Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hi - although i've known what i am as long as i can remember, i have never done more than fantasize about it.  Not quite nothing - I have had some bad therapy sessions, and told a few important others - most notably the teenage girl who later became my wife.  She neither understood (who can understand this, really?) nor wanted to - and though we had a series of near-crises in our twenties, I committed myself to dealing with my pain in private.  That was 15 years, three children and several suddenly disfunctional coping mechanisms ago.

No, not suddenly disfunctional - i've been having increasing pain over the past few years, but until recently, i thought i could channel, control, defer and otherwise cheat my way out of it.  There's so much that's so good in my life - work, vocation, love.  In fact, I'd say the major problem in my life right now - and in my wife's - is me.

For reasons I don't understand, my relation to my body - which had been one of fairly steady, slightly ironic numbness, interspersed with wrenching binges of fantasy - has gone haywire.  i hurt in strange places, my appetite is gone, i find myself dizzy and disoriented.  it's as though the strings that connect me to my male physique and persona have gotten snarled and frayed - are snapping.  or is that snapping me?

my wife finds the whole idea of what i am excruciatingly painful and depressing - a total rejection of her and our lives.  but i love her, and the children she makes it clear i am on the verge of losing.  at the moment my life choices seem to be a transition that costs me and those i love everything, and one form of death or another.

the one friend i can talk to - extraordinary woman - has urged me to join this forum and seek the voices of those who know the kinds of things i'm going through.  here i am, lost and on the edge.  (just what you needed, eh?)

help?

You are, in fact, what many of us need, having come close to the edge ourselves in our own ways. So don't feel bad about that.

Ouch, you have some difficult life circumstances to deal with. I'm a divorce lawyer, so I know how hard the fights around children can be. On the children, that is. Not to mention the parents. On the other hand you are, as you say, on the brink. And for me (your mileage may vary) that means on the brink of doing something drastic that may mean for your children that they don't get to see you again.

Please don't make that choice for them. Even if their mother makes the choice for them and you are separated from your children for some time, believe me, they will come back if you want them to and they will get to know you as the person you want to be. Your children deserve to have that option and as painful as that may be to you in the short term, they are better served to have a parent who is alive and is different than one who was taken from their lives, either by disappearing or suicide, by no choice of their own. It may take time, and time can be a number of years, but be there for them. That will be more important to them than that their "dad" is unhappy, but fits the mainstream definition of normal. Or worse, their "dad" went away some day and never came back.

I see the pain that kids suffer from their parents' choices everyday (I also defend young offenders), and transsexualism or crossdressing has never been one of those problems. Missing, absent, distracted, violent, neglectful, or dead parents is a problem.

Dennis

PS: and I have had clients who are TG or cross dress and I've never had their kids as young offender clients.

help? Sure. Can't do much but listen and talk, but perhaps in all of it you might find something that might be applicable.  If not then well, you killed some time.  try a bit about what you feel your priorities are. what you want  your life to be in 5 or 10 years, or tommorow perhaps.  What do you want that can be talked about and you may or may not find help in?

Terri

Thank you both for your compassionate responses.  Dennis, your perspective is really important for me to hear right now - though in some ways it makes the multiple bind even tighter, since at least i could fantasize about suicide as home improvement - but instead of having to take out a loan, the family would get money. 

i don't know why this feels so important to me.  when my wife asks me why i can't just be like Dax (Star Trek Deep Space 9 alien who lives happily in bodies of various genders), i answer pertly that i'm not an alien - but the question haunts me.  why should a healthy average-looking body feel so awful to me?  why should i feel invisible,cut off from life, ghostly?  why should the very thought of being female feel like a sip from the Fountain of Life in the middle of the desert?  but ok, even given all that (maybe my mileage is varying here, but i doubt it), why can't love be enough for me?  i love them, they love me - the me that they see but still, lots of me isn't skin and hormones - and my problems aside, we have so much happiness here in our grasp? 

why can't i - no, how can i - let go, adjust, adapt?  why is this getting worse as i grow up and older (not that i feel terribly grown up right now, but you'd be surprised, i've usually been considered preternaturally sane and mature - i think detachment does that) and not easier?

why should i find suicide more attractive than the thought of living without this difficult, crazy hope of becoming the person i've always felt i am?  after all, what's hopelessness for, if not resignation and acceptance?

sorry, nuff from me.  thank you again - having this world here, within reach of fingers and keys, makes a real difference.

You are going through what many of us have been through in the past.  Don't dispair there is help out there for you and your family to take advantage of.  I would suggest you contact you local or nearest Gay, Lesbial, B-sexual, Transgender (GLBT) support groupe and ask them for contacts, therapists, doctors who are TG friendly in your area.  That's what I did, and it was the best move that I made for me and my family.  They put me in contact with a therapist at the local university, and then she in turn put me in touch with a TG friendy doctor, and we haven't look back since.

