Susan's Place Transgender Resources

All my life I've had a particular coping strategy for dealing with my gender dysphoria and my sexuality. I'm not comfortable being explicit here, but let's just say that I lived in my head a lot.

That particular strategy has...well, it has no longer become possible. A few days ago, I found out that it's gone. Again, I'm not too comfortable talking about it here. I told my therapist last Thursday, so he knows now.

This is tearing me up inside, and it hurts hurts hurts. I feel like an abandoned child.

Right now, I feel as if toxins are building up in my brain and making me less and less able to get through the day. I don't know whether this process is cumulative from day to day. I'll probably wake up fresh tomorrow and then start going downhill again. That's what happened today, only I'm feeling worse tonight than I did last night. I'm having one of those zombie nights, only the numbness isn't fully blotting out the pain anymore. I used to be able to go completely numb for short periods and just ride it, but that strategy seems to be slipping, too.

All I can think about at the moment is surviving till my therapy appointment on Tuesday. My therapist is hoping that working with him will replace what I've lost, at least to some extent. I would like that, too, but then I have the unhappy task of trying to survive from appointment to appointment. In fact, I feel as if that's what my life consists of--getting through to the next session, spending fifty minutes with someone who really gets me, and then facing another long dry spell.

Funny thing is, I've been going in twice a week, and I still get to feeling desperate when I have to wait just a few days for the next session.

This is why I suppressed for so many years, so I wouldn't have to deal with the feelings. But now my main coping strategy is broken. I guess I'll have to find new ways of getting through each day, but I don't know how. I'm in brand new territory, and it doesn't feel good. I can't pass. I can't go back inside my head. And I can't tell my partner, at least not yet.

I feel dead inside right now, only not dead enough.

I understand where you are coming from.  I'm another one of those ones who disappeared into my own head in order to cope.  I used to think of myself as "imaginary", because I couldn't identify with the person that everyone else saw.  For me, relief has come from anti-anxiety/anti-depression medications.  That's not the right choice for everyone, but it's made a world of difference for me.  I hope you are able to get to a better place soon.  Meanwhile, we're all here to listen to you vent.  :)

Arch dude, I can totally understand where you are coming from I have live in my head.. until I started off on this journey. And it got to a really bad stage last year when I couldn't cope what so ever. I had a partner/family who I couldn't speak to. I have never been one of those types of people who can open up fully I will ALWAYS be holding something back.. whether it is to protect my self I dont know.. And I just cant answer.

I met someone at work my friend Claire who I can talk to about absolutely anything and she helped me get through alot of things. Claire doesn't certainly know everything about me and my problems etc. But she accept me on this journey. And I am very greatful to have her in my life as she is always there to talk too and she listens to me even though I go over the same stuff over and over again. Maybe you just need to find someone to confide in when your DR isn't there so you dont get lower and lower.

Quoteimaginary

Was the exact word I was looking for.

You know that we are all here for you. We will always listen. *bear hug*

Jay

Thanks, guys. I've been trying to keep "negative" stuff off the forums, but it's leaking through now. I guess that's one function of these boards, right? For people to talk about how they feel, even if they don't feel good.

I'm too thrashed to write anything right now, so I'll just read.

Yah, I to can relate to that. Lately I've been feeling whatever coping stradegy I had to be disappearing. Hopefully I'll find I new one as will you.

Quote from: Adam on August 30, 2008, 11:16:53 AM
Yah, I to can relate to that. Lately I've been feeling whatever coping stradegy I had to be disappearing. Hopefully I'll find I new one as will you.

It's like...I have to go through a psychological transition before I can go through the physical transition, right? And once I acknowledge that I'm doing that, something in my psyche shifts and the coping mechanisms no longer apply or no longer work, or something.

I wonder what other guys do to get through this stage. Or do a lot of guys even go through a similar stage?

My coping machinism shattered the moment I realized I was transgender.  It's been rough and because of how emotional I am I'm not allowed to go on T yet

Quote from: Aiden on August 30, 2008, 12:47:42 PM
My coping machinism shattered the moment I realized I was transgender.  It's been rough and because of how emotional I am I'm not allowed to go on T yet

Jeez. Aiden, I guess you and I are in similar places. I'm not passing, I'm not on T--o' course, I'm not ready for T, but I get the impression that you are or might be. And my internal support system is gone.

I'm feeling a little better at the moment because I just exercised. I wish it would last longer.

