Hi
I have been reading some forums and even posted a couple of replies. I realized I had not introduced myself. I decided that I want to participate regularly, and an introduction seems like making a kind of commitment to be personally present and open. Not just a lookie-loo.
Actually part of being open starts with saying I find this journey I am on embarrassing and confusing. For one I feel different than many of the stories I read. I never grew up questioning the sex assigned to me at birth (male). And in some ways it worked ok for me. On the other hand, I am the oldest of ten, and I did everything a mother would do. For example, I changed diapers, which my father would not do. My mother joked (?) she was going to charge a dowry when I married. I never felt the need to wear women's clothes until recently. I was marginally athletic in high school. Mostly I was "the brain." For which the macho boys teased me. I have to realize that I have never really owned my body. It always has felt like a suit I wear - sometimes ill fitting, sometimes fragile and needing repair and upkeep, but not me.
Superficially I have done reasonably with the male persona I wear - I get respect, cooperation and so on.
But.
At almost 60 years I am realizing I am not my persona or my body-suit. For years there have little signs of something non-stereoyped male. I have read almost every Georgette Heyer Regency romance she wrote. I read Fictionmania, Top-shelf, Sapphire's, Crystal's Place and so on. All of the fiction I read and get into, the protagonist is female. When I took the COGIATI I scored in the " probably transgender, need to see a therapist" range. (I am, seeing a therapist). After too marriages that after several years ended, and dating women, I have realized I do not want to be the person women who see me as I conventionally present want me to be. I stopped dating until I can figure out how to be myself openly and not just in fantasy. I do not want to be the person I see mirrored in their eyes. On the other hand if the right man asked...
Part of the problem is my family growing up was a multi-problem family, and we moved a lot. I learned how to be an "adapted child" a "premature adult" and pretty much out of touch with my own feelings and needs beyond survival and taking care of others. My adult journey has included getting in touch with those pesky feelings - crying in public is embarrassing - and learning slowly about self-care. Maybe I did not notice being in the wrong body because it was not mine anyway. Or maybe I'm bi-gendered or androgynous. I do not know. I know I am not simply a man.
I am not only old enough to know better, (as if that made a difference), I am by profession a psychotherapist. I did not become a therapist to fix me, I became a therapist to fix all the families in the world since I could not fix my own. (Half-joking).
I can tell you clearly, we therapists are just as human and fallible as everyone else. (darn-it).
I go to a coming out group and a transgender conversations group where I practice not being a therapist, but trying to figure out who - under all the suits and uniforms and persona I wear - I am. I wear some women's clothes and as much bright colors as I can match. My friends and therapist say I look relaxed in them. I've worn my hair long for years. No skirts or dresses or make-up yet - I do not know where I am going with this or how far, but I know I cannot go back. I feel I would die. And yet I am embarrassed and afraid of where I am going now. I know some things are easier for me. I am not homeless and my job is more liberal than many. Although I have some majorly trans- and homo- phobic clients, my cotherapists are cool. I am divorced so I do not care what my x thinks - much. But I feel so silly not to know who I am at 59! Mid-life crisis?
But I really do like pink.
