Quote from: dimetrac on May 30, 2015, 05:36:04 PM
By Dimetra
As a young boy I was a sensitive child who liked drawing, housework with my Mother and pretty things. When I began school I had difficulty making friends with boys and typically had more friends that were girls. I liked art and singing. I cried easily when upset or teased, which attracted even more teasing and bullying. I was and still am an excellent speller. I could remember the words to songs and poems very easily and teachers always liked for me to sing in front of everyone. I was very shy and embarrassed from singing alone in front of my classmates and they would tease me afterwards.
Spelling, English, Art, Singing and the choir were my favourite topics at primary school, so was hanging out with the girls, was hopeless at sports. I had asthma too, so exertive sports just killed me... I used to love helping my grandmother and mother cooking and tidying too..
My parents never pushed me into sports, they were not so... I had no sisters so as I said before, just played nurses when we played dr's and nurses, also in any other game, was always damsel in distress. I found my self finding my mothers nighties etc. and play acting in them.
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When I got to be about 12 years old, the boys around me became bigger, stronger, and scarier since they were reaching puberty. It had taken me much longer but when it did the expression of it was more feminine. At this time I discovered that I liked wearing female clothes and underwear. I became even more emotional and that the emotions were very uncontrollable. I experimented with my mother's underwear and clothes. I wore her bras and padded them like I possessed real breasts. This was all done very carefully and secretively, usually when no one was home and I had the house to myself. Sometimes I got up in the middle of the night and dressed myself in the prettiest cloths I had available. I would go outside and stand in the snow looking at the stars until my feet got too cold in the tights or stockings that I had on. I really loved it and was obsessed over it and still am, except now I also think is just very nice to do along with being sexy. Sometimes, I would wear shorter and tighter shorts and shirts. I liked my legs and body and the way they looked in short tight clothes. If people saw me in anything it was in these clothes, but during the early 70s it has been my belief that short shorts were not seen as strange. Perhaps I was wrong about that.
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Boys at school would tease me and call me names like ->-bleeped-<- and queer and in locker rooms for PE and sports. Some of them would shout at me and hold their penises out at me. I would always get very emotionally upset and I could never respond with anything clever. I never liked this and I considered it at that time animal behavior and I did not understand how boys could be that cruel, angry, fixated on just one thing. I did not know if they suspected how feminine I was or what I liked to do when I was alone. As an adult I still am horrified and repulsed by this behavior and as a teacher I will absolutely deal with this behavior very directly in my classrooms.
Schooling is a very traumatic time, especially for those of us that were not "boyish" the not sure about you, but I was very passive (still am, to a degree)... I used to hate going to secondary school, given it was also an all boy school, it was purgatory...Also the school I went to was not a very nice one, had a reputation, that was well alive whilst I was there.
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At about age 13 I began having severe anxiety attacks. They would last a day or two and if hell really existed, then I experienced it during these episodes of terror. They would happen about every two to three months or so. My whole family was also affected but no one sought help for me because my parents did not want anyone to know there was a freak in the house. These attacks continued until my early 20s.
At this time I had a friend who was one of these early maturing boys. At 12 years old he was lifting weights a lot and had acne but he was not a bully. We were very close for about a year. He was one boy who did not threaten me or call me "sissy" names. I felt very safe with him, and his name was Gary. We would hang out and go everywhere together. We talked about everything and that included girls that we both liked. During one Summer I was hanging out with him in his house. We were in his bedroom and he wanted to show me how he lifted weights and what he enjoyed doing. I was impressed that he could actually bench press 190 pounds. Then he pulled out his penis and began making himself erect in front of me. He would then proceed to tell me how he liked to touch himself. I did not respond to this and was a little nervous. Nothing came to my mind, such as "can I touch it too" or "I like the way you look". I thought that it looked huge compared to mine and I wondered why mine was so small. I guess I did not think of him sexually but I did not run from him either. We still were friends.
You had a good friend that protected you... I built a small group for that purpose, it was the only way I could survive, luckily one of them could handle themselves too...
