produces excess T (I do have facial hair, and can shave ever now and then because of it), she simply said, 'it's because your body knows what's right for you, and it's trying to help'.
A bit later, I was flying over to St.Louis, and driving back, having retrived my friend. I wasn't working, she got a job at Dunkin Donuts. But finally we found a place of our own, near Northampton even! This just started to fall into place. I was now living as a man, binding and introducing myself as such (she helped a lot, since she refers to me with the proper pronouns), and putting my past behind. I got a great job, working with computers, and the times I don't pass, there are people there to correct those (at first I was a call center agent, and got ma'amed on the phone more times then I can count, I got a promotion and now I'm not on the phone). I use the men's bathroom, and even have started packing with a packer/stp.
I'm in a position where I can go back to therapy, and get the letters I need, and start T, and get my name changed. And I have a pair of awesome aviator sunglasses. Wasn't there this thing going on a bit ago? It gets better? Well, as you can see, it certainly does.
My mom knows, and she accepts it (with tears and all the other angry stuff)
My dad knows, and pouts more often then not because of it
My sister knows, and accepts me, with a smack to the back of my head, because mom told her rather than myself.
My grandma knows... sometimes. My mom told her, she responded with 'that's sad', and then I think forgot.
I know I've actually gotten really lucky, that I have people in my life that accept me, that encourage me.
Wow... I did, like, a memoir or something. That's all of it, I think. What else is there? I still love Disney, I still play videogames, I haven't started T yet, I plan to have enough money saved for top surgery by winter (5-6 months), and maybe one day, I'll fall in love with a nice guy... hopefully before the world ends? Oh noes! That's what the Mayan's predicted!