My partner and I are going out to lunch today. I don't really want to go, but then I remembered that I felt exactly the same way last Saturday. I forced myself to go out and it was okay. We talked over lunch, and then he drove us around the county because I wasn't ready to go home just yet. Maybe something like that will happen today. I'm sick of feeling down.

Quote from: Jamie-o on August 30, 2008, 09:20:57 AM
For me, relief has come from anti-anxiety/anti-depression medications.  That's not the right choice for everyone, but it's made a world of difference for me. 

Jamie, I used to take Wellbutrin. It helped me a lot. Now I'm trying to stay med-free. One reason is that acclimating to the meds (and tapering off, too) was absolute hell. And although W was the only med that worked for me, it gave me monstrous tinnitus that never went away.

Right now, I'm getting through. If it gets much worse, though, well, I'll have to think seriously about meds again. I"m glad they help you, though. That disjunction between how you see yourself and how others see you can be such a huge chasm...

Actually I think my main coping mechanism was just to tell myself I didn't want to be a guy and I was happy as a girl. Ever since I've excepted myself as trans, that just doesn't work anymore.

I was thinking some more about your original post.  (I had been up all night and was too trashed to put a lot into my original answer.)  Specifically, I was thinking about the whole internal identity disappearing issue.  I, too, have been going through some of this recently.  All my life I've had this "ideal" male identity that I've imagined being.  I figured that actually being male wasn't a choice, so why not imagine myself as tall, handsome, unbelievably sexy, with cute guys lining up to ... well, er, do things I don't have the equipment to do in real life.  ;) 

The point is, once I realized that I really could transition to being a man, I suddenly had to re-adjust my imagined male self.  I couldn't see myself as female.  I could no longer see myself as this idealized man.  It felt as if I had had my feet knocked out from under me, and now my identity was floating free.  It has taken me a few months to integrate my self into this new Transman identity, with all the issues that come with that.  I'm not 100% there, but I'm slowly re-establishing the way I perceive myself in the world. 

Medication has helped, as I said before, but what has also helped a great deal has been going to functions where I can meet other trans men, in the flesh, who have successfully completed transition.  Being able to see other guys who have made it happen, and who have become fully passable, has helped enormously with being able to see myself as having a place in the world.

Quote from: Jamie-o on August 31, 2008, 02:06:07 AM
Medication has helped, as I said before, but what has also helped a great deal has been going to functions where I can meet other trans men, in the flesh, who have successfully completed transition.  Being able to see other guys who have made it happen, and who have become fully passable, has helped enormously with being able to see myself as having a place in the world.

I'm seriously considering going to a meeting that the local FTM group has at the end of every month (yeah, I know, that means waiting till the end of September). I don't do well with groups of people--I'm a real hermit (himmit?)--so such a move requires considerable thought on my part. I have to mentally prepare myself. But at least I am thinking about it. A couple of weeks ago, even, I dismissed the idea out of hand.

Quote from: Adam on August 30, 2008, 02:18:49 PM
Actually I think my main coping mechanism was just to tell myself I didn't want to be a guy and I was happy as a girl. Ever since I've excepted myself as trans, that just doesn't work anymore.

Whoa, that must be tough. What do you do now, instead? Or is there an instead?

QuoteThe point is, once I realized that I really could transition to being a man, I suddenly had to re-adjust my imagined male self.  I couldn't see myself as female.  I could no longer see myself as this idealized man.  It felt as if I had had my feet knocked out from under me, and now my identity was floating free.

This is exactly how I felt when I first knew I was trans. I had this fantasy in my head of the kind of man I wished to be. Once I realized that I actually WAS going to be a man, I had to shift that image in my head to make it correspond to reality. This was really early in my transition, so I didn't know that I'd be able to (a) look good (b) sound like a guy (c) attract people (d) be accepted as "one of the guys" (e) have normal, satisfying sex (and on, and on, and on). This changed gradually once I found out more about the effects of testosterone, spoke to some transguys, and started to accept my body. (And got on T. Whew.) Now I thankfully look a lot more like my "imagined" guy than I thought I would, and I have a solid identity again. It's a load off my mind that I don't have to deal with it anymore.

I've actually never seen myself as a man, only as a boy. I've been stuck at thirteen all my life. Weird, huh? So I have never had an image of myself as an ideal man.

Quote from: Arch on August 31, 2008, 03:00:03 AM
I've actually never seen myself as a man, only as a boy. I've been stuck at thirteen all my life. Weird, huh? So I have never had an image of myself as an ideal man.