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Later that Summer, we went to a church camp where we played a lot of games with a lot of other boys and girls. I met girls that I really liked but they always thought I was "too nice". I made a lot of friends there. Later that week at camp I had a spiritual and mystical experience. It was at night and I was watching silent mime plays of Jesus' death. I was sitting somewhere alone when I looked around me and felt like the whole universe was made of only love and that nothing could ever exist without and that things remain in their existence only because of this love. I cried and cried, feeling that LOVE made me and everything and that I existed only because of it. Uncontrollable emotion destroyed all of my composure while my own tears wash over me. At older man approached me and told me that it was the Holy Spirit blessing me, which I did not understand. I continued to cry all night and in the morning all of us rode back to town on a big bus. The air was fresher and the sky was beautiful.
I stayed in sports, becoming more skillful as I was competing with bigger and stronger boys who seemed to have almost supernatural strength. The anxiety attacks continued. I started getting interested in other sports, such as swimming and volleyball. I learned to fit in better and to avoid the cruelty of many of the other boys. I really liked girls and they liked me but only for friendship not boy-friend-ship. I went to college after high school, getting in on the strength of test scores rather than grade point average. I struggled with grades my first two years as I had not developed the discipline I need for that kind of learning. I found the groove after my junior year and then college became easier. I majored in Philosophy and Religion and I had little insight into the future of job hunting. It was during my senior year that I discovered meditation. I started with TM (transcendental meditation" which aroused anxiety attacks in me. After that I discovered simple candle-gazing as a mindfulness practice and that is finally what ended my anxiety attacks. It seems that anxious thoughts did not easily sneak up on me.
Young women were likewise not interested in me during college, but I formed a band with a friend and I became the singer. I never liked my voice as to me in did not sound manly enough, but at that time I still did not understand that I simply wasn't manly.
I had lots of girlfriends, but just that, which I liked, I did not push anything romantic, nor expected it, I tried in friends of friends to be more "manly" but failed miserably
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I was a virgin until my 21st birthday and the women who ended my virginity was a 30 year old unwed mother who was very kind and made me feel safe. It was the night of my birthday and she had gotten me drunk and sick. After bathing me she made love to me. For me it was rather painful, but she did take the lead.
Think I was a similar age too, well actually 19, first time ever was with a girl at a wild party, it failed... miserably, the next was a few months later with my to be wife... didn't fail quite as bad..
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During my 20s, I found out that I really did not know how to work. Each time I found a job I would lose it after a week or two because I failed to keep my uniform clean, or showed up late too many times. I simply did not know how to work. About the only job I could do was nude modeling for art classes. I was called to model a lot and it paid more that most part time jobs. With it I also was able to work at several schools at the same time for art classes. It reawakened my interest in art that I had when I was a child. So during my 20s I was determined to go back to college and complete another degree in fine arts. I was not able to make it back until in my 30s.
Throughout my life I always maintained a small wardrobe of ladies underwear that I wore discreetly. The items were not the most beautiful, but they were enough to give me the feminine feeling that I wanted. I discovered new things about myself and what I liked. Some of what I liked was dangerous.
I never had problems working, I put up with the jibes, the usual stuff I'd been getting since school, but just worked very, very hard... always striving for the next rung... this is probably how I managed to keep my sanity under control. But I did, as much as possible cross dress and go out, kept clothes hi9dden away, went through the buy and purge phases... but got busy in work and house renovations, bringing up children etc... so again kept my Dysphoria and emotions under reasonable control...
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I never had an interest in a "boyfriend" since I really did not like men or boys that way. I did not trust them since they were the source of so much humiliation for me growing up. I do not know what HRT will do for me in the future. Perhaps I may change my mind and that I want to be open for anything.
Same here, I hear you
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It took until I was 29 years old to figure out how to work. I learned by being forced to survive as my parents split up and my Mother got very sick, needing public assistance after extreme medical bills. I worked for a year at a 7-11 store making all kinds of mistakes and being accused frequently of stealing from the cash register. After a year of this I worked for Radio Shack for exactly a year. I found out that my social skills were not that horrible as many customers preferred my non-aggressive approach.
After Radio Snack I started working for semiconductor fabrication factories and that became my occupation for the next 15 years. It eventually became my opportunity to move to California as I found work at a waferfab. It was in 1992 that I was able to go back to college to finish the degree that I wanted the most. I had learned how to work and I had been on my own for a few years. I still did not have a huge amount of money but I was very solid in what worked for me. I believe I became a robotic survival machine.
