Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So today has been rough. I worked an event for a volunteer group that I'm a part of. Probably my biggest trigger of dysphoria is when I see women my age around me. I notice everything about them and compare myself to them. Their hair, their height, their forehead, the way their clothes fit. For example I was in line waiting for food and the woman in front of me was pretty. I noticed how smooth her brow was and I unconcious started feeling my own brow ridge. Things like that happen all the time. Well this event took place in one of the premier upscale tourist locations on the east coast. The type of place where wealthy and upper middle class people go away to on vacation. The ladies of course dress in their most beautiful summer clothes and they are all in just perfect, perky physical shape. Basically every other person in town triggers my dysphoria.

I had to hide how upset I was because my family was around, but my wife noticed and asked what was wrong. She just wouldn't stop asking and I didn't want to bring up my gender issues because that is always World War 3 when it is brought up. I'm just now sitting in an empty room doing some breathing exercises, I think I'll be ok.  I'm going to my 2nd therapy appointment on Wednesday.

Someday I will see light at the end of the tunnel, right? It sounds like transition is the only way to stop this, but oh man is that a scary idea to me.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 15, 2015, 03:36:09 PM
She just wouldn't stop asking and I didn't want to bring up my gender issues because that is always World War 3 when it is brought up.

It's very hard to have to keep something this huge from your soulmate.

Alas, the only thing that helped me feel better about my gender was transitioning. It cost me my marriage, but there was no other way it could have happened.

If you think your wife will get used to the idea over time, probably best not to hide it from her. Otherwise she'll think it's gone/going away. If you think she won't, then time to come up with a plan B. If you need to transition anyway, how do you make sure you're all OK?

Katelyn, I wish I had something better to tell you.

You are strong enough to get through this.

Thank you Suzi for your reply. My wife is aware of my dysphoria but she has managed to drive herself completely into denial thinking that I'm a crossdresser doing it for kicks. Compounding our issues is the fact that she is 6 months pregnant. I know what I have to do but I can't put her in that position right now. It's going to happen sooner or later, it's just that later has to be the answer right now.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 15, 2015, 05:58:38 PM
Thank you Suzi for your reply. My wife is aware of my dysphoria but she has managed to drive herself completely into denial thinking that I'm a crossdresser doing it for kicks. Compounding our issues is the fact that she is 6 months pregnant. I know what I have to do but I can't put her in that position right now. It's going to happen sooner or later, it's just that later has to be the answer right now.

I admire your willingness to put other people's interest above your own. Truly noble.

Just make sure you have enough left to be there for her and the baby. Dysphoria is really draining.

This is kinda where I am at right now, I don't want to transition atm because it is just better right now that I don't for my own safety. As suzi put Dysphoria can be really draining just try and hang in there feel free to pm if you just need to talk I am on here daily. 

Suzi is right about it being draining.

I am early enough that I don't know how far I will transition yet. My poor wife is being very understanding. However, I am also pretty sure she has anxiety from the uncertainty.

However, she has noticed that just being in the first couple of baby steps, I am a much happier, calmer and nicer person to be around. That is not to say that I don't experience those moments you are speaking of and others but just being on the path has helped.

I wish you luck and love.

With warmth,

Joanna

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 15, 2015, 03:36:09 PM
Someday I will see light at the end of the tunnel, right? It sounds like transition is the only way to stop this, but oh man is that a scary idea to me.

It's not necessarily the only way but it can be fairly effective. Some people go for a partial transition, requesting a low dosage of HRT which can, for some, reduce the dysphoria to a manageable degree. Talk with your counsellor about some possible coping mechanisms.

Thank you all for the support, I'm better today for now. You all are so kind and supportive, I like it here.

The anger is what kills me. Why do I have to be so angry? It's no one else's fault, why do I take it out on other people? God I can't wait for my therapy appointment Wednesday.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 16, 2015, 03:39:08 PM
The anger is what kills me. Why do I have to be so angry? It's no one else's fault, why do I take it out on other people? God I can't wait for my therapy appointment Wednesday.