Actually, I think that's not so uncommon.  I think for a lot of trans-people, because we never had a chance to go through the rites of passage for our proper gender, there's a part of us (a bigger or smaller part, depending on the person) that gets stuck in a pre-pubescent/early pubescent state of development.  Jamison Green talked about that in his book Becoming a Visible Man.  (I was going to include a direct quote, but I can't find my copy of the book - which is annoying, because I haven't finished it yet.  :-\)

Mine was pushing it to back of mind because didn't think could do anything about it and didn't know what it was.  I then tried to focus on other things, letting it slip back to subconscious.  I was a tomboy as far as I let myself go.  When wasn't trying to be more feminine I wore mostly female, male, and unisex cloths that didn't look feminine.  I stopped climbing trees and playing as a boy a long time ago though when the guys stopped playing with me and I kept getting told I was to old for it.  *shrugs* ironically seen plenty of teenage guys who still did some of that stuff.

Anyways back on topic.  I was able to push it back to subconscious till last few years when living here in PA, I ran into people who were transgender and transsexual and it started to resurface.  I finally looked into it and realized I was one of them and it was like a dam breaking.  Everything flooding back to me.  Memories, desires, pain, that sense that something was wrong/different.  That I managed to pass 2 classes was a miracle, and I probably passed it because I wrote my final project on it (if you can't think of anything else use it) was pretty much my thought at time.

The flood has lowered, but I still every once in a while discover something.  My mind is practically a mess right now.  I've gone back to my simming, but there are nights I can't sleep and moments where I can't ignore it.  Where I find myself to edge, where all I feel is the need to do something, anything to feel better. 

So yeh I know what you mean.

Quote from: Adam on August 30, 2008, 02:18:49 PM
Actually I think my main coping mechanism was just to tell myself I didn't want to be a guy and I was happy as a girl. Ever since I've excepted myself as trans, that just doesn't work anymore.

Whoa, that must be tough. What do you do now, instead? Or is there an instead?
[/quote]

I don't know what my instead is now. I'm hoping I'll find one.

Although, I to have had these fantasies of actually being a man. Where I'm like one of those male celeberties and there's a whole line up of screaming fan girls.  ;D Wish that could be reality. *sighs*

Quote

QuoteI understand where you are coming from.  I'm another one of those ones who disappeared into my own head in order to cope.  I used to think of myself as "imaginary", because I couldn't identify with the person that everyone else saw.

QuoteAll my life I've had this "ideal" male identity that I've imagined being.  I figured that actually being male wasn't a choice, so why not imagine myself as tall, handsome, unbelievably sexy, with cute guys lining up to ... well, er, do things I don't have the equipment to do in real life. ;)

Yes, the Lutin alter-ego (almost identical to my avatar, actually) is far more me than what everyone else sees, which can make it very depressing at times, though that's how I've survived (though I didn't really realise that's what I was doing 'til recently) since I was about 8. Most days it's fine, if I get stressed or anxious or anything I toddle off into my own head and everything in reality subsequently becomes better (I resume real life much calmer and happier, I've found). It's the days where I can't stand the mental me being *only* mental, and that I'm not physically male and cannot say some magic word and POOF! I'll be really and properly me for the entire world...those are the hardest days, and that's when I sort of go into zombie-shutdown mode. Have trouble thinking straight and concentrating, impossible to do homework, can't contemplate socialising, unless it happens when I'm already out... Yes, I don't know how I get through those days, other than by default, that there's nothing else to do, and it sort of becomes a routine. They don't happen often, thankfully, and sometimes an "attack" will only be an hour, while on other occasions it's been weeks on end :'(, but everything always seems to return to normal. Those are the days when I realise that I really am transgender and seriously consider that I might be transsexual, and that I really should make a doctor's appointment and ask to see a gender therapist... But then, when it's all over, I feel completely androgynous, and don't see any need to see a therapist or anything (which makes it all *really*confusing :embarrassed:).

But yeah, I stopped playing rough-and-tumble boys' games when my periods started when I was 11, and tried to convince myself that I was happy being female, and I was only unhappy because I wasn't a gorgeous supermodel, but I've since realised that that's just not the case. When you'd rather be the guy standing next to the supermodel than the model herself... (Tried to convince myself out of being bi like that, too. "You only look at women's tits and hips 'cause they're aesthetically pleasing." Yeah, and the rest... :P).

