Hello,
I've been lurking for a while now and wanted to finally say hi!
I am Megan, nearly 30 years old and about to start the journey to freeing my soul. That's what it feels like to me as I'm at that point where I really feel like I am holding onto the edge of a cliff with no footing and a drop into what looks like a bottomless black hole of nothingness or I can pull myself up to where the future may be unknown but I can be at peace with myself for the first time in my life. I tried for a very long time to be the man my family always wanted me to be in the process I just became more and more sad about who I am and filled with so much self hatred that it has come to a boiling point. I tied up and tossed my true self into a pit of darkness somewhere in my heart in an attempt or hopes to forget who I feel I am.
I spent most of my 20's helping my family while putting my life on the sidelines. I even supported my family financially for a long time when they were down for the count because that was expected from the son of the family. For a while I was able to be sort of happy with my masculinity even when my parents would praise my accomplishments but every time I always felt completely empty. Every time I'm out in public and I see other women I get sad because I can't help but feel jealous of them because of the way I feel about how I have to hide it from everyone and with every step it felt like I've tortured the woman within. That soul can't be kept in the dark anymore as I knew a long time ago that I was a woman on the inside, its how I've always felt and even my voice in my head is that of my true voice and not my real one, but I was so afraid to come out to my family when I was younger and I still haven't yet.
I'm not sure what will come of my family/work/social life from what I'm going to do but I do hope that it will be positive even if most don't agree with what I want to do and I do wonder if I'm just over thinking/pumping up my own fears of being rejected in all the worst ways possible of losing everything. Over the past year I moved to a new town after helping my family get back on their feet where the "man" wasn't needed to be there anymore and having my own place to live by myself where I can be me without making things awkward has helped me a lot.
I have kind of come out in many subtle ways, I've been growing out my hair for the last 5 years so it's down past my shoulders and I've been wearing my hair down when out in public instead of the usual pony tail, even at work I'll let it down at the end of the day on the way out as I say my farewells for the day. I can't stand to have facial hair at all, it just makes me cringe every day when I wake up and that stubble is right there. I get mixed signals from my Mom and sister about it though, sometimes they just adore my hair and how good it looks, other times they say I need to cut it and look for a wife but at least my Dad has been neutral to me growing my hair out.
I even stealthily grew my nails out some where they do appear to be more feminine on both hands under the guise of playing my guitar using the finger style technique. The longer nails on my fretting hand make it harder to play the guitar but I love the look of longer nails! Sure I get/got teased but people seem to be fine with it as nobody has actually been on the offensive that I should cut my hair because only women have long hair and nails, my friends jokingly say it but I always fire back the usual "You'll have to cut the hair from my cold dead body" and we all get a laugh.
Sometimes I wonder if maybe most of my friends, co-workers and family have seen or felt that I'm different but roll with it as I'm still a great and caring person even though I don't fit into the normal category. Maybe they have been seeing the sadness in my eyes even through all of those moments where I force a smile to hide the pain or when I see others having a bad day and I try to cheer them up even though I feel bad about who I am every day.
I recently had one of those pivotal moments that has solidified my resolve to do this and I look back at it with a sense of it all makes sense now if that makes any sense haha. But about a month ago when I was eating a meal at a restaurant with my parents, my mom said that she's noticed lately that I look happier in my eyes. I almost broke down in tears as I wanted to tell them that it's because I've began living as myself at my house for about the past three months but I couldn't muster up the courage to tell them as we were in a public place and I have this unnerving fear that they might not take this well even though I think they will be supportive in the end and I want to tell them at the right, if there's ever a right time to tell the two most important people you care about in life something like this. I still have a lot of fears about everything but I'll have to get over them and just go with the flow.
Now that I've gotten my back story out of the way I recently made the very first step in all of this in setting up an appointment with the only LGBT therapist that I found anywhere near where I live for early October and I can't wait to get the ball rolling as just getting this far has taken a lot of that weight of self hatred/sadness/fear that was on my chest away. For the first time ever I can honestly say I woke up with a smile on my face the very next day, and really I can't think of the last time I ever felt happy about waking up to reality going all the way back to being a kid. I'm excited about the new days and what lays beyond them now where I felt like I was just heading towards oblivion before. I hope that this therapist that I'm going to see soon and everyone here will help guide me in more ways than one to becoming the person I've always felt that I was.
Thanks for reading this long winded introduction post,
Megan
Reformatted
