This week marks one year since I moved out of the house I bought with the only person I loved enough to marry, the one whose soul connected to mine for more than 20 years before our partnership shattered spectacularly. At the time I felt only relief – that a grueling, chaotic, acrimonious, and mind-numbingly expensive separation process was finally over.

But in recent months, I've been getting in better touch with exactly how much I've lost.

I've had a number of minor setbacks in the past week or two.^* The worst part of it all, is that I have no one to talk to – to commiserate with, to put their arm around me, to give me an actual hug (rather than simply saying "hugs", which is a sweet sentiment but alas, no substitute for the real thing). I've started to bring up some of the issues to some of my casual friends, and they quickly change the subject. They don't know me well enough to listen to my woes. Only cheerful news for them. I understand. There have occasionally been people in my life I've had to distance myself from because their constant negativity was a drain on my energy.

To avoid being alone on a Saturday, I went to a meetup today that one of the local lesbian groups was organizing. It wasn't bad. There were four other women there. Two were a couple, and the other two had a partner or wife that had some other commitment. They were friendly, but I still felt like a bit of an outsider. I don't know why, but they seemed to communicate more readily with each other than with me. Maybe they knew each other from before. Maybe some or all of them clocked me. Or maybe I'm just hard to get to know. I have this problem a lot. I've never mastered the art of socializing as part of a group.

I've begun calling these outings "imitation social life." They feel social – I'm around people and not at home polluting the wonderful boards at susans.org with depressing accounts of toxic emptiness – but they don't nurture me the way spending time would with people who understand and appreciate me and I them. I left feeling empty and alone and wondering what I need to do to once again feel like I'm connected to the world socially.

For 20 years I had someone with whom I had companionship and mutual support. Now I don't . It took me more than ten years of dating to find her, and that was when I was a young handsome eligible male. Now I'm deep into middle age, relatively plain looking, and with a gender that doesn't even really have a name. Non-binary. The Gender Defined By What It's Not. I can imagine there must be people for whom I'd be a suitable mate, but since my separation, I have yet to even have someone attracted to me after they find out that I didn't start life as a female. It doesn't look like Mr./Ms./M. Right is coming along anytime soon.

So for the foreseeable future, I come home to an empty house after a difficult day, scroll through my phone contacts and realize there is no one here who would welcome a call from me, to hear about my life or tell me about their own.

^*I lost a lot of money when the clinic where I had arranged prepaid body laser treatment shut down unexpectedly. My electrologist told me I was one of the hardest cases she had in her 30 years of practice, and that after a year of facial laser and another year of going to her, I probably had several more years left of $150.00 and giving up an entire afternoon and most of an evening every single week. My son told me he failed nearly all his courses at college. And they are making changes to curricular programs in my school system that will make my students far less prepared when they enter my classes. To top it off a number of my most frequently used machines began giving me trouble, including a car that is completely dead, an exercise machine that has begun making popping and cracking noises when I use it while the resistance fades in and out, an electric shaver with a perforated foil that now can't be used without cutting up my face, and a nose/ear/eyebrow trimmer that just quit working.

Quote from: suzifrommd on December 20, 2014, 06:23:14 PM
The worst part of it all, is that I have no one to talk to – to commiserate with, to put their arm around me, to give me an actual hug...

Hon, I know exactly what you mean. That has been a major difficulty for me, coming home from yet another $#%&ty day at work and no one to debrief with or just cuddle with and hold me.

The only thing that keeps me going in that regard is the hope, the belief it won't always be like that. 2015 is a new year and I hope, I believe I can build on a successful transition with a better job, expanded social circles and a loving and caring partner. I hope there is some light ahead for you too.

to me my life just became a Kafka novel. So beyond absurd in alienation and loneness , it just got to be funny. I just accept my fate and do my best. I cheat though I have a friend named the Supreme author of life that gives me validation.

My loss is settling on me too Suzi - while I am way happier and have cast off the dysphoria, sometimes the losses I had to take to get to this point seem like too much. My apartment is empty too at the end of the day, and I have no one to share my day with.

It seems like a Hobson's choice - be unhappy and possibly facing an unhappy ending but you can continue to have someone in your life, or be happy and have no one in your life.

I wish I had an answer for you.

I wish there was something I could say to help Suzi, I was isolated from my friends when I drove a tractor trailer and I could barely handle it. As anyone can tell by my facebook feed I am not the busiest or most well liked girl but I do have friends that are just out of this world in their dedication and love for me, and that is a wonderful feeling.

It just doesn't feel fair for such as amazing as you Suzi to feel so isolated. Like I lost a marriage too, but we were only together 10 years and it would have ended transition or not. I also have a girlfriend now, and like it doesn't seem fair that it should be so easy for me.

You know . . . One of the things that seems to happen in a good trans* support group is that people find one another and they start to join together for mutual support to take care of these types of needs.  They do that even outside of the meetings because people meet one another and they understand that the whole point is to find people who leave you a little less alone.

I know you belong to a support group because you've posted about it (plus it's where we first met one another offline).  But forgive me for saying this . . . it does not seem to be a very good one.  After about a year, it's still only bringing in about six people per month, which doesn't allow much opportunity to meet others, and there doesn't seem to be much of an ethos of helping one another or making one another less alone. 

There is another one meeting today at 2 pm in a county neighboring yours that has a much stronger ethos of mutual support and has a lot of people whose gender doesn't quite fit the box.  One of its members just announced an after Christmas gathering they will be hosting at their home for anyone I the group who wants to come, which tells you something about how people are about not leaving one another alone.  And there is a long history of people supporting one another, keeping one another company, listening to the things you are talking about and really trying to help.  And this group just happens to also have the biggest mix of different identities of any group in your part of the country.  It was started to cater to people who didn't quite fit the mold of the usual trans* narrative in some way.  People like you.

Why not go try that one?  Maybe try some of the others?  You live in an area with at least 9 trans* groups that I can think of right off the top of my head.  There has got to be one that would be useful and helpful to you. 

Being trans* can be very lonely.  Add in non-binary, or anything else that is "atypical," and suddenly things seem a lot more lonely.  But there are pockets of understanding and love.  You really just need to go to them.

I'll drop you an email momentarily . . . .

Thanks for the support, Grace, Stephanie, Eva, Hikari, and ThePhoenix.

I've been working with my therapist to try to learn what sort of things I can do to make it easier to connect to people. I have a feeling that's going to be a slow process.

Aw, I'm sorry Suzi. I'm sure that the time of the year doesn't help much either. But I know that you are a strong person and you can overcome all these setbacks. I get the impression that at this point, the dust from the transition is starting to settle, after that has taken place things will start coming together for you.

Suzi, I am sorry to hear about that, too. I know how it is to try and socialize with people and they just ignore you. This happens so much with me, even when I am with a group with a club I belong to. A no win situation. Plus, it didn't even have to do with transitioning. It is just like that for me, so I can relate. When my girlfriend and I broke up after 12 years, it was a relief, but the emptiness was there, too. That was way before any transitioning, the early '90's when we parted. I know her quite well and she would never have accepted me turning feminine. She never even would have gone out with me from the beginning knowing that. I do hope that you find someone and at least get acknowledgment from the social crowd.