If there is one thing I def get tired of, it has to be acting like someone Im not. I feel always like I have to put on this act of acting like a guy. I actually told someone this awhile back sort of how I have learned to hide it well. To people, it seems like I am a boy. I figure this was what was expected of me plus if I changed to the real me, would it hurt others plus other things like money and all.
It however still gets stressful at times. I hate hiding the more real me for this boy thing yet I always feel I have no choice. If I can't appear like the natural me, a girl, I dont want to transition. I hate lying and going around seeming like a guy. It bothers me. People call me sir, I hate it. I get referred as son, boy, man or any of it and I hate it yet I feel Im trapped. The world never met Larisa. They have a bit not realizing it but I wish they knew her, they knew me. I kind of feel like there is me, Larisa who I am and than by not my want, this guy who is here and to the rest of the world is a real person to and the one others know. Yet me and this other person are like the same person. It gets kinda dark in a way for me.
I dont know if anyone gets what I mean here. Somedays are easier than others although the last 2 or 3 months have not been easy for me. Today was a better day for me.
I had the same thing i was out everywhere but work cause i work for thw police after 3 month i just couldn't take it anymore i ended up taking stress leave. Before returning to work i came out to everyone so i could have peace i did it for me not for anyone else. Now i feel alot better be considered female at work so now im full time.
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Still early days for me but I kind of feel like the shorter this double life thing lasts the better. Keeping up with who knows and who doesn't, etc it's all so complex.
Oh to be fulltime.
I get what you mean. Every single word. I felt the exact same way about having to pretend to be female. It's incredibly stressful; in fact, it's soul-destroying.
Quote from: Larisa1983 on September 22, 2016, 11:24:02 PM
I figure this was what was expected of me plus if I changed to the real me, would it hurt others plus other things like money and all.
About those other people: are they living their lives for you? Would a (cis) female friend or relative agree to live as a man just because
you might be more comfortable with her that way?
If not, why should you?
There's only one person who can show the world who Larisa is, and that's Larisa herself. You only have to put on that male act for as long as you choose to. Only you can decide if and when it stops. And then the good days can outnumber the bad ones.
HI Larisa!... Yes, For me it got harder and harder... There was a period when I lived fulltime woman everywhere but my work and going back to male mode on Monday mornings was proceeded with many tears on Sunday nights.... It was like being in prison all your life for something you didn't do... Being set free for the first time and then being told you have to go back to prison again... It quickly became intolerable for me....
Onward we go!!!
Ashley :)
I know what you mean specifically here, but to some degree, even if you become female, people are going to start having expectations on how you act then as well. People are endlessly demanding in their expectations. Whether it's gender expectations, expectations within a female group, parents expectations of their kid, etc. etc.
At the end of the day, you get one life to live, and it's best spent keeping yourself happy. Freeing yourself from caring so much about other people's expectations is one of the keys to contentment, I think.
Quote from: Larisa1983 on September 22, 2016, 11:24:02 PM
If there is one thing I def get tired of, it has to be acting like someone Im not. I feel always like I have to put on this act of acting like a guy. I actually told someone this awhile back sort of how I have learned to hide it well. To people, it seems like I am a boy. I figure this was what was expected of me plus if I changed to the real me, would it hurt others plus other things like money and all.
It however still gets stressful at times. I hate hiding the more real me for this boy thing yet I always feel I have no choice. If I can't appear like the natural me, a girl, I dont want to transition. I hate lying and going around seeming like a guy. It bothers me. People call me sir, I hate it. I get referred as son, boy, man or any of it and I hate it yet I feel Im trapped. The world never met Larisa. They have a bit not realizing it but I wish they knew her, they knew me. I kind of feel like there is me, Larisa who I am and than by not my want, this guy who is here and to the rest of the world is a real person to and the one others know. Yet me and this other person are like the same person. It gets kinda dark in a way for me.
I dont know if anyone gets what I mean here. Somedays are easier than others although the last 2 or 3 months have not been easy for me. Today was a better day for me.