So yes, trying to persuade myself out of it didn't work (in either case), and while *my* version of me helps me through most of the time, as a few people have said, once I realised I was trans, and started having periods where the disparity between my physical and mental self becomes almost physically painful (it's certainly mental agony), that stopped working all the time. Routine seems to be the best thing. And having an empty house, so that you can lie down in bed for hours at a time not doing anything, and not having people ask what you're doing, is also good, as is junk food (chocolate, buttered popcorn etc.). That's how I cope. (If I start feeling REALLY horrible, I tend to have very large amounts of coffee. Four shots per mug. Not healthy at all, but if you need to be perked up, better an artficial perk than none at all. Not condoning overuse of caffeine at all, it's just how I survive when I feel utterly depressed and zombied).

But yes, I can empathise/sympathise completely. Absolutely horrible, and you can only fully appreciate why they call it "gender dysphoria" when you feel/have felt utterly rockbottemly sh*thouse because of it (or that was certainly my case anyway. Thought "dysphoria" was a bit of an exaggeration. Ha! :-\).

Hugs to everyone :icon_hug:

Lutin

Jamie, if you find that James Green reference, I sure would like it. I have read the book and have my own copy, but I didn't mark that passage for some reason. I guess if you haven't finished the book, the passage must be pretty early on?

I woke up this morning feeling...sort of neutral. I'm working hard at not being negative. But I still feel lost without my coping strategy.

I've been watching a lot of movies--sheer escapism--but trying to get away from queer movies. Maybe I should go back to queer movies. That might help.

I have a pile of interesting books that I bought recently, but reading is still pretty hard for me right now. It requires more focus and concentration than I've been capable of mustering lately. However, I read two chapters of a gay novel last night, so that's an improvement.

Gah, I just want to get through this and start living again. I'm so hung up right now. (Edited to add: Although I don't know why I said "again" because I can't exactly say that what I was doing before was really LIVING.)

Posted on: August 31, 2008, 11:23:40 AM

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Quote from: Lutin on August 31, 2008, 11:13:15 AM
Most days it's fine, if I get stressed or anxious or anything I toddle off into my own head and everything in reality subsequently becomes better (I resume real life much calmer and happier, I've found). It's the days where I can't stand the mental me being *only* mental, and that I'm not physically male and cannot say some magic word and POOF! I'll be really and properly me for the entire world...those are the hardest days, and that's when I sort of go into zombie-shutdown mode.

Lutin, maybe what you need when you go inside your head is someone there who acts as a healer. S/he might be able to help you on those days that you don't get enough out of your mind-life.

For me, watching queer movies--which I manifestly needed to do at strategic intervals--was one thing that put me into zombie mode for a little while. But, as I said, I needed to do it because that was part of my survival mechanism.

Going inside my head, on the other hand, was only good and benign and sort of self-affirming and self-healing. I hate to use such mushy words, but there it is. Sometimes I would come back to reality with a hint of sadness, but it was mainly residual. Always I was in a better reality afterward. Of course, to maintain that, I had to constantly go back inside, but it was worth it.

Sometimes I wish I'd been able to climb in there for good, but I'm too stubborn to leave the real world forever.

Stubbornness is probably one of my better traits. And my worst.

QuoteThanks, guys. I've been trying to keep "negative" stuff off the forums, but it's leaking through now. I guess that's one function of these boards, right? For people to talk about how they feel, even if they don't feel good.

Never be afraid to post how you feel bud. We are all hear to listen!

Sometimes I will act like a turtle in my mind, my head receding back into my shell. It's my "safe place." There I try to work things out, but often, am even more terrified. In my shell I am exposed to the real me. I can't fight it. I can't make it go away. When I face myself, I fear myself. My body, a complete humiliation to me, is the most intimate part of myself besides my mind. Often I find myself extending far away from my personal being, so far outside of myself that I can barely make out my own body. I like to have my head up in the clouds where my personhood is so small that I cannot identify it. There I am glad, because I cannot see my female features and be ashamed of them. At the same time, being up there is making my life difficult. I can't see where I'm going. I keep running into things. I keep getting lost. I keep loosing grip on reality. When I bring myself back down to Earth, again I must face myself. So then I just keep looking straight ahead. I won't look at myself. If I do, I'll feel that pain and humiliation again. Even if no one else sees it, I know it's there. And I often can't help but think that by presenting as male I am lying to everyone; yes, I am a male in my being, in my mind... but not in my body. By presenting as male, I am telling a half-truth; the half they don't know about is that I am 100% female in my body. Often, I can't help but feel a little guilt over that.