The problem is it's nobodies fault including yours but you are stuck cleaning it up. At first we deal with a pile of problems and it seems like there is no way they can be solved. As we start resolving some of the problems, the pressure on us is less and we start to lose the anger and have hope. You need to take mini vacations from your problems by finding something that will distract you when you aren't active doing something else. The idle moments are the worst the more you can keep active, the less anger you will have.

Keeping too busy to notice how you feel isn't exactly healthy if you aren't simultaneously working on planning a solution and waiting for time to pass in between steps. Exercise is a big help though, it will make you feel better with the endorphins, and you can prioritize anaerobic workouts rather than muscle-building ones.
Personally, I wasn't happy with a middle ground, and only managed to suppress my own issues once I had a full transition path lined up. It hasn't exactly gotten any less terrifying, as my issues transitioned with me. And I still have problem areas with my body, but once you're all-in, surgery, medicine and fashion are options to address most of them.
With your wife, think about it from her perspective. She sees the "man" she's having a child with withdrawing and becoming irritable. Both are pretty common precursors to breakups. If your relationship is going to work, you need to work on your communication and let her into "for worse" part of the marriage equation. You don't have to be stoic, but getting guidance from your therapist to how to approach your wife and what to tell her would probably be a really good idea.
We all go through stages in our acceptance of being trans*, and as such we can often require a couple coming out beating around the bushes before we are clear and succinctly understood. The fallout of the latter is something everyone needs to figure out how to manage. Ideally, the more at peace with ourselves and our status we are, the less awkward or negatively we are effected by setbacks and rejection. The first person who needs to accept you is you, but that's sort of the point of therapy (and why I'm going back to therapy since I keep struggling with it).


     Hugs,
- Katie
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Katelyn,

when you finally do come out to your wife do not bargain and do not go back and forth and give her hope. Be honest about what is going on and where it will go.

You are approaching this correctly. Seeing a gender therapist and exploring what you need to do.

With good measure your wife will need to know. She will need constant reassurance you love her. If your intent to to remain married then reinforcement and communication is very important.

As others have said self acceptance is very important. I still am struggling with that too.

As I started to transition what seamed imposable I am doing. What was scary now feels right.

HRT removed my anger. It took 3 days to start and my anger started to melt away over a few months.

I understand all to well your dysphoria. It will get worse in time.

Your wife and child need you, hopefully as a family. If not as a family then financially.

Transdudes disagree with me here... but T is poison.  Rage is a common side-effect of normal male levels of testosterone.

Your wife should be seeing a gender therapist, too.  My wife has been doing way better since she's been seeing hers.  We've both been learning a lot about what she and I have been going through over the years, and our relationship is better now than it was before I realized I was anything other than cismale.  Loads better.

It hasn't been easy.  She was in denial, she said horrifically nasty things... I can't tell you how many times she said "never"... she angrily told me that she isn't a lesbian, I could go on and on.  Last year around this time, I can't even describe how bad it was, in part because my memory is good at dropping the painful bits.  We've been seeing therapists since March: six months.  And we're doing waaay better. 

We had a meltdown in March.  She was going through a rough patch, and I'd spent about 4 months hiding my problems from her to shelter her while she was in the rough patch.  I started to crack up, and I couldn't help her any more, I couldn't hide my dysphoria anymore.  She ended up in the hospital, and I started seeing somebody.  It hasn't been easy, but we're pulling through.

It's appealing to try to hide your problems from her, but you're only making them worse.  The more you hide from her, the more afraid she'll be of the unknown.  See a gender therapist.  If you can both see the same therapist separately and together, it might be best.

Hi Katelyn just as I am learning to do it just helps to take the gender dysphoria, one day at a time. Just like with a lot of things some days are better then others, a therapist will certainly help you out with these issues. I would also recommend that you tell your wife about it soon, for her sake and the sake of your unborn child. I know I felt loads better when I came out to my girlfriend, ultimately remember we are here to support you

My wife knows. I told her. She just went into denial about it. Yesterday I was gloomy again and she asked why. I said it was dysphoria and she asked "Is that why you're cranky all the time?" And I replied that it's almost always why I am cranky. And that I would like to tell her about it more often. Then she said it causes her stress and she doesn't want to talk about it for 6 months.

What's a gal to do  ???  She doesn't want to know

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 17, 2015, 03:54:45 AM
Then she said it causes her stress and she doesn't want to talk about it for 6 months.

