I'm hesitant to post about this but need to. Back in the late 90's I was all set to go on T but chickened out due to family issues. I stuff everything back down and feel like I did a pretty good job of stuffing it except I developed some pretty serious health issues about 8 years later.
I've been on T for 8 weeks now but all this shame has been coming up. I've always had shame about my gender. Growing up would get called a boy 90% of the time. I felt better playing with boys but knew there was something to be ashamed about because I kept it hidden from everyone at school to the point that if anyone saw me even playing with the neighborhood boys I'd run and hide.
I thought going on T would solve all of this but I'm plagued with feelings of shame! I haven't come out to my family. I'm pretty sure they will disown me. I'm pretty distant from them these days (mostly cut off contact this past year because I'm tired of being the scapegoat).
I have the typical ftm story----was horrified when my breasts developed and did everything I could to hide them. Same with starting my period. I always knew I was a girl but was absolutely not happy with it and spent most of my time hoping that in my next life I'd come back as a boy. When hanging out with the ftm community in the late 90's (in SF) I felt really happy and the world made sense. Why is it so different now I wonder?
In 3rd grade I was hanging out with the neighborhood boys and felt such intense dysphoria that it scared me. I wanted to be a boy so badly. We moved a lot and everytime the neighborhood kids would think I was a boy until I had to tell them I was a girl and felt a lot of shame.
I'm troubled by the amount of shame I'm experiencing. It's as if the thing I've had most shame about is now presenting on the outside. It seems backwards to others experiences. I'm in therapy with a cis gendered person.
I forgot to add that I'm an older ftm in case that makes a difference.
Shame has ruled my life. It's getting in my way now.
Has anyone else felt this way? Any ideas?
Hugs,
I am experiencing the same shame I felt through my life. I replicated my primary (childhood) home in my secondary home (current home) and work.
I am realizing I need to take one stimulus at a time and break the cycle.
I need to stop the reactionary behavior and proactively change responses to match my thought out needs.
My life was filled with shame. I'm getting past it now, but I spent decades on that ride and I want it to stop.
When I was a kid, I never wanted to be seen naked. I was ashamed of my genitals, I was ashamed of my entire body, even as a prepubescent. I could not go swimming without a shirt on, and I never, ever wanted to be picked for the "skins" basketball team. I was ashamed of being so large, even when I had my weight under control. Junior high school was mortifying. Showering with everyone watching was like the end of the world for me. Having my genitals on display was the worst feeling ever. In high school and college it didn't stop me from having sex, but that came out as part of my desperation to be perceived as "normal". I still even have intimacy issues to this day. I was relieved when my wife told me that penetrative sex "got weird" and that I didn't have to do that anymore. I felt ashamed every time I felt like a woman or every time I had fleeting moments where I felt bisexual. I felt ashamed of my guilty pleasure of dreaming or daydreaming that I was female. Bottling up my shame caused a lot of damage, and it eventually became too much of a burden to bear when paired with denial.
I still feel shame when I have to take a shower and see dangly bits that don't belong.
Quote from: Cynthia Michelle on April 16, 2014, 05:47:59 PM
Hugs,
I am experiencing the same shame I felt through my life. I replicated my primary (childhood) home in my secondary home (current home) and work.
I am realizing I need to take one stimulus at a time and break the cycle.
I need to stop the reactionary behavior and proactively change responses to match my thought out needs.
Are you experiencing it as you transition also?
What do you mean about breaking the cycle and reactionary behavior? I'm trying to learn all I can.
I'm looking on amazon and the local library for books dealing with shame. I was hoping it would all go away once I started hormones but it's only increasing.
Quote from: Jill F on April 16, 2014, 06:26:59 PM
My life was filled with shame. I'm getting past it now, but I spent decades on that ride and I want it to stop.
When I was a kid, I never wanted to be seen naked. I was ashamed of my genitals, I was ashamed of my entire body, even as a prepubescent. I could not go swimming without a shirt on, and I never, ever wanted to be picked for the "skins" basketball team. I was ashamed of being so large, even when I had my weight under control. Junior high school was mortifying. Showering with everyone watching was like the end of the world for me. Having my genitals on display was the worst feeling ever. In high school and college it didn't stop me from having sex, but that came out as part of my desperation to be perceived as "normal". I still even have intimacy issues to this day. I was relieved when my wife told me that penetrative sex "got weird" and that I didn't have to do that anymore. I felt ashamed every time I felt like a woman or every time I had fleeting moments where I felt bisexual. I felt ashamed of my guilty pleasure of dreaming or daydreaming that I was female. Bottling up my shame caused a lot of damage, and it eventually became too much of a burden to bear when paired with denial.
