For myself 2015 has been a pretty good year - quite a few bumps along the way but overall my friendships (in life, at work and at Susan's) and my awesome mother have really helped me ride over those and arrive at 2016 in better shape than when I entered 2015. 2016 will mark my 50th year on planet Earth, quite scary really - I sure don't feel "fifty" (whatever that is meant to feel like)... it's strange since I also feel like I'm only just starting to live.
Can I share something deeply personal from my first attempt at transition? It was winter 1990, I had been having a terrible evening; I was 20 months on HRT, I was out as "Julie" with friends and had tried to dress girly in jeans, etc and, for my efforts, had been misgendered left, right and centre. I hated myself, hated the world, I went home crawled into bed and cried myself to sleep wanting to die. That night I dreamed of myself as this radiantly happy person - probably 35-ish - huge smile, long hair, a bit andro looking. I still remember it quite vividly. When I woke I took it as a hugely positive sign that "everything would be OK" if I could just make it to 35. Only 10 years to go!!
I put in a a fair bit of personal work - stopped my transition, stopped HRT, got involved in yoga, spirituality, natural living, shiatsu massage, psychotherapy... the works. Somewhere along the line I somehow stopped being a fearful self pitying child and became an adult who could make their way in the world. Yes, at my core I still wished I was a woman, but I was trying to make do, struggling but moving forward because I had hope that when I was 35-ish it would all be OK. 35 came and went and I have to say it was a bit of a let down because, even though I was much happier than I had been ten years earlier, it still didn't hold a light to that dream. I was still not that person in that dream.
So I pushed on... maybe when I was 40? 45? There was always that hope - it would get me to the next point but my life just wasn't gelling. Then something happened when I was almost 47 that forced me to realise I was still deeply unhappy, that I had been spiralling into it over the past 15 years or so... and my gender identity and dysphoria was the core reason for that. I had to struggle a bit further. Fortunately all that personal work I did in my 20s and 30s allowed me to process it a lot quicker than I might have been able to without it... I was able to accept that I was transgender, that there was nothing wrong with being transgender, that I could be who I knew I was if I had the courage and energy and the support I needed.
Anyway, this is getting a lot longer than I intended, I guess my long winded point is that, after jumping through the hoops, restarting my transition and taking it further than I ever could in my 20s I realise that I have now finally reached the point in my life where I
am that happy, radiant person that I dreamed myself as all those years ago. I was right to hope that I would get here eventually, I just had to accept myself first.
Speaking as a member (and moderator) of this site I have to say I struggle the most when I see people going through similar situations to my first attempt at transition. It's pretty triggering but I still try my best to help. The doubt, the self-hatred, the fear... being unable to accept being transgender because it all seems too much or too horrible to contemplate. If this is you now I feel for you, I really do. All I can say is that it can get better. But it needs you to believe in yourself, it needs you to hope and see that it can be better, it needs you to have courage and spirit and passion and self respect and tenacity, and more than anything it needs you to accept yourself.
Easier said than done I know. But you're here, support is just a post away. Let's make 2016 the year of self-acceptance.
