Hello everyone, I'm an MtF coming up on middle age with all the usual hang ups around maybe transitioning and whether or not one might pass. About 30 years ago my family made it clear the only option they were open to was not transitioning. And so I chose not to be out. Had I been an argumentative child things might have turned out differently. But most all my energy at the time went into simply surviving from one day to the next. Another decade would pass before I could go so far as to let my hair grow long and even that provoked responses such as my grandmother publically telling me there was nothing she hated more. She's passed away, as has my father, leaving my mother and me as the only surviving nuclear family members. I'm out to carefully selected friends but, after years of working on our relationship, still am not quite ready to be out to mom.
These aren't the choices I've wanted to make but they've been the best ones possible given the circumstances. I pretty well tick all the boxes in the US's National Transgender Discrimination Survey. So if you trigger easily you may want to skip the next bit. A quick retrospective of life so far is
- single digit years: physical and sexual abuse
- teens: suicide attempt and a whole lot more not dying
- 20s: three college degrees, career, getting to a somewhat stable and safe place
- 30s: flashbacks, getting out of an abusive relationship, plenty of counseling
This has been a lot to deal with. 15 years of chronic depression. Quite a few EMDR sessions. Unwinding so many distortions from abuse. Having a first career. And, lately, deciding how to end it, where to go back to school, and what to pursue as a second career. More about that in future posts. What I have to say here is much reflection naturally comes which such decisions. One other thing I'm changing is gradually leave the closet and part of that is actually posting rather than lurking anonymously. I'm not one to be flamboyantly out but reaching a place in life where the disadvantages of hiding outweigh the benefits has been much of what I've been working towards the past few decades. It's nice to be here.
Finally, hi moderators, thank you for all your efforts in keeping Susan's going. I'd save you a copy/paste of the first post links but that requires linking privileges. I've read them though, both before registering and again later.
Love to all of you,
~Caitlin