I still feel shame when I have to take a shower and see dangly bits that don't belong.
Jill-Did shame come up for you as you started to transition?
In the 90's it definitely didn't. I was elated but now it's overwhelming.
I know exactly what you mean about not wanting anyone to see you naked. PE was horrible for me when we had to change into our PE clothes. I would take off my bra under my shirt so no one could see. Ugh-it was awful.
That's interesting that you felt shame every time you felt like a woman.
The past few mornings upon awakening I think "what in the heck am I doing?"
But I can't stop.
Something that strikes me while reading your posts, is that a lot of your shame stems from thought patterns you had back when you were a kid. Maybe defense mechanisms you put in place to, in your mind, stop you being bullied and singled out for being different.
The thing is, the mind holds onto these thought patterns because it doesn't know any better. And if you grow up without overwriting them with newer, more relevant ones, they stay there. Your mind is trapped in a period of time that is no longer relevant to your life, and it hampers you from actually living.
Perhaps that's where part of the way you feel comes from. The fear of being seen as someone different to how everyone expects to see you. Maybe you feel you have to give people what they want, and show them the person they expect in order to keep the peace. To not be subject to scrutiny.
Quote from: TRyan on April 16, 2014, 04:37:44 PM
Growing up would get called a boy 90% of the time. I felt better playing with boys but knew there was something to be ashamed about because I kept it hidden from everyone at school to the point that if anyone saw me even playing with the neighborhood boys I'd run and hide.
The emboldened part of that sentence strikes me as important. It seems like your mind at that time made the mental leap between you feeling the need to hide how you felt, and how you felt being something to be ashamed of. It put two and two together... and came up with twenty-two. Maybe that's where some of it comes from, hon. People hide who they are, at a young age, for all kinds of reasons. Maybe fear about the repercussions, a need to fit in, to have a social circle. Maybe because at that age we just don't know enough about the world to know that this is actually a thing. That it's possible to not be born with the right anatomy, and that what everyone tries to cram into our heads about who we are actually isn't right. We don't have a developed enough sense of self to assert our own individuality.
Maybe you felt happy with the community in SF because you could actually be yourself and not have to worry about what effect it would have on others. That inner child still feeling the need to run and hide was no longer such a prominent feature in your mind because you didn't feel such a burning need to want to be accepted?
I'm really just thinking aloud here, hon. And this is something that a therapist would likely have a better time working through with you. But it seems to me that you're holding on to a snapshot of a time in your life which doesn't fit now, now you're not a kid and have more self-determination and the ability to carve your own place in the world. And perhaps one way past this would be to re-examine these thought patterns and see if there is anything which can be updated to how you live now.
*hugs*
Gosh-Sephirah--you totally nailed it.
I did put defense mechanisms in place way back when. I was bullied when I was little. I had short hair since kindergarten (it was not in style). People would tell me I'd make a cute boy (once they found out I was a girl). I would feel good when I'd hear that but ashamed at the same time.
My mind is totally trapped in a different period of time and I'm not living. I'm running and avoiding and hiding. I used to have a very successful career.
Being seen as different in my family and society led to being scapegoated and bullied. Once I developed breasts the boys I used to play with turned on me and would call me a dog every time I went outside. I got beaten up and pushed off my bike by various kids.
I was in long term therapy and in the 90's told my therapist I was transgender. He told me there was no such thing and that it was a pathology not a real thing. It was one of the reasons I decided not to transition (even though by that time I was wearing male clothes) in addition to all the family stuff.
Yes-in SF I felt free and happy and not worried about what others would think. I finally understood the meaning of friendships again (like I did when I played with boys).
And yes-the inner child still feels the need to run and hide.
My therapist unfortunately hasn't targeted these issues. I like her. She's brand new to all of this so I'm turning to google and message boards.
I didn't realize how powerful shame is. I've always felt something was terribly wrong with me for hating my body so much and for not relating to being a woman and all that.
It seems that your shame comes from blame, sweetie. You blame yourself for how you've been treated. Internalised that so much that your mind uses the feeling to try and protect you from harm.
"It's my fault I'm treated this way"
"If I didn't feel so wrong in my own skin, none of this would be happening"
"I shouldn't say anything or do anything about it because then no one can hurt me"
Sound familiar?
That seems at the root of all this, hon. Your shame is an emotional manifestation of the flight response. The urge to run. To go somewhere safe, if ultimately painful in a different way. Your mind sees it as the lesser of two evils. Better the devil you know, as it were.
To get past it, you have to look for ways to absolve yourself of the blame. Something that may well be quite exceptionally hard to do, with it being deep-rooted from childhood. And me telling you that you don't have anything to blame yourself for in all of this won't stop you feeling the shame. It's something you have to be able to tell yourself... and believe it.
