QuoteWhat ever stage you're in, I'm curious to know about the things you are finding or have found not so fun.
Brenda, when I just read your post and thought about it for a couple of seconds it was like having a temendous wieght drop to the bottom of me and roll around for awhile. From the time I was able to determine there was a world about me I was confused. I was raised and treated like a boy and it confused me, didn't make any sense. About the time I started Kindergarden I had determined that apparently parents made the decision on how thier children would be raised and that they determined if a child was boy or girl. I didn't want any part of that, but quickly found out at home, school or anywhere that if I acted like a boy, fought like a boy and could be quicker and stronger then other boys I was treated as a companion. I had friends, enemies and connections, but when I submitted to surpressing feelings of anger and the need to control all things concerning me my friends would be disgraced by my actions, my enemies were more forward toward me and I had little or no control of anything, so I simply took the option of being a boy though my actual insticts and behavior would often come through enough to cause problems. My childhood was in the 50's, I lived with my mother and we moved place to place constantly, creating the need of new friends etc. and on each move, there was the cylcle of establishing myself again to the point that my inconsistancies would be overlooked.
In high school it got much rougher and I learned to be as rough or rougher then any. I was eventually kicked out of school in my senior year after having gone to live with my father who was a very stable loving man. There is to much to say about what all got me kicked out of school other then it concerned dress codes. My skirt was not in violation of the code that skirts had to be worn below the knee and I would in no way cut my hair anywhere above the shoulders or remove the earrings that werent allowed in any form on male students. I ended up in a california youth authority psychiatric ward so they could study why I was so "anti-social" and went through months of daily therapy and got to enjoy a lot of what amounted to a lot of abuse I don't like to think about as they began to get the idea.
Eventually though they put some people on me that had a little understanding of the situation and I was freed in a matter of months after that and was recommended toward transition. I was very happy about that at first and I tried, but I did so in a circle of subculture that was well know about town and the culture was constantly abused and terrorized.
Things happed that I was not emotionally prepared for, friends were beaten and killed and while I suffered in little of the worst of such things I became afraid and eventually left town with my girlfriend from high school and moved to the northern part of california where her father lived and he got a contractor friend of his to put me to work and train me.
A few years later I was still bitter and afraid of what had happened during the transition period and I went to work in a new line where I eventually became in my own way probably worse then the worst, even to the point of enjoying it, but time takes it's toll. I eventually began to hate myself for what I was doing and why and had to quit and start yet again at another simular occupation where I did not have to be personally involved unless I actually wanted to or to train others in correct proceedure. I began to balance myself better until the old feelings came back and since I was no longer in fear of what anyone could do I began ro return to my old condition at the time of transition. What I didn't know or didn't believe could happen. I wasn't fired or like that, but I began to be ordered into assignments that strongly resembled what I had left before and I couldn't handle having to do so. I left my job rather then to continue what I could no longer believe in or do.
I was then unable to obtain any work within my skills other then the construction skills I had been taught and so I had to return to Steel Framing for a couple of years till I found my present job and moved back to california to take it and complete the transition.
I haven't had it hard actually since moving to Sacramento and working for Kaiser, but problems developed very quickly with my second wife who i married after the first was killed in a late night auto accident.
My woman could understand none of it, especially because of my past reputation and what she had been familiar with for more then two decades of being married to me. She never could really handle the matter and while we seem to have made some breakthroughs in working it all out, it appears there is little hope of ever regaining the relationship we once had to each other. I have been living full time for nearly 10 years now and after overcoming difficulties with doctors over medical problems that discourage the use of HRT finally got to start hormones a little less then 3 years ago. Since then I have had a stroke which the doctors say was possibly caused by estrogen and refused to let me continue on it. My psychiatrist interviened and created a compromise situation by setting up an orchiectomy for me and maintaining that having that done I could continue on low dose estrogen and still develop, she was/is firmly convinced that I could be dangerous to myself and others if I were to feel I could not go on.
Things have been going as well as can be expected since then, but I ask you Brenda, how many positive things can I look at in all of this other then I am becomeing what I always believed myself to be, ..... there is a lot of past history to forget in the process though.
For most who go the full route it is much the same. Both Good and Bad have to be faced in a real world, much of which is totally against you yet you just have to dig in and see it through and try not to let the losses overcome you. I will eventually lose my woman, leaveing me with nothing or nobody who has been involved in my life to the extent she has and so aside from the transsexual problem understands much about me that nobody else could or would want to. That in itself is hard. I presently earn almost half what I did before I couldn't resist any longer. I have lost my house, my cars, most of my former activities and gone bankrupt over the financial shortage and like I said, will most likely lose the person who has in the past been closer to me then anyone else on earth.
I don't get bitter about it all, It's just life and I knew such things might likely happen, I just believed I would overcome it all better then I have and I am grateful that so much of the past, before this new beginning is becoming dimmer and not ripping me apart all the time.
Like I said, I am grateful for the good things during transition, my feeling about myself, the things I have learned and aquirement of most of what I have always wanted, but aside from that, I can see so little to be positive about other then I will find my way through Hell to get where and what I want, even if it takes my last breath to complete it before my dying day. That is just the way it is for lifelong transsexuals and others have gone through so much worse and have found happiness in the end. I can only look to thier example and work to follow them.
Terri
