First off sorry this is going to be long, but I want to get everything out in the open and hopefully help some people in the process. I know if I can make it others can too!
Anyway, Ive had these feelings of being different for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories of wanting to be feminine was when I was only about 4 years old. I remember being in the bath tub and every time I would play I'd put the wash cloth over my head and pretend it was beautiful long hair like the girls at school. Eventually those desires went away for a bit, For as much as I can remember anyway. My childhood is kind of a blur to me now. There were many other times usually when I played with girls like Jakie or Shannon (childhood friends) I imagined turning into girls when we played sometimes. I felt comfortable around them more often doing so. While if I was with guy friends or someone I tended to play outside, forts and guns, that sort of thing.
It wasn't until I witnessed for my first time on television two characters from my favorite cartoon show switch bodies with each other that I knew for a fact something wasn't right with me. During the show a gender swap occurred leaving each person in the others body. I was 10 at the time and became extremely aroused at the sight of this, I got it in my head that I wanted to swap bodies magically with a girl so bad. This feeling left me depressed after coming to its conclusion. I knew no matter how hard I tried I would never have a different body. I prayed to god, i wished on stars, I just wanted so bad to not be in my body. I hated it. I think realizing that was the first time i had depression that I can remember.
While growing up, I was never really into quintessential "guy" things, I was skinny and nerdy, and I was better at being friends with girls than getting girlfriends. Because of this there were (on a few occasions) points in my life where my father would ask me," Are you gay?" or "Do you like guys". He just seemed very homophobic and it scared me when he asked me. Granted I wasn't gay but the fact that he kept asking made me feel like I wasn't being "manly" enough. My favorite example of this is when I was about 10 years old. I was standing outside and my father tosses me a football and I toss it back, but im not so hot throwing a football, in all honesty I hate the sport. As we stand outside throwing the ball my neighbor Andrew comes outside. Now I love this kid, he is like a brother to me and I would die for him but this day made me so mad at him and so upset with myself. As he came outside my dad tossed the ball to him. Andrew used to play football and as you can expect tossed an almost near perfect spiral back to my dad, I got excited that he joined us. This was the first and only time my dad ever played catch with me. Well as soon as he caught the ball from Andrew he commented by saying something along the lines of,"oh wow why cant you throw like this?" then he continued playing catch but with Andrew instead, the only time i got the ball is when Andrew threw it to me. I was so jealous and mad, I felt like my dad wanted Andrew over me like it was the son he wished I had grown up to be.
Because of the sheer amount of friends I had growing up - 4 - The homophobic questionings of my father, and my distance with the rest of my family, I felt that If i were to tell anyone about what I thought to be disgusting thoughts of wanting to be a girl, I would lose the already small amount of people in my life.... I spent the next 10 years feeling so alone and scared.
There were multiple points in my life where I would dress in girls clothes and try on make up, but it was when I was alone. I kept this to myself from the age of 4 till 23, and every time I did it i convinced myself it was a phase that I would grow out of, I convinced myself that people must abide by the specific black and white gender spectrum, and that there must be something seriously wrong with me. I was disgusted with my body and myself. I became so depressed the more and more I couldn't get away from the feeling. I knew I felt wrong but I couldn't accept the fact that I was a girl trapped in this body that I was ashamed of and disgusted by. I also convinced myself I was going to take this cross dressing, body swapping fantasy of mine to my grave. I tried as hard as I could to suppress it and hide it.