Maybe a start is to look for some positives in your life. Little things. Things that make you feel confident as you are now. Instances where you're treated how you want to be treated, you know? Accepted and free to live the way you want to live. Write them down, see how they make you feel. And then think about what's different between those experiences, those people, and the people you knew as a kid. Think about how much both you, and the kind of people you've interacted with have matured, and don't have that infant mindset anymore.
It may be a gradual thing, hon, but you CAN get past this. One step at a time. You have a legitimate problem that you're rectifying more and more every day. You're actually being yourself. Asserting yourself. That can be scary sometimes, for sure. But it's a testament to the strength you have inside yourself that you're still here, and you still know what you need to do. Whatever the world has thrown at you, it hasn't broken you. That speaks volumes.
If people around you bring you down, and cause you pain... rather than hiding yourself from them out of shame and fear... try to remember that the power is in your hands. The power to assert yourself, or to remove these people from your life and surround yourself with more positive people, ones who see you and accept you for who you are. You've done it before, sweetie. Remember how that made you feel. THAT is the feeling when there is no blame. Strive for that. :)
QuoteHugs,
I am experiencing the same shame I felt through my life. I replicated my primary (childhood) home in my secondary home (current home) and work.
I am realizing I need to take one stimulus at a time and break the cycle.
I need to stop the reactionary behavior and proactively change responses to match my thought out needs.
Sephirah pretty much nailed in and was less cryptic. I will elaborate a bit.
I experienced physical, mental and sexual abuse and made to feel it was my fault, this occurred many times. This was age 5 to 8 for the sexual abuse. I literally hid from my brother and father (no sexual abuse) and my mother(no sexual abuse and the bad physical abuse was only two times) . With the sexual abuse I was told it was my fault and if I told I would go to foster care and get it much worse. Relatives expressed abuse to others and joked about it at often at family gatherings. I watched abuse in high school to gender variant persons while I had a relationship with a guy. I felt like a girl since I was 5 expressed it to my Mom and suffered physical and emotional abuse. I got called a ->-bleeped-<-ot, homo and such in high school, college and in my parents home and my home (even tonight). I could go on but this should be enough.
I repeat the cycles, self hate, low self esteem and low power in my life. I repeat and hide and remain silent. I am afraid to be myself. I need to exercise power over the reoccurring cycle. For example, I want some procedures, and my wife said if I do she will divorce me. Things like hair restoration, Adam's apple, face and neck hair removal and remove gonads, all covered under insurance. I want earrings, levis 512 jeans and some other clothing. Wife threatened divorce and told my daughter about the earrings and jeans and they made fun of me, called me names and said what they would do (divorce and no contact).
I am Transgender. I am on HRT and my mind has cleared and my disphoria is livable. I love the secondary sex characteristic changes. I just want to align my body and cloths and be more comfortable. I would love to do more physical changes (all covered under insurance) but I am in my own prison that I need to break out of. I made the prison and I need to exercise power in my relationships to enable me to be myself. When I was young the stuff that happened to me I had no control of. I am not young but I use the same defense mechanisms to cope. I need to change how I handle my life.
Quote from: Sephirah on April 16, 2014, 07:29:47 PM
It seems that your shame comes from blame, sweetie. You blame yourself for how you've been treated. Internalised that so much that your mind uses the feeling to try and protect you from harm.
"It's my fault I'm treated this way"
"If I didn't feel so wrong in my own skin, none of this would be happening"
"I shouldn't say anything or do anything about it because then no one can hurt me"
Sound familiar?
That seems at the root of all this, hon. Your shame is an emotional manifestation of the flight response. The urge to run. To go somewhere safe, if ultimately painful in a different way. Your mind sees it as the lesser of two evils. Better the devil you know, as it were.
To get past it, you have to look for ways to absolve yourself of the blame. Something that may well be quite exceptionally hard to do, with it being deep-rooted from childhood. And me telling you that you don't have anything to blame yourself for in all of this won't stop you feeling the shame. It's something you have to be able to tell yourself... and believe it.
Maybe a start is to look for some positives in your life. Little things. Things that make you feel confident as you are now. Instances where you're treated how you want to be treated, you know? Accepted and free to live the way you want to live. Write them down, see how they make you feel. And then think about what's different between those experiences, those people, and the people you knew as a kid. Think about how much both you, and the kind of people you've interacted with have matured, and don't have that infant mindset anymore.
It may be a gradual thing, hon, but you CAN get past this. One step at a time. You have a legitimate problem that you're rectifying more and more every day. You're actually being yourself. Asserting yourself. That can be scary sometimes, for sure. But it's a testament to the strength you have inside yourself that you're still here, and you still know what you need to do. Whatever the world has thrown at you, it hasn't broken you. That speaks volumes.
