Finding out about surgery tonight...I'm dying of nervousness

[androgynouspainter26]

My folks and I have been fighting on the subject of me having surgery for years now-they have the money, but really just don't trust that this is something that I need.  So we're having a group therapy appointment together, where I suspect they are going to tell me that they've already made their decision...I just don't know what that decision is.  The anticipation is killing me.  The thought of being stuck in this body for good is too much for me to bear.

[Jera]

Hopefully having that third party around to arbitrate, explain things, or just back you up will be just the boost you need to convince them.

That said, even if it goes poorly, that might not necessarily be a "forever" kind of thing. Rather, it's more like a delay.

I really hope it goes well for you, and wish you the best.

[Joanna Dark]

My folks and I have been fighting on the subject of me having surgery for years now-they have the money, but really just don't trust that this is something that I need.  So we're having a group therapy appointment together, where I suspect they are going to tell me that they've already made their decision...I just don't know what that decision is.  The anticipation is killing me.  The thought of being stuck in this body for good is too much for me to bear.

I really hope it goes your way. But, even if it doesn't, you can save, save and save. When I was your age, 10 or so years ago, you're 19 right, society then was leagues worse than now, not that now is acceptable, but anyhoo...I tried to join the army even though I loathe violence and not to prove myself male, but instead because it seemed like an easy route to save the money I needed for transition. They found out my condition, I'm IS, really fast, and that was that. So I went to school and never partied and worked hard, hard, hard. Then I graduated, got a job at a magzine, started dating a lesbian, and within six or seven years of the time I decided I would definitely get surgery, I had the money. I was 25.

Then, my GF decided she wasn't a lesbian, needed a man, and ripped my heart out. I didn't take it well and cried and begged her to stay. I so wish I transtioned then. Nothing stopped me except one thing: I wanted her back and I tried to prove myself a man. I took T. And that led to intense dysphoria, which I alleviated with drugs. Now, here I am at 32, broke and trying to figure out ways to get the money. But I will.

My point is this: no matter how tonight goes, never give up, girl. I know you can do it. You're a strong, independet woman and you deserve this. No, not deserve. It is your right. Hey, I think SRS should be a right. It is in South America and many other countries. Why not here?

P.S. I got my fingers crossed fo ya!!! I'm so hoping it goes your way! I love when trans girls can access the surgery we need. (For those that don't need it, please don't take offense. I know I sometimes my come across as sounding you're less trans if you don't want it or need it, and I so so so don't think that. But I obviously have a soft spot for people who need it and think about and have genital dysphoria like me.)

[androgynouspainter26]

Thanks so much you two.  This is actually for FFS and breast augmentation (not all of us can be as naturally pretty as you, Joanna-and wait, you're 32!?  How the heck did you pull that off?) As much as I hate to admit it, no insurance company is ever going to accept that FFS is medically necessary, because, you know-people see your junk so much more than your face.

I don't want to use the word forever either-but this could really change the way my life is going to go.  Right now, I'm a theatre major in a top conservatory.  I choose this field because I love it and I really don't care about the capitalist model of success-my transition is the only really major expense I expect to have any time soon.  I can find work with a degree, but realistically it won't ever pay for the sixty thousand dollar's worth of surgery I need if I'm ever going to be any sort of woman.  So where would I go from here?  Drop out of school, and work a minimum wage job (not that theatre pays much better)?  Change my major to accounting and be miserable for the rest of my life?  I always promised myself that I would not compromise, I would never choose between my transition and my other goals.  It's too soon to be thinking this way, I know, but I can't help myself.  I can't bear the prospect of being denied an opportunity to finally be the person I always should have been.

And what if this doesn't even work?  Like, what if I finally do save the money I need, go in for surgery and come out looking like a guy?  I desperately want to pass, but what if I'm too tall, my hands are too big, my hair is too short?  What if all of this is for nothing?  I can't stand the idea of being an ugly half-woman for the rest of my life either.  If I can't one day be a girl, a pretty one, I will inevidtably consider my transition a failure.  A part of me thinks that the best thing to do would just to stop taking E right now, and accept the fact that with the hand I've been dealt, life as a boy might be better-and all of this is coming at a time when I thought I finally had my s**t together.  Ahh, the joys of being both nonbinary and transexual!