The good thing about coming to this site is that you are not alone. I would venture that most of us have experienced the same thing as you in our interactions to the outside world. I don't know how old you are but the younger you are the better the results with just HRT. As you pursue your education. You are pursuing an education aren't you? The possibilities of finding employment bliss grow exponentially with education. With an education you will be able to cut your timeline as you will have more money earlier. Two years at the community college or trade school will prepare you for the higher paying jobs. As a transgendered person you are well aware of the struggles to fit in, there are places that reward you for your knowledge, not your looks. Most of places with strict codes are places where you are representing to the general public. For a person who has been an introvert all their lives, it is hard to deal with numbers of ignorant people that do not know or understand your situation. In a work environment where you own your own business or there are a limited number of people you have to deal with, you build up a rapport, establish friendships, and it is easy to tell the haters. This is the same advice I give to my Son and Daughter, don't try to please me. I've chosen my path and I have lived life in constant turmoil because of fear. You do not have to follow my path. Set your own path. Keep coming here to discuss it and it will ease your mind. http://www.masstpc.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Employers_with_Transgender_Friendly_Policies
Oh, does this ever hit home! Right now this is just killing me from the stress of having to switch between being myself, and doing my male drag mandate.
I'm in the weird position of being out to the people I live with, my wife and daughter, but having to present male at home with them at all times. On the other hand, when I'm out of the house on anything more than a run to the corner grocery, I'm myself, often for the full day a few times a week now.
They're not OK with this but they tolerate it. I schedule my departure so that they can hide in the other end of the house when I leave. When I return home, I have to check for cars other than the family ones out in front, drive past, and text. If all clear, I remotely open the garage door, drive in, and close the door before I get out. I then text so that they can go hide from the scary transwoman. Once I get the OK, I enter the house, go to the master bath, close the door, and text again so that they can come out of hiding. I change, put my hair away in the enclosed and opaque storage case, and scrub every speck of makeup off (eyeliner can be a b***h ;) ), cross dress as a dude, and go out to greet everyone. Then I find a quiet place to cry for a while.
It's almost as bad as before I came out to them and started HRT, but without the soul-crushing suicidal ideation and depression. I'm told I am doing so much better. See, now it's just ordinary depression and anxiety! Such an improvement...
I got that makeover the other day, and it made me so damn happy. I saw what I could be, something far beyond the dreams this weird old transwoman had. I can't have it, at least not now, out of fear that I'll hurt the ones I love, and that just tears me up.
My older adult children will be in town next weekend for a family event. I plan, against my wife's wishes, to tell them about Daddy's little problem. My therapist went over this with me, and I think I'm ready. I suspect there will be repercussions from this, and that my therapy session in 10 days will be a doozy.
If things around here go really badly, I may be full-time sooner than I thought. Homeless, but definitely full time. (Not to worry, I'm financially secure, and the homeless thing won't last more than a few hours while I grab a furnished short term place like a Residence Inn.)
Like TKGW says, we only get one life to live. I'd love to finish mine as myself, but it is hard to turn my back on the feelings and needs of others I have spent decades with.
Michelle, hugs, so hard to have to live like that at home.
yes oh yes i agree, i ahve been living a double life for just so long but if I came out totally i would probably be unemployed. it is so hard to hide jen and it causes me great disphoria. i am thinik about changing careers so i do not have to live a double life. i may give up my job and my house just so i can feel normal
jennifer
Coming to terms with what you may lose I think is a big issue. It makes it like wow, if I follow my true self I lose this but I gain that... or crap, I can't follow my true self because I can't bear to lose that...
Damned if you do damned if you don't -
Well no actually I think you are damned if you don't follow your true self, to live a lie when you know it's a lie, when you know it is not the real you, for the sake of not losing things, I think that is a life of the damned....
These stories are just so upsetting. Why can't they all just accept us for who we are?
I don't know how many times in how many different situations I was told by other people, "Just be yourself."
Was I being lied to?
A funny thing happened along my road, as I slowly started to accept who and what I am, the need for the protective shield walls eroded. A lot of the energy I always put into maintaining the Hollywood facade of what I thought a "Guy" should be was being redirected into learning who I really am, and not into the me I thought I was expected to be.
My therapist once asked me "What would be different if Joanne showed up to work tomorrow?". My immediate response was nothing. I'd be exactly the same person I am today, just feeling a bit more authentic being the real me and presenting as the real me
Living a dual life is difficult and stressful. Coming out and expressing is stressful too but the stress is short lived and being yourself becomes what there is all the time. I can remember being stressed out when I started to express then I realized no one really cares (except two in my case).
For me it was like I had to be myself and the other identity was a shell. I have not once missed the old shell. On the other hand I really like being myself all the time. The stress I have now is every morning picking out what I will wear to work or when I can fit shopping into my week.
This thread got me thinking again. Always trouble, that.
What would happen if I came home and, rather than disappear into the master bath to switch to male drag, I just sat down in the living room, or started my usual household routines as myself?