That is why I hid it so well, mostly fear, it consumed me. But like I said I didn't necessarily understand that I was transgender till I was almost 22 or at least I didn't think of it that way, and most of my problems again I thought stemmed from my family and up bringing. (granted the did do some good damage)
So now that Ive explained how I feel and why I kept it hidden for so long, lets start with my story of why I was so confused for so long about who I am. During my childhood and teens I kept my desires wrapped up tight. No one knew but it ate away at me from the inside, but I was content on keeping it quite because I feel like I need to be the normal one out of my family. There were a lot of problems outside the transgender idea that plagued me. I had a horrible family situation that drove me into thinking my problems were from that, and once i figured out how to fix it my thoughts of wanting to be a woman would vanish
(Disclaimer: story is shortened and leaving things out otherwise we would be here all day)
When I was about 5, my parents broke up. My mom came up and asked me if i would like to live in an apartment, I thought it was a cool idea at the time but she left out the detail that my dad was coming with us. From then on I felt like my mom had broken her trust with me, I felt like she kept me from a big secret that I should have know about and I felt hurt, from then on my dad had a wonderful control over me. He told me all sorts of things about my mom that I believed to be true. Come to find out years later that they both have their faults yes and they both lied to me, by my father took the award (if there is any) for lies. but I'll get to that later.
Once we moved into the apartment I was introduced to Terry, My moms new boyfriend. I was never fond of him and He scared me more times than none. Growing up my mom had this bad bad habit of picking up the wrong men, She loved the wild guys, the rock and roll type with long hair and ->-bleeped-<-. And well if he looks like a ->-bleeped-<- up, they usually are ->-bleeped-<- ups. Anyway long story short a couple years down the line after more verbal abuse than anything my mom eventually kicked him out. But she was scared he might do something crazy. So my mother installed a security system, and well thank god she did because on the first night, he broke into the house and held my mom down with a drill gun pushed up against her head and was yelling at her to take him back before he had to do something drastic. Eventually the police came and chased him out. And after hours of staying up worrying the cops found him dead on the railroad tracks down the street.
Over the course of the next couple years everything went on as normal from the age of 12-18, or as normal as it gets for me. I'm going to keep this part short but in between that time a few things happened that are key i feel; My cousin Tawney moved into the house with us because child protective services was going to take her away. In fact I remember making the realization that me and Tawney looked very similar in our child photos and I became so jealous of her looks, I remember saying to myself I would look like her if I was a girl and just being all around jealous. But anyway also throughout that time my dad married Sharon my step mom for like 8 years or so which is a big life changer for me but ill get to that later too. And aside from the occasional Control freakout from my mom and the ever so popular guilt trips from my dad I lived in a lonely yet ignorant bliss. It wasn't until I was 18 that my world seemed to fall apart.
February 16 Sharon died, That night is my most vivid memory it is burned into brain and I think ill have dreams about that night for the rest of my life. It was 1 am on a Thursday and my dad called me, It woke me up but I didn't think much of it since my dad usually got of at this time. So i just turned my phone off. At about 3am a car pulls up to the house and its Bob, my dads neighbor from down the block. He comes up to the door and rings it a couple times. At this moment I knew something was terribly wrong. My mom comes out, scared saying wondering who is ringing her doorbell at 3 am. I tell her its my dads neighbor from my room. I sit in my room as my mom answers the door. Everything else from that point on just seems like a blur the only thing I got from Bob saying anything was three words - "Sharon is dead". After that I remember just getting sick to my stomach and saying "->-bleeped-<- ->-bleeped-<- ->-bleeped-<- this isn't happening no no no" In the back of my head I was more worried about my dad, I know how he is and I was worried how he was going to react and I was scared how to react to him. I just threw on my shoes and ran out the door. My mom said she would come over but I couldn't think I just ran out and told her to stay. I could handle it....
Looking back, I wasn't ready. I spend the next 4 years in a deep depression, and even at times considering killing myself. I used to cut myself and push the limit on sleeping pills every once in a while. Looking to mask the pain any way I could.
After sharon died My dad basically jumped off the deep end. I grew so concerned with his mental health I insisted on staying with him for the remainder of my high school career and even decided to live with him freshman year during the weekends. It killed my social life at school but I was more concerned with my dads well being. And over the course of 2 years my dad had basically stripped the life from me.