Disassociation is one of the methods I use to cope. My coping methods include a lot of things. I try to positively encourage myself and reassure myself that my gender identity is valid... I've felt this way for such a long time. I can't imagine that it's a lie. It's who I am. As long as I remember to be true to myself, I can be secure in my own mind. But still, my body bothers me. As I type those tiny, but still large enough to annoy me breasts jiggle. My period started this morning, and the toilet water was red. I was horrified by that color, that sensation. Something, as usual, felt wrong about it. I felt that twinge of the fight-or-flight response, that I was somehow damaged and had to protect myself. That I was a wounded soldier who had to take refuge. The sensation of wiping that red slime from my genitals is almost my feelings represented with real imagery; I feel like my male parts were cut off and this is the wound that bleeds every month to represent that loss.

Realizing I was transgender was an opening to finding new ways to cope. I started accepting my masculinity and expressing it. At the same time, I had to fight the naturally forced femininity that my body's form takes. It feels like a constant battle, and if I push hard enough, there is equilibrium between the two forces. I hope that one day the masculine self can take over physically and mentally, fighting off the natural female mannerisms, emotions, and characteristics that don't feel part of me. It is fairly difficult having to wage war with the instincts caused by having estrogen in my body; that my mind does not want to live life that way, but the chemical messengers released by my ovaries tell me otherwise. It's like a bird fighting flight or a fish wishing to live on land. I feel as though I am defying very strong forces of nature. At the same time, I know that my condition is natural, caused by environmental effects. The transgender population grows as our planet becomes more overpopulated. In a way, I feel that nature wants us to be sterilized in order to protect the human race. I'm not thrilled about the idea; so badly do I want to be a father, but I can live with it and raise and adopted child.

I started participating in more masculine activities. Working out, building houses with Habitat for Humanity, fixing cars, learning about mechanics, and even fantasizing over the beautiful motorcycle (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/penguin_furuba/Rebel_Silver_metallic.jpg) I want... I started taking pride in the desires I used to hide from myself because I was ashamed to have them. For once, I was happy to be me. I was happy that deep down I was a boy who would be blossoming into a young man... My puberty, quite delayed and synthetic, will still get to happen. It's a dream come true. In a way, it is a miracle and it is like magic-- that a man who is trapped in a woman's body can restore his external manhood. Never before had I dreamed that could ever happen. What, then, did transition give me? Something I hadn't ever honesty felt; hope. Never before did I really understand the meaning of the word. Not until I had something to hope for.

But that hope sometimes diminishes. I am but 5'3" and this morning I weight out at 79.2 lbs. I gained a pound this week. But the differences between the male and female body are often astonishing. My body, being abnormally small for a female, would have to make drastic changes to be even in sight of average for a male. These mannequins help express the vast difference I feel when I look at my body verses a male's body. Obviously they are a great deal exaggerrated; the "perfect" look, in the eyes of the media, but I simply mean the shapes, especially that bit of meat under then man's arms that comes down to  his wast... I am proud to say that my lower half looks far more like his than the female's but my upperhalf looks very much like hers, with smaller breasts on my body.


I had to learn to make myself see my own body more masculinely. I'd stand naked in front of a mirror and try to pick out portions of my body that I liked. I found that my back looks quite masculine, from the muscles on my shoulders and such. That without breasts, I could pass as male, just a really skinny one. That I was proud of. I put something in front of my chest (a wash cloth, probably) that covered only my breasts. Just removing that one part made me look astonishingly male, and I was absolutely thrilled. For the first time in my life I could be intimate with my own body and take pride in it. If only those damn sacks of ugly were gone. Fortunately for me, I am certain that I will be able to change that and really take pride in my upper half. My bottom half, however, is a completely different story. Coping with it involves the use of tools; packing. If I didn't pack, I think I would feel quite dysphoric on a regular basis. Packing helps act as a substitute, and if it weren't there, I well... would probably put something there. If for some reason I couldn't, I very likely would agonize over it. I learned that an inanimate object as a substitute can be a very important thing, whereas before I used to think that packing was a ridiculous idea.

