Thank You! For the warm welcome...
I don't have a job that has medical benefits, and barely make 28 hours a week at minimum wage... I've been staying with my parents. Mom knows who I am (transsexual), Dad does not know anything except that my "hair is way too long" and "...two earrings? Are you gay?"... This he uses as the reasons I cannot hold jobs or get better paying jobs...
According to him, and his side of the family, men have to have short hair and dress proper... His side of the family is male chauvinistic and the females will go out of the way to slave for their man... My mom's side of the family is so opposite. She tried to raise my sister and I to be free thinkers... My sister grew up to take after my dad's side, however, slaving for her man... I have become the trouble making, rebellious, self-destructive child... My dad's side of the family will degrade whatever I do... Whatever choices I make go under scrutiny and becomes a family-wide problem (sometimes without my knowledge)... I am very much like my mom... She said she always wanted my sister to be like her so they could do things, but I ended up being that daughter...
Three people, other than my mom, know about me... I just told one of them, my childhood best-friend, last week... He was awesome, and quickly filled me in on a secret about him that I knew nothing about... The other two people I trust greatly... So now, everyone wants me to go to therapy... That is going to cost some money... I barely make enough to pay my mom rent and put gas in my car to get to work...
Until recently, I've suppressed a lot of memories about growing up... The excuses I used (to cover up the truth), I must have grown to believe... I found this forum while I searched for answers on the net... I read other forums, too...
With me, it's never been about dressing up... Although I've done it... I first dressed in mom's clothes when I was 9, and then secretly (when I could and desired to), until about 15, when I out grew her sizes. I've always had writing, drawing, and music to release the feminine side of me... In school, I would take up causes that the guys in my school would scoff at (S.A.D.D., Earth Day, even the school newspaper (had always been all female written until I had showed up))... Sports was what every guy was into in my school... I never played sports, and if forced I would purposely do something to get myself kicked out of the game (actually got expelled for causing a fight once)...
I would draw the same female character throughout Junior High and High School and even up until recently... The last drawing I did in 2005 was what made me realize a little more about myself... I had shown my ex-girlfriend the drawing and she commented that it was a unique self-portrait of myself... I told her it wasn't me... She laughed, then got a mirror and held them up side by side... In the mirror was the face I drew, and the long hair (though not blonde), was the same (falling over the right side of my face covering my eye just like I had drawn since I was a kid), and the kicker: a dimple drawn in the same spot. My adrenaline immediately rushed... It was me... I had grabbed the drawing from her, saying, "No way, no way!"
We both spent the rest of that night digging through boxes of my drawings... My likeness was in each drawing... But, as a kid, I didn't see it. I didn't have long hair... And the female I drew was an adult! My drawings were of a female with dirty blonde hair... My hair was never blonde...
My ex-girlfriend ended up being the first to know I am transsexual... I still converse with her about it.
I've recently read through novels I began but never finished... Most my protagonists are women... I wrote from the first person perspective... I wonder why I never finished them... I wonder now if it's because I would start to go into denial... Which makes me think of a lot of the opportunities I had had and some how ruined them with either not following through or doing something self-destructive...
I've attempted suicide a lot, but only two were near death (In 1998, in the Army I tried overdosing and wound up in the hospital; in 2003, I drank myself silly and tried to take a 25mph, tightly curved, offramp at 80mph... My car should have flipped over and over, but somehow, I made the turn, knocked down a "Stop Ahead" sign and got out of my car with not even a scratch on me... My car fender was a mangled mess, though! I look at that offramp today, and I should have died or been crippled somehow... I remember sobering up quickly that night as I snuck my crippled car out of there)...
Well, that's a little more about me... I believe I could write chapters...
Hugz,
Hannah