What's a gal to do  ???  She doesn't want to know

She doesn't get to decide. It's not an option for married people to stick their heads in the sand about their spouses' problems. If she wants to be in denial, that's her choice, but you're not required to abet it. This is causing you real, serious distress. It causes you even more distress to try to shield her from it. If she is your soulmate, she needs to be there for you, if only by listening, even as you're there for her during her pregnancy.

Transition is not always "The ONLY answer". It may ultimately turn out that way. But there are other ways to manage GD besides stuffing or thinking that through the sheer force of will you can "Get over it". Those options are as binary thinking as many have on gender itself

For years I relied on my escapes from maleness. My wife knew of my GD from about day 1 over 30 years ago. Most times I needed that day of cross-dressing once a month. Besides that there was the almost daily panty wearing. I did little things like that solely to keep the "male" part of me alive, to keep me going. Not necessarily to feed or nurture "Her". About once every 5 to 10 years I need a total reboot, resetting my emotional brain with a short stint on low dose HRT.

My wife was supportive of the CD'ing. The only negative aspect of it for us was after several years when she started staying home rather than making herself scarce for the day, it would sometimes take up to a week for her to loose the image of Joanne in her head when looking at me. A real romance buzz-kill. Certainly not WWIII like it may be with yours.

However, life pressures and my overwhelming concern for her feelings led to those escapes being far less frequent. Shame and guilt over it, doing a little something for me when there is a ton of other have-to's needing to get done, made stuffing all that much more easier. Even my wife stopped asking, almost insisting, that I should take a day off to dress. I think the she started to stop about the same time I totally shut down emotionally and became the thing that I was.

Eventually the dam broke. Yet another total catastrophe in my life led to a lot of introspection, the end result was seeing that the root cause of this and most other calamities was about how I was NOT managing my GD. I found a support group. By the time the third meeting ended I knew absolutely for sure I needed to be there and it was rapidly approaching too late to tell my wife about this major escalation. I was graduating from "Just a CD" to a lot more and betraying her by breaking the assurances I made some 30 years earlier that after two failed transition experiments I figured for sure all I was was just a CD'r.

That was 6 years ago. I still have as many, if not a ton more pressures on my time. All compounded by being the primary care giver to my wife who is slowly wasting away and most days wishing for her death to end the pain. I've eventually started therapy, started HRT, even had the luxury of living part time as female. My wife and I hope to relocate as soon as we can so I have a 20 minute commute vs the hour plus and be in an area where we won't have to fear for the neighbors.

Most of what has happened she cannot say she is thrilled over. The big positive has been all the other changes in me and personal growth that came as a result. The bumps on my chest, loosing the man, even the betrayal she can look past now to some degree. If and when the time comes I decide I need to go full-time, we'll see what the future holds for the "Us"

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 17, 2015, 03:54:45 AM
cranky. And that I would like to tell her about it more often. Then she said it causes her stress and she doesn't want to talk about it for 6 months.

I agree with suzie she doesn't get to decide just because she is pregnant, does not mean that she should use that as an excuse. Marriage is not a one way street or any relationship for that matter if she knows it is causing you discomfort then she should try to be there for you not just deny it. I think it would be beneficial for both of you to be a therapist because in my opinion as I am studying psychology the way your wife is going about this, and how she is denying it is for one not healthy and is the signs a break-up is coming real fast. But hang in there Katelyn we are here for you.

I honestly want out now. I love her, but she can't handle this and stay with me. At the same time, she's pregnant, that's terrible timing. I can't just up and toss out 14 years of love right when she needs me the most. I feel like I'm staying out  of obligation and that adds a whole new layer of guilt and resentment.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 17, 2015, 02:19:13 PM
I honestly want out now. I love her, but she can't handle this and stay with me. At the same time, she's pregnant, that's terrible timing. I can't just up and toss out 14 years of love right when she needs me the most. I feel like I'm staying out  of obligation and that adds a whole new layer of guilt and resentment.

I hear you.

Can you leave it up to her? I.e. stay with her to help with the pregnancy until she throws you out, but refuse to keep your issues about gender to yourself. Dress, do HRT, work on your voice, anything you would do to prepare for your transition. If she doesn't want you, if it's more important for you to be out of the house than to help her, she can make that choice.