For a long time coping for me involved escapism. I was completely obsessed with the original Saturday Night Live cast, and I would watch a lot of their work. I was hardly "at home" in my mind, always off somewhere else, skipping through fields of alfalfa with John Belushi or something. It took me some time to realize that I was living in a past I hadn't even lived, and that I was ignoring the present. During the time of my life where I was completely isolated from reality, my real life diminished. Friendships crumbled, my grades suffered, my health started to disintegrate. It was around that time I said, "Frack this. I'm going to start cross dressing." I must say that presenting as male in public greatly increased my confidence and self esteem. People finally acknowledged the boy inside of me who had been trying to break out for so many years. I finally feel like I can live my life instead of putting it on hold. I still feel that I cannot be intimate with people, because my personal boundaries are quite large, but I can currently live life as a somewhat happy bachelor, his happiness driven by the hope that I will soon start my transition.

My feelings are somewhat different from yours, Arch, but I can relate to disassociation.

I'm stuck.  I have parts of me I like that are more maculine but the feminine parts are to obvious.  I never cared what I looked like before really.  I dressed in whatever, didn't care enough about my body to really take care of it or look good or anything.  I still don;t care about it lol.  But I do care about being seen for who I am inside, and understanding now what made me different has opened a door for me to express myself once more in my internal identity.

But I can no longer stand to be called female.  And it hurts more when people can not see who I am.  They look at me and see me as a freak.  This man/woman thing.  Or this weird woman lol.  Yet I also keep getting told I am a pretty girl or I can be one.  But I can't see that, I can;t accept that because I'm not a girl.  I cringe at it. 

For a while I wondered if I really had GID because I felt like my body didn't fit but same time I had managed to disconnect from it enough that I practically wasn;t aware of what I looked like, or didn;t care.  I just wanted these things off my chest and the bleeding to stop but again I didn;t think anything could be done.

Coming out to myself, I have become more aware, and it's painful.  It's frustrating.  I can't ignore it anymore.  :(

I didn't experience body dysphoria until I was distinctly female looking... For most of my life I looked quite androgynous.

Quote from: Aiden on August 31, 2008, 02:50:11 PM
I'm stuck.  I have parts of me I like that are more maculine but the feminine parts are to obvious.  I never cared what I looked like before really.  I dressed in whatever, didn't care enough about my body to really take care of it or look good or anything.  I still don;t care about it lol.  But I do care about being seen for who I am inside, and understanding now what made me different has opened a door for me to express myself once more in my internal identity.

But I can no longer stand to be called female.  And it hurts more when people can not see who I am.  They look at me and see me as a freak.  This man/woman thing.  Or this weird woman lol.  Yet I also keep getting told I am a pretty girl or I can be one.  But I can't see that, I can;t accept that because I'm not a girl.  I cringe at it. 

For a while I wondered if I really had GID because I felt like my body didn't fit but same time I had managed to disconnect from it enough that I practically wasn;t aware of what I looked like, or didn;t care.  I just wanted these things off my chest and the bleeding to stop but again I didn;t think anything could be done.

Coming out to myself, I have become more aware, and it's painful.  It's frustrating.  I can't ignore it anymore.  :(

I feel the exact same way, Aiden. You should know you're not alone.

I just try to ignore the whole thing, as most of the time I am either in school, with friends, or doing schoolwork, and I don't have any excuse to think about TS issues. And I have other, quite unhealthy coping mechanisms such as the dissociating which has always happened since forever, undereating, self harm, exercising too much, etc.

Now I'm just so constantly dissociated that I don't feel any pangs of anger looking at myself in the mirror, it just looks like some other kid, anyone, just not me. Or my brain will say something like oh, you just have huge pecs, that's why. Things that are completely illogical but I don't have the heart to correct myself.

Quote from: Arch on August 31, 2008, 11:40:58 AM
Jamie, if you find that James Green reference, I sure would like it. I have read the book and have my own copy, but I didn't mark that passage for some reason. I guess if you haven't finished the book, the passage must be pretty early on?

Hmmm.  Hard to say.  I have a tendency to skip around in non-fiction books.  But I'll make another search for that book.

Quote from: Lutin on August 31, 2008, 11:13:15 AM
Most days it's fine, if I get stressed or anxious or anything I toddle off into my own head and everything in reality subsequently becomes better (I resume real life much calmer and happier, I've found). It's the days where I can't stand the mental me being *only* mental, and that I'm not physically male and cannot say some magic word and POOF! I'll be really and properly me for the entire world...those are the hardest days, and that's when I sort of go into zombie-shutdown mode. ...

