<venting a little.....>
When I was really young, I remember thinking that I must have been born a girl and "grew out of it". I reasoned that, as I grew, I would become more like the guys around me. Never quite worked out that way even though I put a lot of effort into trying to fit into the male mold.
I don't think I'm transsexual either though....I feel like I just wasn't put together right....like I'm somewhere in between. Still though, I often think that, if I'd been born a girl instead, it might have been easier to just be myself, at least most of the time. It's a male dominated world we live in and deviating from the birthright that is a gender assignment of "male" seems to generate a lot of ire...
Got a son just entering into puberty.....he needs me to be his "dad".......but I'm getting tired of feeling like a "persona" all the time.
I wish I'd have been smart enough and brave enough to have just been myself when I was younger instead of trying to be what I needed to be to avoid being hassled.....convincing myself that I could re-define who I was.
.....I want to drop all of this and just be who I am, but I'm afraid that doing so will expose those close to me to the crap I faced growing up.......I have no idea how to deal with this right now.....
<venting done.....sorry>
Josie
No need to apologise for venting, we all need to do it sometimes.
Better out than in.
I can totally understand your feelings growing up. I shared these myself and I was very confused.
I too wish I acted sooner and didn't pretend to be something I wasn't but the time is now for me.
Might be best to talk to someone about how you feel, I find it helps when I have face difficult times.
We are always here as well.
J
Yep I can relate Josie.
I wish I could have been just born female most days.
If I had been born female though, I would have not had the life I have lived to this point.
No marriage, no wife, no son. Sure I might have been lucky enough to have been the wife, and lucky enough to have had the son myself.
But life doesn't write us guarantees.
And I have gotten used to not relying on life, not relying on fate and certainly not rely on anything not actual not genuinely real.
I'll just settle for the crap I have to put up with, and keep all the good stuff I have managed to acquire as well.
It won't make the challenge any less challenging, but, at least I don't have any false sense of what I might have if....
I used to wonder how life would have been if I had been born female but I realized it would have been an unmitigated disaster!
My interest in the opposite sex (boys) came far too early, as did "first love". If I had been born female, I would not likely have made it through high school before getting pregnant!
I was born a girl, it's just my body has a birth defect.
QuoteI wish I'd have been smart enough and brave enough to have just been myself when I was younger instead of trying to be what I needed to be to avoid being hassled.....convincing myself that I could re-define who I was.
I wish this too, its probably better to get the chaotic part (if it indeed becomes chaotic) when your younger than deal with the pain and suffering throughout your life. I guess we are just delaying the inevitable.
I'm not even sure what I'm doing on these boards, but I feel the same way.
It's strange how a 50/50 chance can have so much impact. It feels so awkward as far back as I remember it was this way but due to circumstances I have no realistic chances of doing it. If only I had more self respect when I was younger I could've stood up and made the change. I definitely feel like it's too late to change anything and that I've been robbed of a life essentially. Because I know how hard it is I have sympathy for everyone here, it's one of the toughest things to live through. The part which is saddening is that to someone that doesn't have the understanding it's really just a "freakshow"
anyway if anyone wants to talk about anything I'd always like to help people out, I might not be able to help but I can listen. I know how much something like that would mean to me and I would like to do that for other people.
Josie, it's rough - I know. I'm in the same boat as you: kinda knew that something was wrong way back when (and before the Internet, damn it!), and had no idea what to do other than suppress it and go on with the normal meet-a-girl-and-get-married-and-have-kids thing. What else was there to do back then? We had no idea. ???
And here I am, middle-aged, teenage kids, going through the craziness you're going through.
Here's my advice. One step at a time. Although I'd love to be right there with you and wake up and throw on a wig and a dress and stomp around the house proclaiming "This is who I am, so deal with it!", it's not realistic to do that. We made our choices - however wrong they were - and it's not fair on the family to do what we want to do. But it's not fair on us to be forced to live with decisions we made decades ago either – a family isn't supposed to be a life sentence without parole.
