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Coping with family?

Started by Midnightstar, May 16, 2016, 07:36:57 PM

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Midnightstar

My mothers words she has said to me in the past couple of weeks to months have been bothering me worse.
I keep thinking about when i was worried about bills and cash she told me with my transition that maybe i won't be able to do everything i want to do. (She was implying testosterone) it was clear in the conversation. And it scared me at the time, now its just bothering me.
I guess me and my mother has never gotten along so at the start it was whatever i'll move but actually realizing i don't have a very understanding family is now bothering me. I don't even know if its ignorance with my parents or something more. There so accepting in the moment and then it flipped around into something like this and its effected me it shouldn't effect me but it does. I don't comment on the things they say and iv'e been trying to correct them more lately but the more i correct them the more imply's and comments i get in the future from them.
I'm trying to come up with ways of how to deal with the future possibility of it not being understood and honestly, if that happens i don't know what to do. How do people deal with this stuff? Because avoiding it is helping but at the same time i know for most of my life i don't have the resources and education to live completely away from them.
I want to completely get away from this in other ways i'm going in and out of stages of denial...but i can't deny it all the same. It exists. If i could wait it out and it all stop would be helpful, however once i move i'm still near them
i just am envisioning never having space along with everything else. Iv'e taken time to myself done a couple things
but issues are always back in some forum or another, just waiting for me to return. I actually have moments where i'm sitting down in my room and thinking what is a accepting family like?
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Denise

I'm not sure if this is an option for you, but can you ask your parents (or at least one) to go to counseling?  If you have seen a therapist who knows the situation, that might help.  They are probably scared for you.  They don't understand it.  A therapist may be able to help bring them around.

As long as they are not hostile or totally 100% against it, it might help.  I don't know the price on a happy family, but my guess is a few hours of counseling is a good investment.
1st Person out: 16-Oct-2015
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A haiku in honor of my grandmother who loved them.
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Living Life to the Fullest
I am just Denise
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Midnightstar

Quote from: pj on May 16, 2016, 11:01:44 PM
I'm not sure if this is an option for you, but can you ask your parents (or at least one) to go to counseling?  If you have seen a therapist who knows the situation, that might help.  They are probably scared for you.  They don't understand it.  A therapist may be able to help bring them around.

As long as they are not hostile or totally 100% against it, it might help.  I don't know the price on a happy family, but my guess is a few hours of counseling is a good investment.

I have my mother refuses to go but i'm probably going to ask them again eventually.
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CosmicJoke

Well I would definitely say that you have to be very strong in who you are. I think that that is very important. You need to know yourself and know enough that whatever they say or do is going to have no bearing on you or your goal to transition.
I definitely feel that being firm and being committed will take you far. It is important to realize that your family is just that, your family; flawed as they may be.
Though, sometimes some people don't change. In those cases I think it is important to know when hold and when to fold. You may need to leave your family behind or cut off contact, but I only suggest doing that if you absolutely have to.
In the long run, you are doing this to be a happier person, so I feel like if you can fill your own cup and meet your own emotional needs, you will attract others into your life who will do the same.
In my case, I have quit expecting my family to meet those needs and I meet those needs for myself. I don't expect any outside person to do this for me as they really cannot.
There is alot of contradiction in it all, but essentially it all starts with you.
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Midnightstar

Quote from: CosmicJoke on May 17, 2016, 09:18:58 PM
Well I would definitely say that you have to be very strong in who you are. I think that that is very important. You need to know yourself and know enough that whatever they say or do is going to have no bearing on you or your goal to transition.
I definitely feel that being firm and being committed will take you far. It is important to realize that your family is just that, your family; flawed as they may be.
Though, sometimes some people don't change. In those cases I think it is important to know when hold and when to fold. You may need to leave your family behind or cut off contact, but I only suggest doing that if you absolutely have to.
In the long run, you are doing this to be a happier person, so I feel like if you can fill your own cup and meet your own emotional needs, you will attract others into your life who will do the same.
In my case, I have quit expecting my family to meet those needs and I meet those needs for myself. I don't expect any outside person to do this for me as they really cannot.
There is alot of contradiction in it all, but essentially it all starts with you.

I'm planning on completely cutting contact if it doesn't change after being in my apartment for a certain amount of time. But i'm not going to be there for a couple more mouths and it sucks. I'm over it but at the same time i do feel upset and i didn't really expect that due to the damage they've already created in my life. 

And yea, i hope i can attract better people in my life soon heck one thing i would love is to in person meet another transgender person like me and talk just to talk. :)
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jessilynn

Give them like hardcore research on Gender Dysphoria that can explain WHY you are doing it. Look for articles that are more objective than subjective (fact rather than personal feeling- because we'll get to the subjective (personal) in a moment). And there are many different resources that you can use. Talk to your gender therapist/ psychotherapist because they can be a GREAT place of information for you. They can appoint you to local resources to find information to give to them; pamphlets, reading material studies, and overall general information on both Gender Dysphoria and Transgender/ Transition.

Now for the subjective part;

I had to deal with this from my dad, he was a real a$$butt about the whole thing (yes that was a Supernatural ref). But you CANT expect them to come around over night. It takes time to process and digest. And you might have to answer some really awkward questions, then again you might not.

SO! without further ado the subjective/ personal feeling part; What I did is sat down and thought "Why am I transitioning, what do I personally feel? How do I explain this all to someone who cannot and will not understand?" (trust me it's easier than it sounds).

Then I outlined all things that came to my mind, I just wrote everything down. A few basics for me were "Feeling uncomfortable in my own body, felt awkward looking in the mirror, couldnt face myself in day to day life." And a whole bunch of other DEEP rooted, and deep meainingful things.

Then I sat down put them in a flowing order, and wrote an essay to read to them that explains EXACTLY what was going on, what I felt, WHY I felt that way.

It wont be easy, because you do need to look into yourself here. You need to first understand yourself before THEY can understand you. And trust me this can be VERY therapeutic :)


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