Hi,
I'm not sure where to begin so I'll just randomly throw stuff out. It is hard to find an outlet as my current profession greatly limits my ability to speak on ->-bleeped-<-, hence why I am here. I have been looking at the forums for a couple of weeks now to see if this might be a good community for me to be a part of. I will be completely honest, I was a bit dismayed at the censorship in one thread in particular and I'm concerned this may not be the best place to share my thoughts but for now I will give this place the benefit of the doubt.
So I am a in my mid 30's and have known I was transgender in some way shape or form since I was in my early teens. Instead of trying to become one with myself, I took those feelings and stuffed them down as deep as I possibly could. It became pretty unhealthy, as I explained to my wife, I had to consciously think about how I my body moved and the words I used, to hide any possible indication there might be anything feminine about me. When I joined the military I worked even harder to conceal any hint I was anything other than a man. It has been everything short of fun having a secret and fighting to keep it in. This led to some unhealthy and self-destructive behavior. One was constantly looking to prove myself, what I thought would be a high point was being in a job which gets to embrace the power of the beard when deployed. However this still didn't fill the void and I learned the more I tried to prove how masculine I was, the more I was lying to myself. To my friends and coworkers I have been very successful in my career, they have yet to learn my true motivations and why I have done what I did.
So how did I finally stop lying to myself? Well, over the past few months I have been in therapy for PTSD related to my last trip to Afghanistan. The stress and depression I already had working with gender dysphoria added to PTSD has brought me to the lowest point I have ever been in my life. Trying to work through why I see the world the way I do has been tough due to the fact I have had to tell my therapist half-truths or all out lies on a few things for fear of tipping my hand and potentially being unemployed. Essentially pissing a fifteen year career down the drain and still support my family. Things got a point two weeks ago when I couldn't keep my turmoil bottled up and I finally broke down and told my wife. Part of what helped move me to even be open and honest with myself and my wife was of Kristin Beck, retired Navy SEAL. Kristin gives me an opportunity to see someone who served honorably in a physically and demanding job.
It would have been wise for me to research breaking the news to a spouse but that's not my style, so I just dropped it on her. It felt great to finally tell somebody but I was a bit shocked by the silence, and the lack of questions from her and her seemingly initial shock to near disavowment the conversation took place at all. So I feel almost like I'm back to where I was two weeks ago, except slightly embarrassed. However I am limited in my options, my hopes are the military will change the policy on transgender service members so I can finally be honest with my therapist and begin planning on transitioning when I retire in five years.