If people around you bring you down, and cause you pain... rather than hiding yourself from them out of shame and fear... try to remember that the power is in your hands. The power to assert yourself, or to remove these people from your life and surround yourself with more positive people, ones who see you and accept you for who you are. You've done it before, sweetie. Remember how that made you feel. THAT is the feeling when there is no blame. Strive for that. :)
Thanks Sephirah-you are a very wise woman.
I never thought of the shame as being part of the flight response but it makes total sense. I've hidden my entire life. I was so shy as a kid and afraid to try anything new that my kindergarten teacher told my mom she worried about my social life. Little did she know.
I was googling shame and found this quote about shyness as it relates to shame "a shrinking away from one's full presence in the world."
I do blame myself thinking that somehow I had some sort of choice in how I felt in my body. That it's my fault/choice to not want to be in my body or to have hated what happened to my body in puberty. People would remark on how weird it was for me to wear sweatshirts in 100 degree weather.
I became more "feminine" in my 20's but was also drinking and drugging every night. I could never figure out why I'd have to call my sister whenever having to figure out how to dress for some event. I would always think to myself "if I was a guy I'd wear this and this..."
I'm realizing how much shame and guilt have both fueled and shaped my existence so working on resolving myself of the blame seems critical. I think writing down instances where I was treated how I wanted to be treated and all is a great idea.
I'm also in the process of writing letters to my family which brings up a whole host of feelings. I won't be mailing them at this point but going over them with my therapist. They will be coming out letters.
It's true that I'm becoming myself. It's strange because I was in a group picture the other day. Prior to starting hormones I would always grimace in pictures but this picture I had a real smile.
I think I need to know this is the right journey for me. When I look at my past I think how can it not be the right journey. But fear has also been my ruler which is why I didn't transition in the late 90's when I discovered the whole trans identity.
I think I'm going to print your responses and post them on my wall (as corny as that sounds).
I feel like I'm taking back my life in spite of all the voices I've grown up with telling me not to or telling me to be ashamed of myself or how dare I do this, and what a freak I am, etc....
Quote from: Cynthia Michelle on April 16, 2014, 08:35:36 PM
Sephirah pretty much nailed in and was less cryptic. I will elaborate a bit.
I experienced physical, mental and sexual abuse and made to feel it was my fault, this occurred many times. This was age 5 to 8 for the sexual abuse. I literally hid from my brother and father (no sexual abuse) and my mother(no sexual abuse and the bad physical abuse was only two times) . With the sexual abuse I was told it was my fault and if I told I would go to foster care and get it much worse. Relatives expressed abuse to others and joked about it at often at family gatherings. I watched abuse in high school to gender variant persons while I had a relationship with a guy. I felt like a girl since I was 5 expressed it to my Mom and suffered physical and emotional abuse. I got called a ->-bleeped-<-ot, homo and such in high school, college and in my parents home and my home (even tonight). I could go on but this should be enough.
I repeat the cycles, self hate, low self esteem and low power in my life. I repeat and hide and remain silent. I am afraid to be myself. I need to exercise power over the reoccurring cycle. For example, I want some procedures, and my wife said if I do she will divorce me. Things like hair restoration, Adam's apple, face and neck hair removal and remove gonads, all covered under insurance. I want earrings, levis 512 jeans and some other clothing. Wife threatened divorce and told my daughter about the earrings and jeans and they made fun of me, called me names and said what they would do (divorce and no contact).
I am Transgender. I am on HRT and my mind has cleared and my disphoria is livable. I love the secondary sex characteristic changes. I just want to align my body and cloths and be more comfortable. I would love to do more physical changes (all covered under insurance) but I am in my own prison that I need to break out of. I made the prison and I need to exercise power in my relationships to enable me to be myself. When I was young the stuff that happened to me I had no control of. I am not young but I use the same defense mechanisms to cope. I need to change how I handle my life.
Thanks for sharing this Cynthia. You've been through so much. It's heartbreaking to read. It amazes me what survivors we all are.
I can so relate to the cycle you described. Giving away one's power over and over. Prison is a good word to describe what this is like. I too like the secondary sex characteristics that are occurring. I just didn't expect the shame to come up like this but it makes sense given what I've suppressed all these years.
That much have cut deep to have your wife and daughter (especially your daughter) make fun of you and call you names.
I've always been so aware of how much our culture is hung up on gender.
I hope you get those Levi's 512 jeans and earrings and the surgeries......we can support each other as we gather our courage to be ourselves. Thanks so much for posting and for your support. Hugs for what you went through tonight.