Hello everyone,
I am starting this post because I am struggling since years with a huge sense of shame.
What is your relationship with
shame about being a girl/boy, after/before your discovery of being TG or transition (even only social)?
Since I was a boy child, I had a HUGE sense of
shame about myself.
I felt I was not like my male mates, I was kind of different, and this started to made me feel deeply
stupid, too, like, everyone was getting it right from life, except me. Watching my body, I could not hide a sense of repulsion I did not understand (maybe I was too fat and ugly, I din't like myself), and pain of not being able to be like the other boys, even my cousins. My mother always criticised a lot my father for being weak and other things, which I started seeing on me as a male, too.
I din't feel love for girls the same as my male friends did: I felt something, but it was different, it was a kind of attraction, but also repulsion, and fear to be mistreated, which happened many times, as I was a monster.
Back then, I hoped time could get my call to feel right and get the life as the others around me were getting. I felt so dumb for so many years.
Adolescence went the same, but the stress on me went up as the years were passing, and shame too. I had fear of being gay, or just being the different boy I was. A deep sense of shame that I could not do nothing about.
I was often indicated as "dumb", and I was not able to fight that too.
At home it was OK, until my mother, who loved me very much, started to see something, and she could not accept the fact I was having troubles, and she was always ready to give me some medicine or something. I was scared about her view of the world, maybe because I was not in that view.
I was always out, for EVERYONE. "Hey, don't think about it, you are only shy." or "Love will come, don't worry, I was like you at your age". Every single thing that the "world" said to me felt
"not for me".
That lasted until I became 32...
Meanwhile, at the high school I decided to change my life and improve myself, decided to address the fact that I was feeling stupid, and that
I had to be like the other males: studying, participating to cultural events, playing musical instruments, doing sports, hanging out with friends, chasing girls.
In all this, I started criticise people that were, actually, like me: stupid, with no objective in life, no interests, and... yes, even homosexual (transexual was not something I knew). I started
pretending, but in my deep I always felt it was all wrong. And I was not happy, I was not good, always with this sense of disgust about myself.
My dumbness was always present, I felt always stupid, I could not get it straight, and I started pretend I was understanding things, while I was not getting them. And most of all, I could not bear the burden of being "discovered" not getting the things. I became more and more "pretending" of feeling love with a girl, of understanding the relationships among people, of knowing what to do in several situations... even politics, I could not get things straight. But I pretended I was doing it.
One of the things that scared me always a lot is that I could not stand aside people that were not getting life like me: it always made me feel the things inside me not working, I always felt a lot of distress. I always felt a huge fear of myself being like them, which eventually was like it. Not good, broken, without any exit and hope. And as my mother said to me several times, I was like that, and had to accept it. Disgust and distress was I always felt, and still today feel about these words.
But again, I saw no choice. Pretending, pretending, and trying discovering myself.
I went at the University, with the help of my parents, to study Computer Engineering. At school, I was above the average at maths, and used PCs (but only for playing and doing some overclocking) since I was 13. I was in the upper 10% of my class, I got a Bachelor and a Master in 5 years, and I was feeling great about it, except for the fact that I was not happy.
Problems started rising: what to do in the life? I was still struggling with my problems of sense of disgust, shame for the fact I was "strange", pretending and trying to hide myself. And more time passing, more I could not get it. Why I felt like that?
Negativity started to come up: I was not accepting the fact I was a male? not accepting the fact I was growing up, and I had to work, and help my parents, and marry and love a woman, and make children. I was a bad person, actually, a "baby" not willing to grow up. Stress from the environment started to become stronger and stronger. I remember how I felt in relation to some of my colleagues at the University: some of them looked at me and called me stupid, wasting your life, with no clue on how to live it, and no clue on why you were studying what you studied, and what to do in life.
They were eventually right. Except for the fact that I was not stupid, and am not. I was different, in some way, in a way I could not see nor understand. And back then, I saw I was not getting the point of all that.
I won a scholarship for working in a Electronic Systems company. I was there 1 year, just the time to learn some other things and acting ridiculous: I was only able to act as a "robot", to which orders are given, and it executes it (is a life like that worth living? I asked to myself), or "pretending" being a person that was know what was doing, in which role I was completely ridiculous. I felt deep sense of shame of being like that, and for the first time in my life I was stuck. There was no path to take in front of me, just that two, being an "automa", or "pretending".
