Hello everyone,
Like many others I have been hovering around for a while before taking the plunge. After making a couple of posts that attract and hold a special interest for me I have nervously decided to introduce myself. I have been very impressed and encouraged by the love, care and humour you show toward to each other and would like to become a member of your lovely family. I am rather shy by nature and can be somewhat withdrawn into myself, but anyway here goes...
This is who I am within....
I wrote the following, which is an edited account of when I became aware of being transgendered and not a freak, at the request of my therapist as background information for her prior to our first Skype meeting. For me it proved to be a valuable therapeutic experience in its self.
I suppose the place to start is at the beginning... before my school days! I remember being so very, very sad when first I understood that I was not a girl and could not change into being a girl. I was so sad, I was utterly heartbroken. I was aware, even at that very young age, of mourning for the loss of myself. It was as though my inner self-understanding of who I was had died because I did not have a tangible reality of self as being a girl. I wasn't a girl and could never become a girl. I didn't cry: I was numbed, I was beyond tears.
I don't remember with clarity how I came to the knowledge that I would never ever be a girl; it is shrouded in a partially remembered very painful encounter with one or both of my parents. Following this encounter, I recollect having a distinct sense that I was not to talk about wanting to be a girl ever again, and that this self-understanding of who I am was to be a secret locked inside me forever. I was a boy and had to act like a boy or be a sissy. I had such a terrible longing within me to be a girl, to realise the true actuality of self. The seed of a future sense of being a freak had now been sown.
I remember walking in my mother's high heeled shoes wrapped in a shawl or head scarf or something of the like. I recall the image of me being dressed in that way; it is forever connected in my memories with mourning for the loss of me not being a girl. I don't have the words to express the pain and loss I felt at that juncture in my life. Simply this, coming to the full realisation that I was not and could never be a girl was dreadful; I actually felt I had been given a living death sentence. All I could see within me was darkness, near total darkness: this truly is not a fantasy.
I fully recall staring into the darkness of a living death. An image of my future life as a boy came to mind; it seemed to me as though I was looking at myself. I was standing, near the entrance door, in a long dark room or corridor, my back and palms of my hands pressed against a long side wall, looking sideways toward a vague shaft of light at the far end that somewhat lifted the darkness. It is an enduring image fixed in my mind. I was wholly conscious of these thoughts at the time they occurred: they have stayed with me. I want you to clearly appreciate these recollections are not present day fanciful projections.
The idea of being regarded a sissy was something that horrified me so I became a little boy who was afraid of his secret longing being found out. The only way to console myself was to dream of being a girl. For many years beginning in my pre-school days, continuing throughout my early childhood, I closed my eyes to sleep each night with the image of being a girl. I imagined myself singing and dancing with other girls, some younger and some older than myself, but all pre-teen. On many occasions these bedtime imaginings turned into wonderful dreams. This was my only consolation for how I perceived myself within as a person.
These remembrances have been with me throughout my life, has have two other unconnected defining events from my pre-school days. I deeply, deeply grieved for the loss of my perceived true self. I did not, nor could not; talk of my inner feelings and turmoil with anyone. My wife was the first person I spoke to of my hidden self. It was during the month of August of this year, whilst we were holidaying.
Well that's how it all began for me..
Looking forward to meeting you...