Suzi

You may be on to something there.

However, be careful not to make a passive aggressive  thing. It would be easy to become that. Truly stay out of love and dedication to your vows? Try to keep the door open?

The difficulty is it leaves you fully open to the possible pain. However, I don't see that there is much of a choice unless you can put yourself second and cope. However, the question for your wife and future child would be how living with the person who is coping is? Is that something you are willing and able to do? Is that what they will want? Dysphoria and coping is both draining and creates some pretty negative reactions.

Communication is key. However, only if she wants it too.

Good luck, I hope it becomes more clear. There just seem to be only so many ways it could go with only one person making the effort.

With warmth,

Joanna

Quote from: suzifrommd on August 17, 2015, 03:31:07 PM
I hear you.

Can you leave it up to her? I.e. stay with her to help with the pregnancy until she throws you out, but refuse to keep your issues about gender to yourself. Dress, do HRT, work on your voice, anything you would do to prepare for your transition. If she doesn't want you, if it's more important for you to be out of the house than to help her, she can make that choice.

Hmm I hadn't thought of this. My gut says the second she catches wind of anything, she'll toss me out anyway. But maybe this is in some way a way to go. The other side of it is, I know I need to do things to alleviate the dysphoria, like dressing, getting rid of body hair. What if I get to a point where I am happy but not fully transitioned and I just tossed my family away for that, a situation my wife may have decided to stay for. Suzi's idea actually sheds that worry because I'm not the one deciding when enough is enough.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 17, 2015, 04:28:18 PM
Suzi's idea actually sheds that worry because I'm not the one deciding when enough is enough.

Well, it's what I did. I thought there was a chance she would get used to my being that way and we could work out a way to make a good marriage out of it. But it took only a few months before she asked me for a divorce. It was a rough time in my life, but at least I never had thoughts that I abandoned my family.

My wife was more or less in control for the first year or two.  I lived in a state of shame, guilt, depression, dysphoria, oppression.  She lived in a state of fear and anxiety at the unknown.  Her forcing the closet door shut did ZERO good for her, and hurt me a huge amount.

When I took control and responsibility over my own actions, she started to see what was really going on, and the fear of the unknown evaporated.  She's started to say "I'm not a lesbian, I'm a monogamist, and my person is transgendered."

Shame, guilt, and depression are great motivators to want to crawl back into your shell. For my  first few years on this road I had plenty of WTF am I doing??? meltdowns. Often in response to something about my wife, the overall emotional strain, causing even more depression in her, some off-handed comment. I'd grab on to anything to convince myself it was all the stupidest thing I ever did.

Through it all, in spite of her feelings, my wife, my reality therapist always said "Don't even think about stopping!". She would rather see me happy and alive then depressed and maybe dead. For her was seeing me finally blossom in a real, somewhat self actualized human. Something she always knew was in me

Nothing like a sick child to distract from dysphoria. My 5 year old has seen 3 ERS and her primary care for a mystery abdominal pain. She needed her daddy these past 2 days.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 17, 2015, 02:19:13 PM
I honestly want out now. I love her, but she can't handle this and stay with me. At the same time, she's pregnant, that's terrible timing. I can't just up and toss out 14 years of love right when she needs me the most. I feel like I'm staying out  of obligation and that adds a whole new layer of guilt and resentment.

Hi KatelynBG
I have been following this post from the start and one of the things I hear you saying repeatedly is that you have told your wife but she choose to ignore it. I told my wife 1 year before we were married (29yrs ago) I was a crossdresser and it has made very little difference in the long run because she ignored it and thought because I wasn't either talking about it or doing it then it must have gone away or not be a big deal. I have to take some responsibility for this because I have not been clear enough with her explaining what it means to me, again it was a situation where I have been learning as I go along. I really do believe that She still thinks that this therapist I am seeing is going to "cure" me by providing some kind of "magic" solution despite talking to her about the treatment model of making the body fit the gender to relieve the Dysphoria. Maybe I cannot bring myself to tell her that I really want to transition because if I don't it will kill me, I think its because I am fearful that she will dismiss what I have told her and not take it seriously like she has in the past.