In the Spring of 1993 I met Michelle who is my spouse and the person I trust the most in the whole world. I feel that I did not find Michelle, but that I was led to her by some irresistible divine force. We have been together now for 20 years and she is exceedingly important to me. Her parents are still together. Her Mother is a bookkeeper and her father is a brilliant engineer, now retired.
After we got married, we celebrated everyday. I worked hard and made more money. We bought a house in Long Beach and lived very fashionably. We both completed our BFAs in painting and together we also made money building stained glass windows and painting murals. We both had gained a lot of weight and Michelle was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. That is when she began practicing yoga, which really helped. I kept getting bigger and then I was laid off due to factory closure. The industry was moving to China and I did not want to follow. I started looking for jobs in education, thinking that those jobs would never be shipped out.
In 2004 I became a special education teacher at a high school. We sold our house in LA for triple what we had paid for it and immediately bought a place in north LA county. After the first year in teaching, which was very stressful, I was at a low point in my life physically. My weight had ballooned to 290 pounds. I had high blood pressure, dangerously high cholesterol, and I was borderline diabetic. I did not feel sexy and I was not feeling like wearing my feminine wardrobe. At this time Michelle joined Weight Watchers and she started telling me how to do it. I went from 290 to 220 and that weight loss completely eliminated any unhealthy blood chemistry. I felt amazing and sexy again. I began doing yoga like my spouse beginning late 2005. Since that time I have been practicing almost daily. I am still teaching special education, but now at a middle school.
Admirable losing weight... kinda really makes you feel good, and drives your desires towards the surface... and your worklife now is very commendable
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In 2010 my mother died from congestive heart failure; in 2011 my father died from liver cancer. I saw both of them before they passed. About that time is when my desire to live life as a woman became stronger. I had been reading web articles on the subject as well as people's experiences of their lives. I had a doctor visit to a urologist because I wanted to make our sex life better without the risk of pregnancy. Despite being completely in love with her our sexual experience is not very physical and seldom is their actual intercourse. The urologist told me that a vasectomy was unnecessary since I had what he said was Klinefelter Syndrome. He suspected this because I am way taller than anyone in my family, have very light body hair and small sexual parts. I was tested for various chemistry issues and found out that I had very low testosterone. I read more on the subject but I am skeptical since I do not think I have ever had a learning disability. Most recently, I had an actual blood test that determined that I did not have Klinefelter's.
Sorry that you lost your parents.
Sexually I started losing interest a while before my GID kicked into a higher gear... probably both our faults, I think it was family growing, both of working, me with very long hours... the lights just started fading... but in looking back it fuelled my desires to transition, which of course turned the lights off more. I did not know about GID until somewhere in the nineties, amazing I was not alone, this fuelled after a lot of planning and making sure it was what I realy, really wanted, that finally hit home first 12 years ago, and now just recently and has not let up this time.
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I found the subject of gender dysphoria to be fascinating so I read and studied more. About 2 years ago is when I really started thinking of this as a possibility for me. I had been teaching yoga at a local studio and I recognized that I have acquired a large group of female friends, while observing that I had no male friends. My world is a world full of women and I seem to fit comfortably in a women's social circle. Also, I have become increasingly aware of wanting to express myself as a woman in the world. Emotionally, I have rediscovered myself and instead of feeling frightened of people knowing, my emotions are liberating me. I have been talking this over with my spouse and explaining to her what I have experienced. We talked about this a lot when we first got together and I showed her some things that I liked. She was very loving toward me and accepted me.
At this time, my desires have become stronger and new desires have surface, which I have been discussing with Michelle. Eventually, I want a full transition. As I near actual retirement, I recognize that I have challenges before me, but I also desire to have a plan. I am a woman trapped in a man's body and I want the outside to match what I feel inside. I am beginning hormone therapy (started 4/3/2015) as I have an Endocrinologist prescribing then for me and checking my chemistry periodically. I will soon have laser hair removal on my face (in 10 days!) and perhaps my arms. I have been working on my voice and my walking. I will need to collect more female "outer" garments. There will be a lot more to come. I will have to maintain appearances at work as far as clothes and voice, until I can fully transition legally and physically. I have come out to most of my really close friends and as much as possible I present with feminine clothing, but not yet at work.
By Dimetra
Your intro is pretty amazing, you have been through a lot... and you are now starting your journey... wish you well moving on...
L Katy