Yeah, I'd probably have something new to talk about at my next therapy session.
Or perhaps after I come out to my adult children next week, I just update my Facebook and LinkedIn pages with my current avatar and name...
Michelle wants OUT!
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Quote from: Michelle_P on September 24, 2016, 04:33:30 PM
This thread got me thinking again. Always trouble, that.
What would happen if I came home and, rather than disappear into the master bath to switch to male drag, I just sat down in the living room, or started my usual household routines as myself?
Yeah, I'd probably have something new to talk about at my next therapy session.
Or perhaps after I come out to my adult children next week, I just update my Facebook and LinkedIn pages with my current avatar and name...
Michelle wants OUT!
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quote from JoanneB
My therapist once asked me "What would be different if Joanne showed up to work tomorrow?". My immediate response was nothing. I'd be exactly the same person I am today, just feeling a bit more authentic being the real me and presenting as the real me
end quote.
In days that now seem a distant past I did both.
Michelle, I invited my immediate family around for dinner telling them I had an announcement. I greeted them at the door as Cindy. I just said if you have a problem with me leave, if you don't I want you as my family because I love you all. They all stayed.
Michelle I do not know your financial arrangements but your house is equally yours and your wife's, lay it down, if someone wants to leave they know where the door is. Yes it is brutal, so is being transgender.
I came out at work as Joanne's therapist said and things did change. I got respect, support, love and caring people. Again the people who couldn't deal with it did what they need to - get out of my life.
It is my life, it is your life. There is no need to apologise, compromise or hide. Do it. I hid for most of my life, if people can't handle Cindy guess what? They can go and hide.
<end of my Sunday morning cathartic rant! It is a lovely day, I'm me.>
Thanks, Cindy!
That's inspirational and one heck of a family dinner. :)
I read Joanne's post, something she's said before, and it started me thinking along these lines. I don't have any real financial risk to myself, as I run the trust and manage our funds and income. Absolute worst case I can easily live on what I'd have by law after a hostile divorce.
I'm on the house deed and there's no mortgage or other entanglements. As you say, I'm entitled to live here, and there's the door of you don't like it.
I plan on coming out to my adult children next weekend, and the following Tuesday I have a therapist session. I'll go over this with her as well as how the kids handle this.
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Quote from: Michelle_P on September 24, 2016, 05:52:11 PM
Thanks, Cindy!
That's inspirational and one heck of a family dinner. :)
I read Joanne's post, something she's said before, and it started me thinking along these lines. I don't have any real financial risk to myself, as I run the trust and manage our funds and income. Absolute worst case I can easily live on what I'd have by law after a hostile divorce.
I'm on the house deed and there's no mortgage or other entanglements. As you say, I'm entitled to live here, and there's the door of you don't like it.
I plan on coming out to my adult children next weekend, and the following Tuesday I have a therapist session. I'll go over this with her as well as how the kids handle this.
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Not meaning to derail the thread, but in the sorrow and despair and fog of transitioning we sometimes forget to see the obvious.
It is your house or at least 50%. It is you making decisions about you. Your kids are adults, guess what that means they are adults and can deal with life as it is and life isn't pretty it is what it is. Your wife is a grown mature woman who can make her own decisions in life and probably does. Give her the credit for being able to do so, if she can't live with another woman so what? Time for both of you to face it and find an opportunity to be happy later in life because nothing is going to change and misery lasts a hell of a long time, it is more consuming than solitary confinement and at least as mentally damaging.
Look at this differently all of you worrying about going FT (and I did I can assure you, go back and read my early posts when I was a very frightened little person). So you can't tell people, you can't be you because people will laugh, not accept - whatever you fear. OK jobs, money, children, relationships etc are important but so is life.
Imagine as I did recently, all of a sudden out of the blue you are told you have cancer and it is really bad and the options are very limited and life changes in a second, your vision becomes very clear when you look at your own mortality, and realise you really are mortal. What are you going to do? Hide? Give up? Hope it goes away? Pray to deities and hope for some miracle? Or deal with it; live every moment that you can and realise that yes life is what it is and you get one go at it and then it has gone. So make mistakes and keep pushing your boundaries and enjoy what life you have, because guess what? It doesn't really matter. You aren't going to live for ever. You are going to die one day and it might be today.