There is lots advice here to be given and I think that this is the first step you should be taking to help sort out who you are and what you should be doing to help you and your family through this turmoil you are going through.  Remeber you simply can't adapt, or adjust , or just let go, you are who you are, and this is the first step.

thanks so much stephanie - i've contacted a therapist and will start next week.  one day at a time right now - and thanks for reminding me of all the strong (stronger!) people who've gone through this stuff and come out the other side.  it's really the family that makes it all seem impossible - scared as i am, if it weren't for them, there's no question what i'd be doing now....

hello yuldah,


I understand how you feel. living as an unresolved transsexual slowly gets worse and worse as the years pass. i was where you are many years ago, i stayed and did my best till my kids were out on their own but it took a terrible toll on my health, physical and mental health, and it ruined all the love my wife and i had for each other. I can't say which is best having taken only one road, but the one i chose was an unbearable one. the past few years i have wondered every day if it would be my last. it all ended when i decided to be me about a year ago, just the decision made all the difference. I now believe the suffering is caused by the trapped feeling, and feeling it will always be that way with no hope. Once i had hope things got lots better fast.  Transition is a long process, it is very possible to spend two or three years getting your body in shape, electrolysis and hormone changes while still being Dad. If your wife can be made to understand exactly how you feel and know that it isnt a rejection of her or a choice on your part she may support you through this first part. If that were possible it gives you more time with the kids and her and everyone else more time to get used to the idea. i know it may not be possible but something like this could be a third alternative.

you are doing the most important thing, seeing a therapist. talking about it helps so much as does coming here and discussing it. i have found i understand myself much better when i type out my feelings in poems or here in the forum. Suicide is not an answer. Your children need you, you have to be here for them, but i believe you can start to do what is necessary to become yourself at the same time. this is one of the hardest posts ive ever written cause your situation is so very close to how mine was. hopefully i can be more of a help in the future. i know your future is going to be sometimes difficult but there is so much love and happiness in your future also.

beth

Hello Yuldah, pleased to meet you.

Welcome to Susan's most wonderful Place.

Please feel free to join in on the conversations (=

Quote from: beth on July 06, 2005, 06:55:00 PM... I now believe the suffering is caused by the trapped feeling, and feeling it will always be that way with no hope. ...

I concur.

dear all,

thank you so much for your responses - they mean and help - i've been wanting to write for days (a day feels like a week these days) but things have been very hard, and i can only write around dawn or after everyone's asleep - and i haven't had the energy -

but i wanted to thank Teri-Gene and Beth esp.  Teri-Gene, i have thought about what i want - it's to know that my family's love and acceptance will embrace whatever i have to do - and even though i know that's not possible, it really helps to name the wish.  and Beth, thank you for telling me how your hell resembled mine - bless you for having the courage to break through to hope - hope is the key, i can't give it up it seems without giving up all desire to live -

bless you all.

just write whenever you can, we need you here, we can learn from your experiences as you can from ours. i know you will begin to feel lots better as soon as you start with your therapist, talking and getting it out into the open does wonders.






beth

another short update, for my virtual support group.  it's been a hard and endless few days, but some good has come:  for the first time in my life (do i sound like a dope saying this?) i've realized i actually don't WANT to die.  i want to live.  simple, i know, but i've really never felt this way before - only got there through a suicidal spiral, and the voice of my one friend who knows and is there for me in this. 

so i'm feeling better about this - that something good and true and vital is growing through the TS turmoil - and my wife tells me she feels like i've handed someone in our family a death sentence.  maybe me, maybe her, maybe all of us.  to be with her, i have to be able to empathize, to stay in touch with that perspective - that the way i feel is a way of death.  but i am coming to feel it as a way of life.

ok, maybe i DO still need to talk to a therapist...

does anyone out there have any ideas about how to live with being an unresolved transsexual?  i mean, really live, not just die slowly behind your face?  or is my biology destiny after all?

thank you all for being there

As long as you find a therapist who knows what they are doing gender wise it is generally not a bad thing to talk to them at all. Regardless, you are very welcome to chat with us (=

As for your question of "... ideas about how to live with being an unresolved transsexual?" I really can not offer meaningful advice, as my only advice is to resolve the issue. Speaking from my own experience and in my own case moving forward in/towards transition means SO MUCH to me.   ...   I guess your best option would be to talk to a therapist and ask him/her this question.