Maybe for this I decided it was time for me to do a different experience, to live abroad (I am from Italy), and do something bold, to study more things: I searched a PhD abroad. Maybe that was the way I was feeling right about my life: discovery more, study other things, keep myself open, a work in progress.
I moved to Portugal, but after the first year, things changed (I had to do half of the PhD in Berlin, but that was cancelled), and I fell into a nightmare of several years, in which I was not only the dumb guy, but also the one that did a thing without sense, without being interested in it, which gave me so much shame I could not talk anymore with the colleagues, professors and researchers that knew me, knew me as the strange, dumb guy that said (pretended) to be interested in Computer Science stuff.
This is the shame I am living right now, while I was finishing the PhD and get back to my home town, at my parents home.
In the same period I started coming to terms with my sexuality: another thing I felt ashamed of. Shame came back with all its force. I started to try to defend myself, even when there was no one around me. Shame, so strong I cannot breath.
Then, in 2014, while in the middle of this nightmare, I opened a door inside myself that I didn't know was existing: I was a girl.
Suddenly, I "understood" everything (also some complex concepts of philosophy - I had to take back some Western Phylosophy books, for the deep sense of understanding of reality - and "being" - that I felt).
Also, the strangest thing was that the
shame, all the shame I felt in my life,
disappeared, also the one related to my path in life: I was starting re-considering all that I did until that time, and defend myself against the others with saying "I am a girl, b***h! Get out of my way!".
This is crazy.
I finished and defended that PhD in a nightmare of doubts, fear, fear that who knew me could go away, scared by me, like my family. The bad part is also that I isolated myself from many people, because I was feeling deep shame about the fact that I was not able to start that PhD and do another thing, or even admit that I was "pretending" and without a clue about what to do since a lot, instead of hiding myself. And now, after time, coming back home and saying "I am a girl" seemed to me like "ok, this guy went totally nuts, let's drop him. He always was very strange and borderline... totally went crazy with the PhD stuff".
That is the worst part...
But now I understand, I am a girl, I get everything! I don't have the need of pretending anymore. But now, I have a problem: I am a transgender girl, with a PhD in Computer Engineering, which is something that I am not so interested in, no motivation for working in this area and no more energy to get the "this strange/stupid guy" story anymore.
My family know about me, and some of my friends do as well, but... I feel so uncomfortable, and... in the south of Italy, I cannot go around and say such a thing "out-of-the-blue"... or can I?
I am at that the same ending point I was before PhD, but now I have more solutions. I know more who I am!
And I feel not stupid, but brave. Brave, as I had the courage to discover myself, alone.
Maybe I cannot work and stay near my family, here in the South of Italy, at least for now. Maybe, I had never the possibility to choose. We cannot chose what we feel and where they accept us, isn't it?
Also, the sense of
shame about myself went mostly away, and is now more on the fact that I had not a clue of being TG before, and the fact of having done things "pretending" of being someone or something. And also, shame about being what I am: a boy feeling a girl, for the others, and a girl with a boy's body.
That is so strong, unbearable...
I feel also I can not pretend anymore about anything, which maybe is false: I will continue to do it in other areas, maybe we cannot be always sincere in anything, but there is this strong force pushing inside me saying that I must be sincere, and live out, strong as the sun. That's stunning, and I cannot control it so much. Is that also some for of hysteria?
Anyway, I feel I have to hide myself still, but the pain of being "that dumb/pretengding guy, so stupid to being a PhD without the will for doing it" it is unbearable, so heavy... But maybe... that is just not true, so... I should let it go...
But this... this explosion and the fact that I barely recognise myself in what I did (I don't want to remember something, even), is given by the huge and strong sense of shame about myself?
Does anyone had problems/struggled with this unbearable sense of
shame? And the outer and inner pressure for having to get a job?!?
It feel like I am exploding!... I am so unstable...
Anyone has a similar story, like mine here?
Anyway, thanks everyone for being brave, stand tall and being here. Without you, I could not exist now...
Hugs, and keep strong.
Ive
P.S.: I don't know what I like, really, and I want to discover it, live it, do...