... They don't happen often, thankfully, and sometimes an "attack" will only be an hour, while on other occasions it's been weeks on end :'(, but everything always seems to return to normal. Those are the days when I realise that I really am transgender and seriously consider that I might be transsexual, and that I really should make a doctor's appointment and ask to see a gender therapist... But then, when it's all over, I feel completely androgynous, and don't see any need to see a therapist or anything (which makes it all *really*confusing :embarrassed:).

I've been here so many times.  It's like, once the "attack" is over, you become numbed to the pain of dysphoria.  And then it seems as if staying in your safe little cocoon is so much nicer than risking that pain again by facing it.

Yes, absolutely. It's sort of like, "out of sight, out of mind." If you're not in the agonising throes of dysphoria, and don't feel too bad, it's like the problem's just not there, and so you needn't worry about it. Unfortunately, it's those times when you feel great that you *should* be thinking about it and understanding everything, 'cause in all probability you'll sure as hell not want to think about the dysphoria when you're in the middle of it. Oh for an open-minded society!!!

I remember that space Arch. I was there from about age 19 to 24. I didn't cope, PERIOD - I was on the slippery slope to oblivion.

What kept me going through the dark times was DOING something about my situation, anything and everything I could do to work toward my goal and to be ready for it if it came - SRS in 1974 was virtually an impossible goal. (I was fortunate - it BECAME possible with little warning and I was GONE!

When you are feeling down, DO something, anything positive toward your goal so at least you feel you are moving, making progress. (Things are not nearly as bleak today so you should be able to achieve your ends.)

Yeah, when I finally wrapped my head around the fact that I can do this--transition, be a man physically, drop the fantasies and wishing and just make it real--it was hell.  My coping mechanism was really convoluted or so I thought--I'm really surprised & glad to see that I'm not the only one who pictured myself as physically male way before even realizing that I could transition (for too many years I thought that only MTF transitioning was possible, because that's all that I was ever exposed to or heard of). 

In my head, it got to the point that I thought that maybe, just maybe, other people saw what I saw in myself.  That ended abruptly when I finally realized that this is not, nor ever was, the case; it was awful having my only coping mechanism go out from under me.  I felt like a fool for thinking that others could see me for what I am, when in reality they were attracted to what they and the rest of the world saw--a small female, hidden perhaps under layers of clothing and black and aggression, but still undeniably 'girl' and 'cute.'  I was invisible and I couldn't handle it anymore.  So now my coping mechanism has become moving forward with transition, slow as that process might be.  I still do a bit of dissociation, though now it's more seeing the potential that this female body has for becoming male. It's short but otherwise not that bad (the whole 'can't have a proper penis' thing still gnaws on my mind though... really wish there were better options for that).  Anyways, best wishes to you for getting through this rough patch; take 'er easy, dude.

Quote from: Northern Jane on September 01, 2008, 09:49:00 AM
When you are feeling down, DO something, anything positive toward your goal so at least you feel you are moving, making progress. (Things are not nearly as bleak today so you should be able to achieve your ends.)

Jane, I'm exercising a lot. Not much else I can do. But the more weight I lose, the better. That's progress toward transition. And exercise definitely helps with my brain chemistry.

I feel down when I wake up in the morning, so I come to Susan's first thing. That's generally a boost. Then I try to persuade myself to exercise. Sometimes it takes awhile to get on the bike, but I tend to feel better afterward. In the evening, I feel myself slipping, so I exercise again--get on the bike one more time or hike around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, my bad ankle is starting to feel the strain. I hope it holds up.

I'm still feeling lost and lonely inside, but this system seems to be working for now. I hope I'm feeling more in control when I go back to work later this month. I'll be obligated to other people, and I won't be able to jump on the bike anytime I want to. But at least there are a few people on campus I like to socialize with on a casual basis. I plan to hunt them up. My therapist thinks it will be good for me. I know that he's probably right, but I would rather hide inside my head.

And I would, too, if there were still somewhere to go up there.

I have used various forms of coping in the past including dropping vast amounts of money I could not afford on things I did not need or even really want in thevague belief that somehow theywould/could make me happy.  I have used and still do to some point alcohol to medicate and didn't inhabit my body for years, preferring instead to live internally in mymind where I could be the person I wanted so desperately to be.

A large part of this came from undereducation on the subject, just not knowing or being exposed to the possibility that I could actually be how I imagined myself to be inside my head.

