(Trigger warning: I will mention suicide but nothing in detail)
Hello. I'm new to this website. I was always too scared to go on any forums about this because I've felt ashamed. But now I have moved with my parents across the country and I no longer have a therapist or LGBT support group to go to. Life hasn't been great for me and I desperately need advice on how to approach this.
The issue in of itself is I have come out to them as transgender around a year ago. It didn't go well. My father laughed at me and my mom just said it didn't make sense (later saying I was doing it because I had transgender friends). This broke me. So as what I like to think of as me trying to keep the peace I never mentioned it again. I let it be. But then my mother heard a good friend of mine call me my chosen name. Then heard another use he/him. The reaction was odd. Usual just an awkwardly silent car drive home as I try not to cry. As for my dad, he sees everything as something to joke about. So joked would happen usually. But at a pride parade in my old hometown, he called me my chosen name. I almost cried and I told my support group. They all were full of happiness for me. Yet, that was quickly ripped away from me when he admitted he only said it because no one who was around knew my birth name. He's never said my name again. It's all my birth name. He only says my chosen name if he is forced because my teachers now know me as my chosen name.
For a while, I could take it. I just tuned out the female nicknames and the feminine pronouns. Yet now I cant. It seems like every day the word "she" and "her" becomes sharper. My birth name is becoming more unnatural to hear. I hate it. I hate every moment of it. Being seen and referred to this way is breaking me into pieces. Now that we moved and I don't have that support system anymore. I don't have a place I can go to and fully be myself. I'm always ethier scared(mainly at school) or hiding away from my family. I haven't even mentioned we moved here to be closer to our family and said family is extremely transphobic, homophobic, and judgmental. Everyday It feels like to get the to take me seriously id have to try and kill myself. Somedays it even feels like they'd rather have a dead daughter than a happy transgender son.
So, I've never been good at talking with people. I'm a very quiet person. I was always around to help others. Even when I was a kid I was thought of as the strong one. So I learned that I need to stay the strong one. That lead to me never speaking up for myself, never really expressing emotion, isolating myself in times of depression, and a fear of crying. So the idea of sitting down with my parents and telling them how much they're damaging me is utterly terrifying.
I need advice on how to get up the courage to talk to them and what I should say. How I should word it. What should I avoid saying. I just dont know what to do.
Please and thank you.
@OneDayIWillBeMe Dear OneDayIWillBeMe:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here.... and writing your interesting and detailed posting...
I am sad to hear all the issues that you mentioned that you are dealing with, the best advice that I can offer is to see a counselor and/or a therapist, a gender therapist, and/or your doctor to get professional medical advice about future actions that may be able to help you. ... and please don't even think about or give suicide or killing yourself another thought... please, not a very good thing to even think about.
The good news is that because of your posting many of our members are now aware of your arrival here and you can be expecting them to share their thoughts with you relevant to you questions and concerns.
This is the right place for you to be to find out what others have done that may have been in your circumstances.
Be aware that there are a lot of members here that can identify with your situation as you feel free to share it.
Please allow me to warmly WELCOME you to Susan's Place.
You will find this a safe and friendly place to share with others and to read about others similar trials, tribulations, and successes.
It is nice that you had signed up so you can share with others and involve yourself with some give and take with other like-minded members. When frustrated or if you have successes you can share it here if you wish and receive support from others and offer support to others. ....
***It's a very good chance that you might find that you will make some new friends here.
Please come in and continue to be involved at your own pace.
Included there is information about the site that will help you navigate around and best utilize the features here.
Please look closely at the LINKS in RED, answers are there to many questions that new members ask.
Again, Welcome to Susan's Place.
Danielle
Here are some links to the site rules and stuff that all new members should be familiar with:
Things that you should read
Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html) | Standard Terms & Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html) | Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.) | Cautionary Note (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,82221.0.html) |
Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html) | News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html) | Photo, avatars, & signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866) | Membership Agreement (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,216851.0.html) |
@OneDayIWillBeMe Oh, and another thing OneDayIWillBeMe:
Just before I let you have your posting back so that other members will know that you are new here and can comment on your posted thoughts.....
... would you please stop by the Introductions Forum (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,8.0.html) to tell more members about yourself and your arrival here on the Forums.
You can include some brief information about yourself so other like-minded members will be able to share with you, and you with them.
If you are one of our younger members,
you should go to the Youth Introductions Forum (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,544.0.html) to introduce yourself and to find other younger members..
Enjoy your time here on the Forums, I trust that you will find this an enjoyable and informative experience.
Best wishes to you.... and again, Welcome to Susan's Place
Danielle
There is another post from an ftm teenager just last night who is having a really hard time too - username PainKiller. Perhaps you can help each other by providing each other with some online support. I really want to reach out and help you but I am not really in a position to do that other that provide an understanding and sympathetic ear. But you could help each other... and vent your frustrations. It is not the same as a real life friend but it is better than nothing right?
You are already so far ahead of where I am and I am 46. There was no way I could tell my father... not without having the crap beaten out of me. So that you've already come out to your parents... that's a massive task in itself. Trust me, it is really nervous bringing it up a second time... I told my wife before we married and then had to bring it up again 9 years after we last talked about it. I was nervous but it was honestly fine in the end. You've already done the hardest bit... just be a bit more brave and talk it through with them. Perhaps try and find some literature to support your argument too.
I've been giving a lot of thought to this the last couple of days when thinking about trans-hate. What would be a good test for transgender people to show they were genuine and not part of some transtrend. I have not really come up with anything solid yet but I was thinking... if the doctor were to offer you a pill that made the gender dysphoria go away, and allowed you to live the gender that matched the sex of your birth just like every other non-trans cis person in the world... would you take it? There isn't a day that goes by when I don't wish to be female but if a doctor offered me that tablet to make that dysphoria go away... I would swallow it in a heartbeat. I might be wrong, but I think that just about every transperson who is genuine would do the same. You need to convince your parents that is the case with you. This isn't something we want, this isn't something we can control. Why would I spend 44 years trying to hide this from the world if it is was something I really wanted? We do it because there comes a point when we have no choice. Whether you do it when you are young or you do it later in life... one way or another, eventually it becomes too much and you will have to deal with it.
So I am not sure if that helps or not... but contact that other person... he could really do with a friend right now and it sounds like you could do with a friend too. You both are facing ftm and are of similar age. https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,241253.0.html
Don't let your father get to you, or no one else. If you can, can you go into councelling/therapy? Don't worry, we all need it. It gives us a safe place to vent, feel like we can be ourselves, be validated, have our worst fears alliviated and best of all, have at least one person on our side. Don't worry, we all need to have a gender therapist to help us along our transition journey, even if you don't medically transition. Its wonderful to have at least one ally on our side!
We are all here for each other. Feel free to talk freely here, that's why this forum was created, to have a safe place for us to be ourselves.
Please don't hurt yourself. This past birthday, my family too wished my deadname and deadgender a happy birthday. I had come out to them last year, but I suppose they didn't believe me. So I came out to them again. One sister refused to accept it, while another accepted it completely. (I am no longer speaking to the unaccepting sister until I get a heartfelt apology for her telling me to "DIE" on my birthday.) So I get what you mean when everyone wished your deadname and deadgender "happy birthday." They wished the mask you wear those things, not you. its a fearful thing, taking off that mask and showing them the Real You. But I can believe you can do it.
Stay strong bro, we are all here for you. Talk to us. We have all been there, in one way or another. Together, we can be strong for each other.
Ryuichi
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