My strategy is this, and it may or may not be helpful to you. I'm going to stick with being male-me until the kids are older (i.e. college). Then all bets are off. At that point, if I've raised them well, they'll be old enough to understand and even appreciate the fact that I kept all of this mess inside for their sake. The spouse? Er, that's the problem. I'm not too fond of her right now, so I'm not going to be sorry to see her leave me. Your mileage may vary.
It's a long wait. Years. But that doesn't mean I can't start preparing. I'm losing weight, trying to stop drinking, trying to exercise, practicing my voice in the car each day, working on my body language, researching, reading, reaching out, and just enjoying every little moment I have alone with myself. It's not perfect, but it's a start - and it's better than nothing.
In five years, I'll be mentally ready to transition quickly (if that's even what I want then) and catch up with everyone else. And to be honest, unless you and I transitioned in our late teens or early twenties, we'd be no further ahead than we will be in a few years. We'll still have many years - decades - to live truthfully, to make friends, to form great relationships, be pretty, be who we were meant to be. It's not a race, although it might seem like the most urgent thing in the world right now. It's so tempting to just throw in the towel and come out of the closet fully, it really is. But after so much careful thought, doing so would be so destructive. That's where the selfishness would come in – not the fact that we transition or come out, but the fact that we are so desperate to do so that we trash everything and everyone in the process. There is a middle ground, I'm convinced of it. And I'll damn well find it!
For someone single and with no kids, this is all hard enough. For those with families, it's a logistical nightmare. And nobody sets out on this journey with the intention to hurt anybody else. But hearts will be broken in the process, and that's unavoidable. Even those with the simplest lives break many a heart in their transitions.
The way I see it, it's selfish of me to want to live life as someone who others think I'm not. It's selfish to want to transition. But it's equally selfish of everyone else to want to keep me caged up and living in this horrible body, unable to express who I am. They'll get over it if I transition carefully. If I stay as who I am, I'll go to my grave regretting every breath I ever took.
Again, there is a middle ground where you and your family are balanced. It will not be perfect. It'll alienate many friends and family members, but it'll make new ones in the process. We can't please everyone, but we can do our best. And one person who deserves pleasing is yourself. Don't leave that important factor out of the equation.
PM me if you need to talk about this offline.
Quote from: Jenny07 on July 13, 2013, 12:15:00 AM
Josie
No need to apologise for venting, we all need to do it sometimes.
Better out than in.
I can totally understand your feelings growing up. I shared these myself and I was very confused.
I too wish I acted sooner and didn't pretend to be something I wasn't but the time is now for me.
Might be best to talk to someone about how you feel, I find it helps when I have face difficult times.
We are always here as well.
J
Better out than in, ya, I kept it in, then exploded at my mom a few days ago. :embarrassed:
I felt really bad.
Better to vent here than to do what I did...
I know I learned my lesson...
Anyways...
I know how you feel.
Sorry I can't post more, i got to go fast. :(
Quote from: Michele on July 13, 2013, 08:49:06 PM
The way I see it, it's selfish of me to want to live life as someone who others think I'm not. It's selfish to want to transition. But it's equally selfish of everyone else to want to keep me caged up and living in this horrible body, unable to express who I am. They'll get over it if I transition carefully. If I stay as who I am, I'll go to my grave regretting every breath I ever took.
As much as I try to see your point. I would say that this isn't the case for everyone. I like many others have transitioned later in life with a spouse and child/children. Although our family dynamic is very different we were able to evolve through the transition. I'm sorry that you feel that you must postpone the transition process until a later date, but it is also possible to make it through. I would like to offer a alternate view point.
I'm not sure that I feel guilty of being selfish about my transition. I feel as though I'm a better parent now than I have ever been. Even though the last year has been a bit of a struggle at times. For me to finally be my self has been a life changing experience for my entire family. I'm so much more supportive, nurturing and honest to my child and to my spouse. There were times early on in my transition that I was very doubtful and scared, but the overwhelming support form my loving family has been amazing and the understanding and love from them has made it a very quick transition. It has taken about a year in a half from coming out to full transition.