I had heard of course about MTF transexualism but had not really been exposed or educated to the facts of FTM transexualism and ->-bleeped-<- so I suppose you could say what I suffered from for many years (almost as long as I can remember in fact) was a sort of gender dsyphoria,a malingering sense that something just wasn't intrinsically right about me but with no idea how to even begin putting that thing
(which I didn't even fully realise was wrong in the first place) right, if that makes sense at all.

The internet was a kind of lifesaver for me, I remember when I discovered it sometime around the millenium, online I could be as male as I wanted without having to even justify to myself the reasons why I was inhabiting male personnae so frequently (after all it's only online right it's not real).

It was only after I read an article on the subject of what it meant to be a genderqueer and actually read the story of someone who had been biologically born as a female and then gone on to fully transition in to a man that I realised this could be an actual reality for me rather than a fantasy that I could only indulge in from time to time inside my mind.

The dam broke and shortly after I came out as a genderqueer and subsequently a transman, since then I have never looked back in terms of coping mechanisms they just don't have the same effect on me anymore, maybe because I don't feel the constant need to escape that I used to.

Like I said I do still use alcohol to medicate but usually only when I am stressed out about something else now ie: personal issues with my partner and am not using due to my gender issues, since they don't seem half as bad any more after coming out, except I wish desperately to commence testosterone therapy which I see as corrective therapy for the incorrect dose of hormones I was given pre-natally (ie when I grew the biologically sexual organs of a female in my mothers womb).

In short if I had known about the very real possibility of transitioning fully when I was younger, I would have done it years ago in a heartbeat of that I have no doubt.

But all in all, I am a man, I feel like a man, I live in a man it is really only my genitalia that do not match at present and even there I already feel like I have a penis.

I want/need surgery to complete me but it's not that which will make me a man.  I'm already a man totally simply because I am. You cannot help who you are.

Quote from: Arch on August 30, 2008, 12:43:26 AM
All my life I've had a particular coping strategy for dealing with my gender dysphoria and my sexuality. I'm not comfortable being explicit here, but let's just say that I lived in my head a lot.

That particular strategy has...well, it has no longer become possible. A few days ago, I found out that it's gone. Again, I'm not too comfortable talking about it here. I told my therapist last Thursday, so he knows now.

This is tearing me up inside, and it hurts hurts hurts. I feel like an abandoned child.

Right now, I feel as if toxins are building up in my brain and making me less and less able to get through the day. I don't know whether this process is cumulative from day to day. I'll probably wake up fresh tomorrow and then start going downhill again. That's what happened today, only I'm feeling worse tonight than I did last night. I'm having one of those zombie nights, only the numbness isn't fully blotting out the pain anymore. I used to be able to go completely numb for short periods and just ride it, but that strategy seems to be slipping, too.

All I can think about at the moment is surviving till my therapy appointment on Tuesday. My therapist is hoping that working with him will replace what I've lost, at least to some extent. I would like that, too, but then I have the unhappy task of trying to survive from appointment to appointment. In fact, I feel as if that's what my life consists of--getting through to the next session, spending fifty minutes with someone who really gets me, and then facing another long dry spell.

Funny thing is, I've been going in twice a week, and I still get to feeling desperate when I have to wait just a few days for the next session.

This is why I suppressed for so many years, so I wouldn't have to deal with the feelings. But now my main coping strategy is broken. I guess I'll have to find new ways of getting through each day, but I don't know how. I'm in brand new territory, and it doesn't feel good. I can't pass. I can't go back inside my head. And I can't tell my partner, at least not yet.

I feel dead inside right now, only not dead enough.

Sorry to hear it, Arch.

I feel like I'm probably the worst person to ask about coping methods given my last vlog...But you know... Funny as it sounds, coloring is a good relaxing activity. I had to color a banner to help advertise my GLBTQ club's next event, and it was so relaxing.... Your brain completely shuts off.

Also, going to the gym is also a great mechanism for me because I love it so much and because it's all I think about while I'm there. I never completely forget that I'm not a bio male, especially in a place like the gym, but focusing on my own workout is a nice distractor. I do 20-28 minute powerwalk/run combos on the treadmill to try and ease myself into running since I don't have the stamina for it, and 50 counts of each different weightlifting set. Biceps, triceps, back, thighs/calves, abs. Maybe do more than biking? Or mix it up?

Feel better Arch :(