Quotedoes anyone out there have any ideas about how to live with being an unresolved transsexual?

lock away the guns, avoid high places, get an electric oven and an electric car.

sorry to be so frank






beth

Beth, thanks so much for that frankness - i feel very close to you in this, because of your generosity in paralleling your past to my present.  i keep thinking there is some death-in-life trick i can work out - some way of it being enough to love and be loved, even while not being me - some way of being what i think of as "the friendly ghost," usefully haunting the family, doing good, enjoying in theory what i can't really feel - and then finally being done.  not much evidence that i can keep that up, of course - or i wouldn't be here.

i had been emailing a wonderful woman friend, and my sense of myself as a female was blossoming through her acceptance - but it became too much for her, the thought that she was undermining my family this way.  that is, i communicated my sickness and dysphoria, my guilt and shame, to her.  so i have to stop.  feels like i've just performed an abortion on myself - which is interesting, because the main character in a book i wrote does that.  the trauma of that has helped me through the day - and my wife's effort to be warmer, even though we can't talk.

therapy's friday.  time is so expanded these days, that's a week or two away - wonder how many lives i will have cycled through by then?

in the meantime, i try to be extra careful when i'm driving the car - it's gas, but we don't have a garage, and we live in a ranch, and in general i'm not a threat to myself or others.

please keep being frank - it's a lifeline.

thank you.

For what it is worth and speaking from one view of the transsexual side of life. My life is one hundred times better than it was before I accepted myself. In my opinion, it is not worth hiding from yourself. That caused the constant pain that I felt, always there, always gnawing. Now that I know that, I would rather be dead than go back to that pain.

A quote comes to mind that I've become fond of:

Quote from: Andre GideIt is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

My feeling is that hiding from what you are will kill you either directly or indirectly.

I wish you much strength.

yuldah hadasha.

>>"does anyone out there have any ideas about how to live with being an unresolved transsexual?  i mean, really live, not just die slowly behind your face?  or is my biology destiny after all?"<<

As beth said... 

Your therapy is on Friday, just relax and take it easy till then, take it step by step, cross bridges as you come to them.  You have to resolve your issues, and by seeking therapy you are taking charge of them, which is a great first step.

>>" had been emailing a wonderful woman friend, and my sense of myself as a female was blossoming through her acceptance - but it became too much for her, the thought that she was undermining my family this way.  that is, i communicated my sickness and dysphoria, my guilt and shame, to her.  so i have to stop"<<

This is what therapists are for, they have no vested interest in you so they are able to handle these things better than friends or family can.  I've said this before to those who are having a hard time "finding themselves" but take your time, there is no quick fix.  Look forward to Friday, don't expect miracles, talk, talk, talk...

Steph

ok - sounds like the consensus is, make it to therapy, be patient, don't expect myself to go away no matter how convenient that would be.  excellent advice, hard-won wisdom, i know - so i will take it.

thank you all...

ps There really is no escape from this stuff.  yesterday in class one of my students started spontaneously (i swear, i hadn't started class yet) talking about the number of SRSs in Thailand, and other students chimed in on the subject.  then last night i was watching an old episode of Deep Space Nine with my wife, and it's the one where Dax (the gender-changing symbiotic alien) meets her old wife after several lifetimes - now they are both women, but their feelings and relationship are really unchanged.  i didn't know - too cowardly to ask - whether my wife knew that we were watching a dramatization of my most profound and futile hope for the future.  anyway, clearly this is work that i have to do right now, so i'm going to try to stop whining and do it.

hello yuldah,

             i'm so happy to hear you are having therapy on friday. i am positive that will make you feel lots better. talking with someone face to face will bring some relief and a coresponding change in outlook. you have a wonderful future yuldah, one filled with lots of love and happiness.  :)






beth

I know what you mean by no escaping this stuff... I sometimes think that it is life's way of enforcing destiny. Hit us over our heads long enough for us to notice/pay attention/do something about it the lot be damned and come to find out it is what we probably should have done ages ago.. It's just a theory but I have my suspicions ;)

Hang in there Yuldah, Friday will be here before you know it! (=

Yuldah, hang in there.  It will be a long and rocky road, but you have many caring sisters here who are willing to help you by offering support along the way.

Fifteen years ago, I was where you are today.  I had no one to talk to who understood what I was feeling, so I had to slowly find my way thru the wilderness of discovery leading to my coming out and receiving HRT in 1992 and my beginning to live in the female role in 1993.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about what I was; I didn't know the term "transsexual" even existed at that time. 

Until I began HRT, I was living in a perpetual state of fear, thinking that I was evil because I felt like I should be a woman.  That sense of fear still lurks within my subconscious mind; it makes me look everywhere to make sure that I am safe, yet I try to remember that I am a very strong-minded, independent person who will not tolerate abuse in my life.