Right before my transition my wife and I were on the verge of divorce. We were not happy because I wasn't happy. My daughter wasn't happy because my wife and I were struggling. For me to finally be happy with myself has changed my entire family and we are forever closer and bonded to one another. We have gone through something amazing and so very personal to all of us. We have such a unique family. We are all able to be completely open to one another. This has taught us how to effectively communicate to one another with out hurting each other. To understand that we all have feelings and how to respect them. I feel that in a way my transition has actually saved my family.
Only you can determine the right time to transition and if it is what you want. I know for me the regret of not doing it earlier in life is quickly voided by the fact that I would not have my amazing family. Life is full of challenges and regret. It's the only life we get so make the best of it.
Best of luck!
~Rea
I wish so, too. If I had started younger, I'd be free of a lot of the dysphoria I experience... and if I had been born cis, I'd be just perfect. This trans arrangement has led to a lot of trouble, such as suicidal ideation, lethargy, apathy, dissociation, depression, and a lot of anxiety.
There's not much that can be done about it. If we transition, we might fix these problems - some, maybe most. If we don't, they may destroy us... or we could possibly overcome them. There's no guarantee that either road will take you out of hell, really, and transitioning might not even make things better. However, there's always a chance of it being every bit as wonderful as you'd've hoped.
I'd give almost anything to be cis... not being so kills me a little every day.
Rea, it sounds like you hit the jackpot with your spouse! She sounds wonderful.
I'm probably in the place you were in back then - terribly unhappy with everything, and it's clearly having a huge negative effect on the marriage. I don't want to be at home, I don't want to be around her, because everything seems just wrong.
There's three parts to the way I feel:
1 - "Bottle it up and be a man", although this would be the simplest for everyone it would lead to me going further down a path towards alcohol abuse and other destructive behaviors. I don't want to go there.
2 - "Divorce and reset your life entirely", but this would mean not seeing the kids as much and the last thing I want to do is ruin their lives (although me being miserable all the time is hardly helping them.)
3 - "Come out to family and see what happens". This is the path that you took? My kids would have few issues with it, because I know I've done my best to raise them as open-mindedly as possible. My wife? She'll either flip out and kick me out, or she'll accept me and we'll work through it and come out stronger on the other side.
The third option is the best, and you're absolutely right. The worst that could happen is it turns into option 2 (divorce). And the potential upside is huge!
Thanks for sharing. I waver between all of these options on an hourly basis. Reading success stories really helps solidify which option would be best for me. Last night, after a couple of glasses of wine, I was feeling rather sorry for myself. Today, especially after reading what you've written here, I'm decidedly more upbeat about all of this.
I still can't quite shake the feeling that transition is selfish (perhaps because it's a message that is often thrown around by wives of MtF husbands who have had their lives shattered and need an easy explanation). But it's logically more selfish for me to not even give my wife a chance to understand, and I'm glad you pointed that out to me.
As I find myself a middleaged adult, I remember wishing how something would happen when I was little to turn me into a girl. Although nothing did happen :( those feeling never went away. I was able to surpress them for the most part and lived a natural "male" lifestyle, married, public safety job, kids, house, car, everything, except inner peace!
Currently I'm on my 3rd married, she knows about my Gender issues and is supportive. I have grown children and grandchilden, my parents are still alive and I'm damn near 50, miserable and feeling like I'm backed into a corner.
My step-daughers know I wear a skirt and nightgowns, as I've worn them around them for years. They also know my children no nothing about this side of me. My oldest step-daughter knows about my gender disphoria and the my desire to have been born a girl (thats a whole other post there).
Where am I at this time? I'm waiting for my first appointment to see a counselor with experiance in Gender Disphoria. I listed Gender disphoria on my intake paperwork :o Something I have NEVER DONE before, with hopes of figuring out where I need to take me. All the online test that you can take put me in the "androganous" category. I think it's time I know for sure and figure out how to live my life in peace.
Sandi
Phoenix, AZ