For the first couple months my dad was like a zombie and the only time I would see him is when he would come out of his room (which he cried loudly in every day for hours). I remember coming home every night from work and just sitting at the bottom of the staircase and listen to him for about an hour or two just cry. It was horrible and I hated hearing it but I was more afraid that he might kill himself, so there I sat, every night for months. On multiple occasions during his crying sessions he would cry out saying he wanted to die and he had no one who loved him and he was all alone... things of that nature. It concerned me and caused me many restless nights. I was also plagued with multiple nightmares and irregular heart beats. In fact that summer I got a case of insomnia because I had a 6 week period were I couldn't fall to sleep and every time I did I would have a nightmare. I eventually got sent home from work because of it, they said I looked like I was horribly sick and so they told me to go home because i was freaking them out haha.
My dad eventually calmed down... slightly, let me make that clear, just slightly calmed down. He would bring home a few random women as he tried to get back into the dating scene. But he was such in a rush to get remarried and I didn't understand, he was still filled with such grief but yet such in a rush to meet someone new. It concerned me and made me think about it for a while.
I started to suggest my dad go see a shrink or a doctor... someone! I was physically getting tired of being the caretaker for my dad and trying to keep him happy. I felt like I had been the adult in our relationship for years. I even had a scare at one point, like i said I had an irregular heart beat caused from the amount of stress I was under. I remember taking my then girlfriend Kayla out on a date and having to pull over from chest pains. Come to find out my heart had been skipping beats and the doctor told me that I needed to go on a vacation or something.
He said he was talking to someone eventually which made me happy for about a microsecond. Then it went downhill again. A woman that my dad was trying to marry got wise to him and realized that he isn't ready to be in a relationship and he was looking more for her to take care of him and help pay bills and such. So she left him. That day my aunt called me and told me my dad had written a suicide note to my family and that I needed to watch over him till she got off work. When i got that call I was sooooooooooo scared. Imagine being 17 and a family member calls and says its all up to you to watch over your dad and make sure he doesn't kill himself.
I was just simply drained at this point. But my love for my father makes me pull through and i go and check on him every once in a while. He is outside in the garage doing what he normally did every day which is sit smoking a cigar in the garage watching tv. but something was different he didn't normally drink alcohol, growing up I really never saw my father drink but the man had a whole bottle of whiskey sitting next to him and at the time I didn't think much of it but he also had his entire weekly pill box out with him. I new something was wrong but I figured he was ok. He was getting drunker over the hours and eventually I hear him run upstairs. I come out of my room and he sprints past me to the garage. As i run out after him he is already in his car and peeling out of the garage backwards. He skids into the street and floors it, taking off. At that moment my aunt finally shows up and I spend the next hour crying and freaking out in my room. At one point screaming at my aunt and punching a wall yelling "why does he have to do this, I love him, why cant he understand im here for him."
It hurt so much knowing that no matter how hard I tried, how much time and effort I put into taking care of my dad, he would still say that no one loved him or that he just wants to die because hes got nothing to live for.
Anyway after about 2 or 3 hours and scouring the entire town we find my dad parked at my high school tennis courts. As my aunt pulls in behind him so he cant move i jump into his car. He is in his car sobbing, there is an open bottle of pills on the floor and a half drank bottle of whiskey. I take the bottle and throw it out the window and as I do so my dad punches me and attempts to choke me to get the bottle back screaming at me "why would you do that, what the ->-bleeped-<- you cant do this to me" but then his anger is overcome with sadness and he just clings on to me and starts crying. Thats when my aunt opens his door and pulls him out tell me to drive his car home. As we get home she makes him a cup of coffee and starts the shower. As she yells at my father all i can do is go into my room and listen as she yells at him for making me worry and such but all she gets are crying and the occasional slur. She puts him in the shower and tell me she is going to leave once hes out of the shower and ready for bed.
That scared me because I honestly didn't want her to leave, I was so scared to be alone with my dad like that I was honestly shaking. But she insisted he would be fine and told me to keep an eye out for him (which by the way never really comforted me lol). anyway that was a fun night... but seriously the most scary not fun night of my life.
But lets move on... After that incident I started seeing less and less of my dad. He would not come home at all some nights and then nights turned to weeks until eventually I only saw him once a month... this all happened over the course of the year. He said that he was hanging with friends or working over time. But he also would come to me every month asking me If i could give him the child support I was using to pay for college so he could pay his bills like the house payment and utilities.