Anywho, thanks!  You're both too sweet.  At least I can say I put up a fight if things go south.

[Athena]

best wishes

[androgynouspainter26]

Well, it happened.  I'm still not exactly sure what the upshot is though-we all went in together for this meeting, which was a bit surreal.  Having my family in the same room as my therapist always makes me feel weird-across from me is someone I trust and share everything with, and next to me are my parents who I don't feel I can share anything with at all.  And our relationship is in a horrible place overall-they haven't disowned me or anything, but I know they'd positively love too.  They still haven't gotten past this idiotic notion that my need to transition goes beyond a childish need to distinguish myself.  But they did listen to what I said, and even acknowledged that this might help me.  That's a first.  I think they might be receptive to the idea, but that might just be a desperate hope.

As soon as the session started, they went into the way we had been fighting at home right away, painting it all as my fault.  We all have such a thinly veiled hatred for one another, it tends to emerge at the slightest provocation.  I suppose they're better at concealing it than I am.  Or perhaps they hate me less...but they go on with this idiotic list of grievances about how I was unable to control my impulses or such BS.  I just wanted to cry out "I can control myself perfectly!  The problem is that I dispise you with every fiber of my being".  They've been making decisions for me my entire life under the pretext of what was "best" for me.  One of the decisions they made damaged me, badly...and I just can't forgive them for that.  How do I explain to them that every decision they've made for me has ended up crippling me?  How do I tell my parents that they have lost their right to make decisions for me but still ask them to help me pay for surgery?

The subject came up, and the first thing they both did was systematically say why surgery won't work: The recovery time is too long for you to make it back too collage, any surgeons who aren't domestic are clearly not reputable, and the ones who are domestic can't possibly be competent.  Nobody will be able to operate on you on the dates you're proposing.  Of course it was all wrong, but they just didn't listen.  I guess I started speakings, and they realized I knew what I was talking about.  I showed them some before and after pictures.  That changed things a bit.  They started to listen...for the first time in my life it feels like, they listened.

I don't know if things are ever going to heal between us.  I doubt that they will.  The damage they've done is too great for me to just forgive them outright-but I have a bit of hope that they might just be willing to help me out here.  There's a sad irony in all of this...they ignore problems until they go away, that's how it's always been.  It's what they did with my gender issues in early childhood, the first of many betrayals.  And if they hadn't done that to me, maybe I could have gone on hormones earlier-even after this surgery to correct the mistakes they made, I will always be a freak.  I look at those kids who start young, and I just want to die.  I could have been that!  It just makes me sick.  Anyhow, it's better than a "no", and being bitter isn't going to help me any more, is it?  I'm already dead inside, so things can only get better.

Thanks for the kindness and support.

Sasha

[Lonicera]

I'm sorry you had to endure such a draining experience but at least hope the acknowledgement that this is for your happiness will lead to greater understanding as time passes, preferably within a very short time. I also apologise if my reading is entirely inaccurate but the way you write about them suggests they see this as some kind of tactical game that they can win if they provide the right combination of points rather than something they need to empathise with, I can't imagine the harm that's done and continues to do.

You're obviously a very eloquent person so I hope it goes well if you choose to raise the issue of past harm and the emotional legacy that it has left. The way you've written about it above is very clear and has a lot of emotional power so maybe it'll eventually engage their sense of duty to correct mistakes by respecting your agency now too?

As hollow as it is, at least having to wait until now has formed your character. From what I've seen, you seem like a fantastically caring, insightful, self-aware, and enviably intelligent person with a great deal to offer groups or individuals you encounter. I appreciate my perspective is just based on forum posts and apologise if it's patronising but the world is lucky to have the person that your life sequence has formed.