[more whining] Scared

[Asche]

Another hard couple of days.

Last night and this morning, when I wasn't paying attention, a kind of conversation was playing itself out in my head, where I was saying:

"I don't even have a word for how terrified I feel."

I'm feeling a barely suppressed terror, the kind the gets into your guts.

To shamelessly rip a piece of one of Cindy's recent posts completely out of context:

There are some things in life that are truely scary. There are times when we look from under the bedcovers and hope that the bogey creature doesn't see us. There are times we feel like giving up from the terror of taking another step.

That's how I'm feeling.

It was all I could do to get myself to work.  I don't know how I'll get through the day.  Autopilot, I suppose.  Fortunately, the autopilot in the Iron Man suit still works, sort of.

- - - -

(Disclaimer: Cindy meant something quite different, as you'll see if you read her post, but the image was simply too good not to misappropriate for my own use.)

[popa910]

I don't know what part of the transition you're going through, but I wish you the best of luck!

I currently have no plans to transition, as I haven't yet pinned down my location on the gender spectrum, so I don't have to think about what'll happen when I show up one day with a dress and a woman's body (I'm AMAB).  However, I still get terrified even just thinking of wearing something slightly feminine.

I'm planning on sort of gradually shifting my behavior and mannerisms to be more androgynous/feminine to get people accustomed to that, and then I'll hope to start on some more tangible gender expressions like clothing and such.

[Tristyn]

I don't know what part of the transition you're going through, but I wish you the best of luck!

I currently have no plans to transition, as I haven't yet pinned down my location on the gender spectrum, so I don't have to think about what'll happen when I show up one day with a dress and a woman's body (I'm AMAB).  However, I still get terrified even just thinking of wearing something slightly feminine.

I'm planning on sort of gradually shifting my behavior and mannerisms to be more androgynous/feminine to get people accustomed to that, and then I'll hope to start on some more tangible gender expressions like clothing and such.

Your fear of wearing feminine clothing as an AMAB is 100% understandable. For some reason society's gender roles on AMABs seem more critical, imo, in terms of how they"should" dress according to society's senseless dress code regulations. According to society, its ok for AFABs to wear pants or a suit but if a, AMAB wears a skirt or dress its like a sin. This whole gender role stuff is pure idiocy and yet it is admittedly difficult for me to completely do away with them. I just want to be myself.

[Asche]

I don't know what part of the transition you're going through, but I wish you the best of luck!

I'm in the process of morphing from presenting as a man who wears skirts and dresses ("man with a weird fashion sense") to living as a woman.  I plan to go full time around the end of 2016, starting with filing for a legal name change in a month and then talking to HR in September.  It's starting to get real.

I started coming out as "Allison" in March and have come out everywhere but at work.  I'm still having trouble "owning" the idea of being a woman.  It still feels like something I can only aspire but never actually hope to be, the way I might wish to be a world-famous piano virtuoso (virtuosa?), but know I'm not and never will be, and the most I will ever be able to hope for is that people will smile indulgently at my silly pretense and not ever tell me how ridiculous I am.

I've had people say I'm brave.  I don't feel brave, I feel like the biggest coward on earth, it's just that going back feels even harder and even scarier than going forward.  And if I stand still, the bogey-creature will eat me.

Thanks for the "good luck" wishes -- I think I'm going to need all the good-luck-wishes I can get.

[BirlPower]

You are brave asche. If I felt as you described I could never get out of bed and go to work. Fearless isn't bravery, doing it anyway when you are terrified is. You are an inspiration to me. I hope to be as brave as you some day.

I completely identify with This:-

It still feels like something I can only aspire but never actually hope to be, the way I might wish to be a world-famous piano virtuoso (virtuosa?), but know I'm not and never will be, and the most I will ever be able to hope for is that people will smile indulgently at my silly pretense and not ever tell me how ridiculous I am.

Unlike you these feelings keep me hidden. I've only come out to the people who live in the same house as me, my wife and children. The feelings you describe here and elsewhere are what stop me going further. I came out to my family for similar reasons to you also, I felt I had no choice. I needed to be me in my own home or I'd go mad. I was lucky-ish. Kids were great, wife less so but she didn't kick me out and she's trying. It has got easier but I still feel ridiculous in front of my wife most times. I can completely relax with my two girls though, they are 100% accepting and it hasn't been an issue ever. This is very liberating. I hope you can find peope in your life that you can feel comfortable around as yourself. It made a big difference to me and I'm sure it would reduce your fear and maybe even bring you some peace, even if only when you are with them.

I wish you all the best and I hope things get easier for you. I think of you quite often and hope things are getting better for you. Keep "living the dream", as one of my daughters keeps telling me to do, and I'm sure it will get easier eventually.

Hugs

B

[Asche]

Unlike you these feelings keep me hidden.

In a way, I have little to lose.  I'm divorced, my kids are grown (well, chronogically, at least ), I'm near retirement, and I have maybe 20 years left to live.

But I'm also more afraid of going backwards or staying still (which is effectively the same as going backwards.)  All my life I've had the feeling there's a coffin waiting for me to lie down in and decay in until it's time to bury me.  So whenever I think I can't go on, that little voice says, well, you don't have to go on, your nice comfy coffin is waiting for you.  And that scares me more than anything.  The German phrase "Flucht nach vorne" comes to mind....

[Satinjoy]

it is scary, I've done full time at work and hit the reset button up north to my current presentations.

But if you dont live it, how will you know how it really is?

Face the fear.  It was intense for me, believe me, mindbreakong scary.

And the best thing i could have done to discover the truth that is Trinity Satin Joy.

Here for you girl.

SJ