QuoteSo those doubts are normal?
Yes they are Mellssa, though it also depends on what it is you doubt and why. To a person who is in true need of transition, there is no choice but to do it regardless, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily have the mentality, experience and assets to really make it happen in as short a time as possible no matter how much they may need it. Thats where the choices, conditions and doubts come in.
For myself, I can say there is no reason for not abtaining surgery within income, socialbility, or environment that could get in my way other then the choices I make. My only problem consistantly has been that of having to leave my woman of 26 years of life and 25 years of marrage behind to do it as quickly as I could. To keep her will not stand in my way of achieving what I want, but will take more time when I have already exceeded all the time my mind feels it can spare. To seperate from her would make it financially easy for me to complete myself very quickly in the position I peresently am in.
There are those feelings of past love and dependancy though that hold her to me, no matter how hard she makes it for me sometimes or hurts me because of her own doubts as to our future together. Part of the problem is her dependancy on me. For more then a year now she has not been able to work. She has influensa, diabetes and has been emotionally near to mental breakdown ever since I actually started hormones and let her know that surgery was my only option.
This woman became my best friend at a time when I most needed one, having to care for two young daughters after my first wife died and I was in a lost world in coping with how to deal with raising those girls when I could not garuntee coming home every night or at all perhaps. Perhaps mostly I needed and had to have a true friend to share and care for me through the nightmares and fears I lived with on an almost daily basis along with my problems of accepting the life I was living. She was what I needed in those years and she never backed off or left me uncared for, despite what she often had to go through. I can never forget that and I can never disregard or shirk from a loyal friend and companion, not even for my own needs.
We have split up before over the transition. She said she would not stand for me to begin HRT, so When I did, she told me to pack up and get out. I did so and made out quite well for some months until she said she could come to terms with it and asked me to move back with her. Then she lost her job and could no longer work, leaving myself as her major support. To leave her would mean a lot more money that I need for SRS, but to leave for a matter of cash would be a shallow thing to me and I would despise myself even after SRS if I were to do such a thing without first being able to secure her livelyhood. To treat a person you had loved and delt with life with for such a reason would be so terribly dishonorable and I don't think that achieving anything on this earth would be worth such an immoral act. So I must take care of her and while that means less money for the warchest and a slower path, so be it. I would die before doing such a thing to a person I had loved for so much of my life.
What I'm saying Melissa is that no matter how serious you are, there are always things you have to weigh and they may not always be easy cut and dried choices, but if your doubts have deep concern as to who or what you are, and if things such as prestige, money, possessions etc. etc. are to important to lose, then a great reconsideration in what you will do with your life is at hand.
So simply keep in mind that as long as you are truely and without doubt who you are, there will still be considerations for what you are doing, how and when. It is no embarrasement to be bothered or unsure of things that are of moral importance to you, just as long as you are not letting the morality of others affect you.
Every thing in life has meaning and purpose, sometimes you have to be able to make decisions about what you can live with aside from yourself, but to do so you must be able to reason with yourself and know perfectly well what you can't live without besides your own needs. It is a phylosophy in itself and applies only to yourself, but remember the old saying to be true to yourself and understand what that truth is and that it can concern many things.
Decide for yourself what is important to you in all ways as possible and do it, but don't break your own heart on the way. I hope this makes some sense to you.
Terri