I have been thru some very rough times as a result of my transition, yet I am stronger today than I can ever remember being in the past because of those hard times.

Feeling the way that you do is perfectly normal at this pre-transition stage. 

Take it from me: there is no turning back to the person that you used to be.  I tried purging in 1990 and ended up regretting that action within a very short time.  The realization that purging was not going to change the way that I felt within was the primary motivator in my choice to begin my transition in the late summer of 1992.

I hope that you have an easier time of it than I had, tho the fact that you have a family has to be making this whole time extremely diffiult for you.

My prayers are with you.

Tiffani

Dear Beth, Kimberly, Tiffani and all of you who have been so supportive,

The good news is Friday came and i met my therapist, who is quiet and patient and cautious and wise and very experienced with these issues.  she is a God-send (a term that as a religious person i mean quite literally).  i have had a long series of bad, scarring experiences trying to communicate with therapists about these issues - she is actually the first person i've ever spoken to who just understood what i was talking about.  she also realized that i am in crisis, more or less, and has made herself available if need be by phone between appointments.

i have pushed forward with talking with my wife - actually, she brings it up when we have time and energy, which is rarely, between three kids, no child care, working, etc.  she is trying very hard, despite her rage at having her life and future erased (as she sees it, quite understandably) by me.  in fact, i'm not sure what's harder - when she is cold and angry, or when we get closer, as we have lately, and i see her agony.

that agony has led me to redouble my efforts to kill off my own hope to live out my identity as a woman - to see what i have and am experiencing as a terminal illness rather than something that can be treated, changed.  i have glimpsed the almost drug-like ecstacy of feeling that the woman i have always wanted to be is starting to coalesce inside me (along with the despair in feeling i am too far behind all the "real" women to every make it) - but seeing my wife's repulsion and pain, i know that, as she has put it, the cost of embracing that glimpse of wholeness and happiness is four other lives, hers and our children's.

i can't do that math, sisters.

i grew up training myself, often violently, to disconnect from and punish myself for my feelings.  i'm calling on that training now.  but i can't pretend to be happy while doing it - i can just push ahead, doing things, keeping as busy as i can and eating as little as i can manage (because i just can't stand feeding this body anymore) and trying not to feel - but of course i hate the feeling of not-feeling - but that doesn't i tell myself matter.

i'm sorry, i'm letting everyone down right now, i didn't want to write and tell you this but i also didn't want to just disappear in the face of all your good wishes.

therapy again wednesday.  i honestly don't know how to live, sisters - how can i live at the expense of those i love and who love me?  (there haven't been many who have)  so i'm afraid i'm back in a way where i started, just not immediately suicidal (my new life ins policy has a two-year wait on that, so i have time to really see if i can find a way through).

thank you for your patience, your kindness, for being the voice of the light in the dark.

Oh I am so glad to hear from you again Yuldah!

I truly hope you can find happiness in whichever direction you travel.

I hope this site remains a beacon should you ever find yourself in the dark.

hello Yuldah,

             i am so familiar with the path you have chosen for the moment.  how can i be critical of you for doing exactly as i have done. i wish you well and can empathize with your selflessness. you are a beautiful and strong woman and you will have the strength to survive. i had been wondering how you were doing so i thank you so much for letting us know. you are welcome to just drop by anytime, just for an afternoon or short visit.


love

beth

Dear Beth,

thank you for your empathy and your love.  i wish i WERE selfless - i need self reassignment surgery to get rid of all this misery and resentment etc and just be for others.  it is SO wonderful to have you see me, even virtually, like this, as a strong and beautiful woman.

love,

yuldah

Hey there

Just remember, be you, love you, live for you, invite those you love to join you in your journey, if they decline, give them a gentle wave good-by, smile and be their friend.

Steph

Yuldah, as I have stated before, there are many people here who care about what is going on in your life as well as the lives of your family.  It must be a very difficult adjustment for everyone involved.

Many in our community have gone thru extremely hard times, in various ways, and have come out stronger than when we went in.  I myself, not quite seven years ago was charged with two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson endangering life throught the use of a polygraph test and psychological/physical entrapment by detectives.  There is substantial evidence showing my innocence, yet the police refused to accept any of that evidence.  I came within a whisker's breadth of doing 25 years to life in one of the prisons surrounding the city of Kingston, Ontario.

I lost everything that I owned and held dear as a result of the actions of the police.

When I was released, I had to fight every single step of the way to get what I needed for my own survival.  I had to rebuild from the ground up in every way.

Yet here I am now trying to help others in any way that I can.

I will be checking often if you or anyone else wishes to ask me questions.

Tiffani