When you are facing those moments when you look at your self in the way that only the self can ever look, we know ourselves inside out, we know our innermost fear, we know our innermost secrets that we have never even mentioned and we take them to our grave and one of them is - I never lived my life as me. I'm transgender and I've been too scared to live as me because what others may think.
So we may think, I'll get my revenge on the world. "Bury me in my favourite clothes so at least I'll be buried as me."
or we may think.
Screw the world, I'm going to live as me and if people don't like it they can queue up to kiss my ass while I find a way of living my life while I am able and I will find the fun side to very situation because I'm going to be a long time dead.
Cindy
Im glad people get what Im saying. It's also people see a boy so they think boy and when like because of my hair as it gets longer, some do call me say daughter or girl. They than think they made a mistake and Im thinking "no you got it right". Everything always gets confused and backwards or so.
A bit about myself that has made things more complicated for me. I weight a 160 but Ive been down to a 150 to 145 and ya if I lost the little weight on me from that Id be around 135 pounds. My arms and hands are more naturally like a girl than a boy. My voice cracks somedays bad like Im going through puberty where I sound like I have a more raspy slightly deep hilary duff voice. These are just a few examples. Ive suffered from really low t levels. While the above Im so VERY thankful for, it makes it harder for me to hide who I really am which is a girl due to how some people are.
Honestly it's not easy to try to cover up or hope no one notices like the above for what you think one expects in society when the above is more towards who I actually am. So again I am not able to be okay due to what society expects.
Im so glad again that people get what Im saying. Makes me feel less alone.
I so, so, know how you feel.
I will be 64 years old in a month. I have not transitioned. I will probably have to put off my transition until, either one of two things happens,
1- Perfect scenario: My wife says YES to me as Donna. (All of our best bedroom intimacy for her - I think - has been thanks to me studying what Lesbians do in bedroom moments, since we were married some 40 years ago.) I am actually Lesbian in my soul.
2- My wife precedes me in passing away before I do because of old age. This could happen.
Remember, I love her dearly to the end of this life and beyond.
However, if she were to pass away due to old age in a few decades from now, I WILL IMMEDIATELY TRANSITION!
I may be 80 years old by then, but, I WILL GET TO THE PROMISED LAND.
If she were to pass away before me, I can tell all in the world, that when I die and am laid to rest, or rather cremated, I will be legally female in all legal documents.
After recently transitioning to full time and things have gone extremely well, I have a certain perspective. Looking at coming out, I was terrified I would lose everything, every relationship. Generally speaking, I think so many of the worst case scenarios that we picture as we think of coming out, don't happen. Based on my experience, I want everyone to go for their dream and find the same kind of contentment that I have found. I want to say "Things are gonna be fine." Then there is the person who in reality has a very tough road, who will lose so much. It is an awful reality that some people have or might face. I would never want someone to be hurt based on me saying, "It will all be great!"
That said, I think there is a natural tendency for trans people to not like how they were born, yet cling to that state of being very stubbornly. Why, well it is safe, it is known territory. It insures that our loved ones won't leave us. There is the thought that, well maybe if I tell everyone the new me won't be successful, and the old me will be ruined, what do I do then? I know for me I moved forward because I just couldn't take the pain any more. I hate the fact that so many of us agonize for so long and many can only move when they get desperate enough. The only thing I can think of to stop this is if people get active in figuring themselves out. Go see a therapist. Experiment with the new gender in safe ways and see how you react. Taking positive steps and not just sitting in misery is so much better. Everything you experience will help you understand what you can do to make a happier life. Its sad how the world talks us into oppressing ourselves. Its such a waste of our lives!
Monica
Michelle, good luck and I hope it goes well.
Disclosure: I am not religious and this is not an espousal of any particular religious doctrine or view. It is an interesting insight I gained studying exegetical commentaries as part of my larger education in world religions.
The abstract idea behind the biblical Exodus is the following: Would you rather live as a miserable slave but in a predictable day to day life where you are reasonably certain of your routine, access to food and shelter, known threats and obstacles or would you rather live as a free unenslaved human being in the wilderness without any security or routine, forging out into a new life, finding a new way, risking starvation, facing unforeseen challenges or obstacles?
The extension of this analogy to the transgender experience is pretty obvious. Predictability but misery as a slave vs. uncertainty but freedom to live as intended. The danger is to continue the status quo as a slave.
So, the question is: When does it become intolerable to continue living as a slave, in this case to the role of living in the role of a gender and in the body of a gender that you are not?
Love the way you have extrapolated that out Steph, as a theology degree holder I concur with your point too.
Awesom.