But over the course of that year I seemed to have problems with electricity and water. There were times that i would go days without one or both of them. I was the caretaker of the house by this point, even having to take care of his dogs. What really made me mad was that his one bulldog started puking and ->-bleeped-<-ting blood constantly. I kept telling him something was wrong, I kept saying to take her to the vet but he just never got to it and eventually found out she had cancer. Whats even worse is he would get mad at me for not taking care of the dog properly and it felt like he almost blamed me for her death.
But back to the house utilities, yeah there was times i was washing dishes or clothes with water i bought from the store with my money. After the utilities got shut of, it clicked in my head that something was terribly wrong. So since i was home alone all the time I decided to go snoop around.
Now let me remind you that at this moment of snooping its June, Anyway while going around I eventually find a letter from the bank. Its a letter warning the owners of the house that if the bills aren't paid that they would foreclose on the house. This letter was dated back to march. Saying that the bills hadn't been kept up with for months.
This moment got my blood boiling. After two horrible stress filled tear soaked years of struggling with my father, I found out that the over 2000$ i gave him which were supposed to go towards paying for my school never made it to his intended purpose. He had been lying to me for so long and its like my innocence, my trust, and my happiness had been stripped from me all at once. Since that point I just got more bitter and angry. I felt like i couldn't trust anyone and so I locked myself away, I became a recluse. After that I cant remember a day where I didn't feel angry at something or depressed about life.
about two weeks go by since i found the letter from the bank and my dad comes home one last time, and while i was sitting in my room he called me into the kitchen. "Justin, can you get me that 600 dollars you owe me, i need to pay the house payment." and thats when I exploded. Two years of sorrow, stress and anger built up and I unleashed a verbal assault. I basically told him he could go die for all I cared I was tired of taking care of him and if he wants to think that he is alone in this world he certain can now and that I hope to god i never turn out like him and I never wanted to see him again.
After that night i never felt the same...
I was so angry when the bank finally foreclosed... I was sitting in my empty room alone in the dark just crying by myself. Eventually that sadness turned to anger and I ended up kicking a major hole into the wall, almost half my body went through.
a couple months later in October my father actually called me twice, and both on the same day. The first call was to wish me a happy birthday and to apologize for having the house go under. The second call was 30 mins later when he realized my birthday isn't in October and called to apologize about that and to somehow turn that into a sympathy beg by saying he had changed and he is better. But getting your son's birthday wrong after all the other ->-bleeped-<- he did was just kind of like the cherry on top of this ->-bleeped-<- in my face cake. It just showed me how much he didn't care to even remember his kid's day of birth.
From there I didn't hear one thing from the man until about a year later. I found out that he had a heart attack, and against all my judgement I went with my mom to go see him. 1 Zanex and an hour of wait, i finally made it into his room where I couldn't even speak to the man. I wanted to be so angry with him but seeing him all wired up in pain made me so sad. I was confused and ended up leaving. But before i left my dad sitting there cried and held my hand and told me that he is a changed man and he would do anything to make it better. He said as soon as he got out of the hospital he would call me and take me out to dinner and try to make everything right again.
I never got a call....
I started contemplating suicide and filling drugs into myself to help the pain, granted most of the drugs are fairly safe, because even though i thought about suicide i knew in the back of my head that i didn't want to die, I wanted to live for something, there was something i needed to do in my life and I wasn't gunna go out like my father wanted to, I didn't wanna be like him.
I also started cutting myself and hiding away. I also become so obsessed with wanting a different life and living as a women that it made me sick sometimes. I had a huge desperation to do so. But again because of what was all going on I felt like it was a phase that i would just get over once my life wasn't so crazy. But basically I became a little crazy, more of a bitter old recluse who doesn't want anything to do with anyone and just keeps to themselves. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone anymore and I became extremely pessimistic about every thing from my job to my future to just my emotional and physical being.
