Update: I have changed the location to X. I didn't mean for any location to be identified in my post, so I have changed it. I am extremely grateful for everything the people at this place have done for me over the past year, and I never intended to show this place in a bad light. I've kept the rest of the post, even though there are things I have said that I feel are too much of a slap against the person in question, as I've mentioned later in this thread, and I have been tempted to remove some of my words, but I think it would be disingenuous for me to alter what I have said after the fact, so my post remains unchanged except for the location.
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I have expressed on here already in a post about a month ago that I am really pretty self-conscious about my shoulders. Anyway, I was at this group at X; the focus of the group is about ways to combat depression, and my therapist had suggest I attend so I can meet new people. I'd been to the group a couple of times already. Well this third session last week, I was the only person who showed up, aside from the convenor. Now the person who convenes this group doesn't really understand trans issues very well. She is a butch lesbian GG, and calls everybody 'he' for a start. Granted, I don't really care, since I still go out dressed as a guy and only use my female voice in private, although I do use my female name whenever I am at X. But there was one older woman there at the previous meetings who was fully dressed in a female business suit, and called herself a female name. The convenor called her 'he' as well - hmmmm.
Well, at this last session, it was just me and the group convenor. We'd been talking for an hour or so about coping mechanisms for depression, and eventually I told her that some of my melancholy moments stem from the fact that I am very self-conscius about my upper body. I told her that I though my arms were still a bit thick looking. She looked at and nodded, and then said that my shoulders look really big too - (she didn't just say a bit - she said really big). I was pretty much floored, but as I was brought up to be non-confrontational and polite in company, I just continued the conversation as if she hadn't said a thing. What is really stupid is that she is rather short, about 5"2 or something, and quite rotund, and if we were the same height she'd have wider shoulders than me, so WTF?
After the session I walked to my car in the rain, and I sat in the driver's seat, soaked to the bone, and cried for a full ten minutes. I then started my 45 minute drive home, and all the way home I cried and cried, at the same time trying to negotiate the traffic in the torrential rain. It was horrible. I have never felt as disgustingly self-conscious about myself as I did after that woman said what she'd said. I felt so weak and self-indugent. That night I lay in bed sobbing for hours, and seriously contemplated throwing away all my hormones, and shaving my head with the clippers I use to groom my dog. I even had ridiculous thoughts about attaching a hose to the exhaust of my car, passing it through the window, and just succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning. I wouldn't have done it of course, but the thoughts were still there (even if I had tried, I googled it and found that because my car is late model, and has a catalytic converter to obliterate CO emissions, it would have been impossible even if I had wanted to - so to anybody out there who is thinking about this and you have a late model car, don't bother.). I had my counselling session with my regular therapist the next day, and she immediately commented that I did not seem like my usual bubbly self. I told her why, and she commented that she'd never seen me like this before (I've been seeing her for a year).
Prior to this conversation with this woman, my upper body issues had merely been a source of annoyance, something that I didn't really like, but I could control my feelings about them. Now it seems like I'm bordering upon obsession. When I go to the mall now, I always walk behind other women my height and observe their body width. They are all smaller than me, except the really overweight women. I just look at them, then look at myself in the mirror, and shake my head. This thing is getting ridiculous...
I am quite small for a male - 5"8, 137lbs, and my shoulders are like 16.5 inches across and 39 inches circumference. Interestingly enough, I am exactly the same height, weight, and size I was when I was 16... I am now a decade and a bit past that, and started hrt last year.
I know this sounds like a whole lot of complaining - I rarely complain, but this thing has really pissed me off. I mean, I was really working the balancing act of self-acceptance in my mind, and then this tactless cretin comes along and knocks me down completely. And the thing is, I think she is right. They do say that the truth hurts...