If you are going to make this work for you as well as her and your child you are going to need to be clear and concise with your wife so that she is in no doubt about how you feel and how this impacts her and you. This will impact the entire family and maybe even worse if you don't deal with it. You can bury it, deny it, hide it, disguise it, run from it, loathe and detest it but it will never go away. It is not an easy thing for most wives to accept. But telling you she doesn't want to talk about it for 6 months is basically telling you to be quiet and suffer in silence till I am ready to listen...Love doesn't make ultimatums.

Sarah T

My therapist has honed in on the spousal question as well. We spent the full hour talking about my relationship. She told me to calm down and let myself discover my feelings and long term desires.

Another wifely discussion. I explained that the therapist has confirmed a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and that the only known form of treatment is to change the body to match the mind's image. I explained that it's not so simple for me because my wife and kids are everything in my life. She started to lose it and asked if I am like Bruce Jenner. I said I admire Caitlyn's courage but she's different than me. She asked me if I wanted to transition. I said, in a different time and place I probably would but that I wasn't sure losing my loved ones would make it worth it. She didn't like that answer and said, I need you to decide right now, me or transition.

And........ I........ really..... wanted.... to.... say.... transition..... it was right there, my heart was beating in my chest, I was sweating. All these forbidden dreams just waiting for me reach out and grasp them. The word was right on the tip of my tongue. I waited a half second too long and my beautiful 5 year old poked her head around the corner and said "I love you daddy." I physically felt my hopes and dreams collapsing in front of me. Looking into her big blue eyes I thought of all the good times we will have as a family and turned to my wife and said "I choose you."

It is your decision and only you can make it but I don't think your wife understands how much pain she will cause you to feel in the future. If she does understand, that is even worst.

She doesn't care about my feelings.

Quote from: KatelynBG on August 21, 2015, 07:45:03 PM
Another wifely discussion. I explained that the therapist has confirmed a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and that the only known form of treatment is to change the body to match the mind's image. I explained that it's not so simple for me because my wife and kids are everything in my life. She started to lose it and asked if I am like Bruce Jenner. I said I admire Caitlyn's courage but she's different than me. She asked me if I wanted to transition. I said, in a different time and place I probably would but that I wasn't sure losing my loved ones would make it worth it. She didn't like that answer and said, I need you to decide right now, me or transition.

And........ I........ really..... wanted.... to.... say.... transition..... it was right there, my heart was beating in my chest, I was sweating. All these forbidden dreams just waiting for me reach out and grasp them. The word was right on the tip of my tongue. I waited a half second too long and my beautiful 5 year old poked her head around the corner and said "I love you daddy." I physically felt my hopes and dreams collapsing in front of me. Looking into her big blue eyes I thought of all the good times we will have as a family and turned to my wife and said "I choose you."

And exactly how are you NOT like Bruce Jenner. Beyond the Kardashian thing and his/her FU money? I know I am almost exactly like Bruce, right down to living with a B-Cup for the past several years. Did he not wish he could transition, perhaps even on a daily basis, but for life circumstance cannot? For Decades? A lifetime?

I am not a person of letter (OK BSEE but I don't think that holds any weight). In my opinion the only known "Treatment" for GD is finding a means to self acceptance, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Gender dysphoria is not a binary situation. It is very broad spectrum that resides between cis-female and cis-male. What any of us need to do to manage our dysphoria is unique, yet similar. Often a moving target as we slowly shed a lifetime of Shame, Guilt, and Internalized Transphopia which are all deeply a part of the being trans experience.

I twice experimented with The Cure, aka transitioning, in my early 20's. Both times an utter failure. Did that prove I was NOT trans? I sure wished it did. I resigned to self-identifing as "just a CD++" 30 plus years later I set on on the path of working on myself. Hoping to find inner peace, self acceptance of who and what I am. Six years later I am just barely scratching the surface having no idea for sure if all I am meant to be is "Someone who does what is expected of them", or perhaps someone who can hold on to a dream, a goal, and take on adversities that the devil puts in my path to get me to loose the faith in myself and who I have become.

