Funny girl, thank you for the kind words.
Cindy, I didn't mean to ignore your offer. Meeting you in Seattle sometime would be fun. Just send me an email via Susan's when you are going to be there.
Kate, like you, I've often waited for the hammer to drop -- for the "sniper" to come out. Contrarily though, I had a nice incident today; It was windy and I was working outside - conditions I know don't make me look my best! I was pleased that my realtor friend asked me to help give out food at a realtor open house party. I guess, to me, it was an affirmation that she felt confident enough in me that I would be good with the crowd. There was a wonderful singer/piano player at the party and one of the potential clients, seeing me tap my foot in time with the music, asked me, "Is he your son?" I guess it never fails to amuse me that, in moments when I might be self-conscious about my appearance (windy day), surprising good things are still possible. Maybe God is giving me a little shove, saying, "Smile!"
One of the things I always craved when I transitioned was the hope that I could answer my front door in the morning with just a non-gender pair of pants and t-shirt and yet a delivery person at the door would still recognize me as female. That's happened to me over and over countless times since I transitioned but there's still a part of me inside that says, "Wow, imagine that!" If I'm feeling a little down on myself, I'll somewhat kiddingly think, "What, is he blind?" Perhaps, though, that surprise ("he sees me as a woman!") is a natural reaction given that I spent most of my life (47 years) as a male and a fraction of that (9 years) as a female. Despite being 7 years post-op, the "newness" of being recognized as female can still be surprising. I read once that some people who've immigrated to the U.S. from small villages in distant lands can take quite awhile to acclimate to their new life. This adjustment period is far shorter if you are young. They say that young children get over the trauma of an incident like 9/11 much faster than adults. So, with my living one way for 47 years, it's no wonder I sometimes feel like a country kid who just moved to the big city. Yeah, that's corn behind my "ears!, lol."
Kassandra, you wrote, " If you are still at war, in the jungle, being given anti-depressants is not as helpful as getting ammunition!" I remember an M.D. once talking to me about depression -- he said that I had very rational reasons to feel depressed (I'd lost work, my 21-year relationship). It would be odd if I didn't feel depressed! Somehow, that made me feel better. Anti-depression pills never did a thing for me. Fixing how I THOUGHT about trauma - the "control" thing - was far more useful than any pill. Cognitive therapy can help gain that control.
One other tactic in dealing with trauma, according to recent popular theories, is to imagine the worst. If you think you're going to get robbed, for example, imagine all of your stuff being stolen -- Then, you see that you're still alive. The "stuff" didn't really matter. Sometimes when you imagine the worst, what you have now is not so bad. So, imagine that you're going to lose your job and that all your friends will desert you. Are you still breathing? Does the sun still rise? Okay, then. Move somewhere else and find a new job and friends. Is that easy? Of course not. But it's also not a 90 mile "Death March" that many faced in the Philippines in WW2:
(From Wikepedia: "The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The march, involving the forcible transfer of 72,000—75,000 of prisoners of war, the surrendered remnants of the combined United States personnel and the Phillipines home defense forces from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse, murder, savagery, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cut throats and being casually shot were the more common and merciful actions — compared to bayonet stabbings, rapes, guttings (cut open bellies and left to die), numerous rifle butt beatings and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week (for the slowest survivors) in tropical heat. Falling down, unable to continue moving was tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest or expression of displeasure. Strings of Japanese trucks were known to drive over anyone who fell, resulting in a corpse resembling squashed tomato. Riders in vehicles would casually stick out a rifle bayonet and cut a string of throats in the lines of men marching along side the road. Historians have placed the mininum death toll between six and eleven thousand men; whereas other post war allied reports have tabulated that only 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination")
When I had suicidal thoughts in the past, knowing that others have faced far harsher circumstances gave me courage to continue on. To disuade myself, I realized: I know that my family and friends would torture themselves, worrying endlessly: What they could have done to prevent it? I'd rather deal with trauma myself than inflict trauma on people I care about. Secondly - and I realize this borders on sillyness - I think of all the work and money I've gone through to become post-op: The countless tortuous hours of electrolysis, the SRS, the facial surgery -- why would I want to destroy the face that Osterhaut helped to create? Now, that would be a stupid waste, lol. When I think of my face, I smile, remembering how in the movie, "Patton,"he, with his great ego, stated that he didn't fear dying as much as getting shot in the nose. Karl Malden then grins and comments with understanding, "But George, that's because it's such a good nose!"
We all have good noses. Let's keep 'em breathing...
At a Motel 6 once, I greeted an African-American man, "Morning, how are you doing?"
He responded with this absolutely incredible smile and said, "Well, I'm breathing out and breathing in so I guess I'm ALL RIGHT!"
Sometimes life should be as simple as that. In once sentence, he was far wiser than most of us.
Teri Anne