Eventually after a night of just tears and depression I was so tired of being unhappy. It had been 4 years since I had a day that didn't have some bout of depression filling it, I finally decided to seek out my own therapist. Ive been to many before but i hated them all and i needed to find one for me otherwise I dunno where i would be, probably the same path as my father, grief that turns to lunacy.
So for the next 6 months up until the present day i had been seeing this therapist every week.
But back to my father, the next year he has another small heart attack that I wasn't even aware of ....
then finally we come to two months ago. I got a call from my aunt saying my dad had a major heart attack and he was getting a splint put into his heart. When she told me this I felt nothing. It was weird, I cant explain it because I dont see how one event could cause such a drastic change maybe its because I finally realized my dad wants nothing to do to me, or if its the fact that ive realized that my dad is seriously ill in the head and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it, or maybe its just the realization that the next time I see my dad its probably going to be at his funeral.
But anyway, like i said as soon as she said that, something changed in me, all i said was ok well let me know if something goes wrong and i hung up and fell back to sleep. I slept for another 8 more hours after that and when i woke up I felt great. I basically just stopped worrying about him and everything else at this moment and thats when it became clear that with all these other worries out of the way my old friend was still there, Kylie, my female persona was staring me in the face. I mean believe me I struggled with being trans and trying to understand it all the while going through those last 4 years of hell. Its just the trans thing was over taken by another problem and I thought once I fixed these problems with my dad we could all go back to normal and be as normal as we can get.
Yeah well I was wrong and there it was, I had come to terms with my dad but I still felt depressed, I still felt like hiding but something was missing. My fear of what people thought was gone. The trust in my fellow friend also came back and I felt like this secret I had been hiding all my life, this secret that had been eating at me for so long needed to fill the ears of someone I felt i could trust.
Keep in mind that while working at Dominos I actually became friends with a person who underwent the transition to become female. So i sat around for an hour waiting for her to come online and I start by just asking general questions. We eventually work our way to her being trans, at this moment im filled with questions. And then finally something amazing happened. In like a blur to me I just type in im transgender and ive felt like this my whole life and send it to her. She was more shocked for a second than anything and we talked for an hour.
After telling someone my secret though, it was like my life instantly changed. That happiness I once had, the innocence, my love and understanding for people all came rushing back. Its like I was literally high on something It felt amazing, I felt amazing, I felt different. Maybe it was the fact that my jaw didn't hurt any more and my chest and back wasnt hurting, and colors seemed brighter. This euphoric sensation just swept over me and I couldn't stop smiling.
So my next step was to tell my therapist which she took as great news. For 8 months we struggled to pinpoint my depression and all at once she said that everything ive told her over the past made sense even though i had never brought up the fact that I was tg or enjoyed cross dressing or anything like that before. All my secluded behavior everything stemmed from what happened with my father and the fact that I was transgender and trying to hide it.
After that I was on such a rush I told my mom and my girlfriend which were both super hard in their own ways. But i def. took telling my girlfriend as the hardest part. I still love women and I still really love my girlfriend so telling her was hard because I know that there is a good chance that after all is said and done she will not like my physical appearance and not want to be with me because she ins't attracted to women. But I know now that I will only be happy when I feel comfortable with myself. We all just need to understand that changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
And so this leads us to the present day....
Ive been coming out slowly to certain people and others I had no problem telling. Im just glad that my mom, girlfriend and all my friends are very open minded and supportive. I know ill run into the ignorant every once in a while but if you cant be happy with yourself you never will be happy ... period.
Thanks for listening to my long ass story, I hope it helps someone somewhere with a similar issue. At least to show that no one is alone in this fight.
If you take anything from my story though please take this-We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to love each other. We are here to kill war. We are here to experience all we have. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us
-Kylie
Thank you for sharing with us. You strengthen my belief that TG people are the strongest, bravest people in the world.
Probably every one of us has had the same feelings as you. I tried to deny it first with alcohol and then with religion. The best thing you can do is accept who you are. I see you have done this and have supportive people around you.
good fortunes in your transition. ^-^
Hugs
Zaria