Perhaps by "Transitioning" your therapist is using the same definition I do. THe one right from the dictionary, "To Change". Over these past 6-7 years I have changed, a lot. I achieved a lot of personal growth. I grew emotionally, spiritually. I slowly came to accept that I am trans, even embrace it to a point. It may have been a weakness. One that has caused many/all of my life's total disasters. It has also been a strength I tried hard for decades to suppress, not recognize, to deny.

When asked if I am transitioning I am hesitant to say yes. My meaning is not the same as theirs. I've been on HRT for about 6 years now. Have a body I am happy to live in in spite of it's other flaws. I am actually happy being me. For the first time I can actually feel it was ME that did all those amazing things I have in my life that others have been saying I do/did. Yep, I am transitioning. Transitioning into that whole, healthy and happy person I set out to become six years ago. I may also start presenting full-time as female someday. Maybe not. It still does not change the fact that in my heart, in my soul, I knew I was a woman since like age 4. What has changed is see her looking back at me in the mirror most days and not "That sad old man" I see less and less of

Great post thank you.

So normally I can function alright even in a dysphoric attack, but today at lunch I almost broke down. My parents invited me out to lunch and then turned up 25 minutes late (I get an hour for lunch). Then there was a young woman there who was very attractive. She was blonde and had her hair in a pony tail and she had very long bangs (like how I always imagined myself) and it triggered dysphoria just to be in the same place as her. So I sit down with my back to the counter but she keeps walking by and everything gets worse and worse. Then my parents show up and my mom is complaining and my dad is typically clueless.

While we eat the girl keeps passing by, except now my dad is very obviously checking her out, like a freaking ape. It was very disrespectful to my mom, the girl and to me, his son. I'm talking he turns around and watches her walk away type of obvious. And I just got so angry, seething on the inside, the damn testosterone. Then we get into this ridiculous conversation about leaving the toilet seat up. My dad is all like "the natural position for a toilet seat is up. Right son?" And I just go, "It's very disrespectful to the women we live with to do that." And he just sneered at me like I wasn't worthy of masculinity. It made me even more upset, realizing that this is a gender I literally have nothing but a piece of skin in common with, and coming from my own father.

All in all a very hard situation, and now I have to find a new favorite deli until this girl finds a new job.

Katelyn I have been following this thread and there is something that just Struck me...when forced to make a choice between Transition and Family you chose family...of course you did you are not a heartless zombie...it is a really unfair choice to have to make and the other part is that you seem to think that you will be able to deal with your Dysphoria if you don't transition. How will that work?  You describe a Dysphoric episode at lunch an it was simply a waitress doing her daily job that triggered it. What happens if your own daughter starts to trigger it or your wife or neighbour? How will you cope year after year of these triggers and the aftermath of each. It concerns me that you are potentially doing exactly what I did and burying yourself for 20 years...it is not healthy for you or your family. Its a tough call and I hope you manage to find your way through this

Hugs

Sarah T

I know. It's hard. I want out but my 5 yr old is sick and my wife is pregnant. I can't just leave right now. Interesting that you mention my wife triggering because her pregnancy has caused quite a bit of dysphoria already. My feeling is this situation won't last long and I don't think I'm going to be putting the feelings back in their box.

Today is not a good day. I am having obsessive thoughts about transitioning. It's definitely what I need to do but I am still trapped. I don't know if I can wait 2 months for this child to be born. I'm toughing it out at work but barely. I just want to go home and sob for hours. I simply cannot go on like this. Thankfully my therapist is seeing me tomorrow rather than the usual Wednesday appointment.

Hi -

There's several responses here that really get at the issue.  As long as you deny who you are, for whatever the reasons, you will experience difficulties without end and possibly ending difficulties.  This is serious stuff and it's so powerful.

Believe me when I say their is nothing noble about suffering due to fears about how others are going to respond to the real you.  It nearly cost me everything and I was fortunate it didn't.  That doesn't mean that you create WWIII, but you can't be responsible for what others are going to do in response to you dealing with your gender issues.  Like it or not, they get to choose too and they will.  In some  cases they may have already chosen.  Yes, this is fearful and scary and that's why you need a therapist and support group - they will make a huge difference.

You only control you.  So please love yourself enough to honestly come to terms with who you are, whatever that may mean.  The "not being true" alternative is not the full life you so richly deserve.

Take care and love to us all,

R