Quote from: JulieBlair on September 05, 2014, 08:44:30 AM
Jess,
Rock on girlfriend, I think that perhaps you are the healthy one here. 
j

Thanks for thinking that but it isn't that true. Yeah BP is good, heart rate is good, fairly healthy and at a healthy weight. But I still feel like a scared little girl sometimes. When the "D" monster comes, it comes with a vengeance. Lasts anywhere from a few hours to a day or two. Then it subsides.

Besides I am totally insane, Ask Jessica Merriman, she'll tell you.

Yeah, but Jessica is crazy too. 

Quote from: JulieBlair on September 06, 2014, 02:33:37 PM
Yeah, but Jessica is crazy too. 

Gotta' be something about the name Jessica and redneck girls that we are a little crazy. I don't know if she is fully redneck or not, but I love Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill. So it goes without sayin'.

fear of the unknown or reactions, maybe.
but if i decided to come out as lesbian (i'm not, but i did wonder for a while a few years ago), that would still be easier than coming out as trans. because it's only about who i like, not who i am.

we have an interesting word in norwegian, "elendig". the original meaning is to be outside the country, in exile, but in our modern language it means horrible, awful, the worst kind of feeling or result. that's how terrible it feels to be away from the place where one belongs.
i have read about how some native american tribes had a punishment worse than death. a person who had committed a crime so horrific no punishment seemed enough, they would be declared dead, funeral rites would be held, and after that, the person would exist to no one in the tribe. no matter how much they cried or shouted or even destroyed things, they would not be noticed.

i grew up with a severe lack of validation. it has been so bad that the only nightmares i ever have, are of me shouting and shouting at my mother, getting nothing in response, her just going about her way paying no heed to whatever i try to say. it's as if i didn't exist. my feelings, my needs, my wish to see friends, my loneliness. nothing would find validation. i could not see myself reflected in the mirror that a parent's eyes are.

i'm terrified of this feeling that i don't exist. that i have no right to exist. that i'm unwanted.
i've spent so many years trying to become something which was allowed to exist, and only in adulthood learning, that i'm not the one who was wrong all this time.

so why do i think it's so hard to tell people who i really am?
because i really don't know if i'll be able to stand it, if i were met with rejection.
what if i'm told, i don't exist.
what if i'm told, i am unwanted.
the friend whom i trusted, will he only be friends with the person i pretended to be?
is there anyone out there who even wants to know who i really am? this person who wasn't even loved by their own mother?

a human being only exists within society.
outside, he is nothing.
the one who is never validated, does not exist.

having grown up always trying to be someone else, the one they told us we were, but we somewhere deep inside knew we weren't,
is it weird at all that we fear another person's reaction to learning who we really are?

i want to be a real person. please tell me i am.

Jess,
I never graduated past Mad Dog.  Did you know some people drink wine from a bottle with a cork?  What's up with that?

J

Taka you are real enough to eloquently express your heartfelt feelings in writing plus I love your real avatar pic

Taka, you are not only real, you are amazingly insightful.  All my life I have believed that if you really knew me you would throw me away.  That was my fear growing up, that was what I thought my reality would always be.  I was wrong.  I exist.  I am loved.  I am worthy and valuable.   So are you.  Thank you.

BTW Norway is one of my favorite places in all of the world.  I have friends in Bergen,  and used to go to the North Sea Center in Trondheim every couple of years.  Maybe I'll see you one day.

julie

Quote from: JulieBlair on September 06, 2014, 04:13:32 PM
Jess,
I never graduated past Mad Dog.  Did you know some people drink wine from a bottle with a cork?  What's up with that?

J

I don't know Julie. I ain't ever figured that out. Too hard to get it open. Who carries a corkscrew with them all the time? If not you gotta either try to cut the cork out or knock it down into the wine and pollute it the good stuff.

Wow Taka. That is very Eloquent. Like Tessa said.

Hon, I hate to tell you this but I exist outside of societal norms. I have been unwanted. I have been unloved. I live on the outer perimeters of society and I don't care. I don't ask for society to accept me and I don't have to accept society either. Sometimes I am disgusted by society and sometimes I disgust society. Oh well.

Be who you are with no apologies to anyone. You are a real person and one hell of an intelligent person at that. Believe it or not Trans people are a part of society and no matter how they want to sweep us under the rug, we are still here, there and everywhere. So yeah, you are real and you exist and you are a part of a family no matter what the rest thing of us. All I got to say is about where they can go, what they can do when they get there and with what they rode in on.

BTW, you're always welcome on the outer perimeter.

i had no choice but gain some insight, if i wanted to live my life at all. the choice to change could only be made from acknowledgement of reality.
digging deep hurts, but is necessary to fix myself up enough to function. it's been working amazingly well thus far.
i've met some validation when i needed it the most, and in turn learned how to validate myself. i no longer fear telling people who i am, though it's not something i commonly do. i don't really see the need to tell people that i'm not really a woman but not really a man either and will transition more or less sometime in the future if medical treatment just becomes more easily available to non-binary people in this country. but i'm telling the people who need knowing.

tell me next time you visit norway. i have two brothers in trondheim, and even lived there from 2004-2010. one more excuse to take that trip to bergen to visit my uncle wouldn't hurt either.

You're on kiddo, I'm out of the fishing business now though, so it might be a couple years.  Next big trip is Australia, then a year in Italy. Maybe we can have an international trans convention somewhere near Naples.  A friend of mine rented a pensione there a few years ago and had an amazing couple of months.

You are an inspiration to me.  Thank you for your articulate and thoughtful contributions.

Julie

having a convention somewhere i can afford to go would be great. i've already started saving up money for travels, but prioritizing my daughter makes it difficult to go outside europe, or even scandinavia unless it's some cheap charter holiday.

    I think this is quite normal for us.We have led our lives in fear of discovery knowing we are different but not really knowing how much or why.Building a hologram of ourselves to present to the world what they expected to see be it male or female we just wanted to fit in and not be exposed.For us older TS we built our lives around this hologram and tried to live as what we presented as and knowing in our hearts and minds it was wrong all along.In a way a living hell that we lived every day of our lives.
  Then the melt down,the realization of who we are and coping with the acceptance of it within ourselves.
Followed by OMG what will people say what will I do and my marriage what will happen---total chaos.Fear plays a big part  fear of rejection, isolation and the worst ,fear of the unknown.It is all very scary stuff and I still get scared thinking about it, but after over a year full time the edge has come off considerably. People more or less accept you for who you really are and life goes on but only this time it is better because you are finally FREE !   Patty