Quote from: Nancys Girl on August 28, 2017, 12:43:09 PMa much hidden part of me kept saying "you'd love it", but the part I was used to listening to answered "are you bats?" Then there was a show on television (was it Donohue?) in which a makeover artist pulled men from the audience, worked her magic, and the results were amazing. That "you'd love it part" said her name again, this time a little louder. Finally, in my mid-fifties and in the middle of a horrible marriage, "you'd love it" won her first real victory and I started dressing.
I looooove this. I can totally relate to this dual voice in my head, and in fact I've recently started writing about it. (link to my deviantart in my profile if you want to see it) The way I've come to realize things lately is there is that voice in everyone's head that helps you discern right from wrong, reason from illogical or whatever. Some people refer to it as their conscience. Some just a voice. For me, it was the voice of reason... and my friend. In many times of my life, he was my ONLY friend. He was the one that told me, 'Hun, you gotta stand up for yourself. You might have grown up in foster care. You might have brown skin. You might have a different faith than those around you. You wear different clothes than those around you. You're a gamer and a book lover and a writer. You have a strong personality. But all those things make you you. And you are beautiful.'
He also challenged my views on gender and gender roles. It was him that always made me believe that EVERYONE deserves the same rights. The one that gave me the strength to say when I went through my phase of wanting to be a US Senator when I grow up, that I will champion for the LGBT community's rights. When I posed that to my mother, she nearly through a temper tantrum. She claimed that it was against my religion to allow everyone to have the same rights. Would I actually say that two men have the same right to marry as a man and a woman? Or two women?
It was that voice in my head, who said, 'YES!' Now while I wish churches WOULD marry same sex/gender couples, but I respect that most religions view this as a sin, and recognize that church and state are separate... (HA! Wish Utah would realize that... sorry, I'm very cynical about the state I live in) so I also champion for keeping Church and State separate. But I'm glad that it is now legal in our country for same sex couples to marry.
That voice however has also been one I battled for years. I'd look at a girl and be attracted to her, then immediately say, 'No. I can't. I'm a girl. I have to be straight.' He challenged me into thinking, 'Who says? Church? Mom? Dad? Society? Screw them. You can't help what you feel.' When I put on an outfit that made me feel distinctly masculine, and apparently look masculine (there's a specific story I'm thinking of with this, I'll tell it another time), I bawled. He asked me why I was crying, and I said, 'Because I'm a man. I can't be! I have to be a girl.' He challenged me, 'Why can't you be the man you are? Who says you have to be female?'
When it came to gender roles/ gender identity/ gender expression... for twenty plus years, these two parts of me fought, the male part just wanting to be seen and heard. And in a lot of ways, he did come out, but most of the time, it was like I was keeping the gun, just wanting to kill that male self, hoping it would set me free. But what I'm realizing is that calling myself female is his prison cell. My self-deprecation is the gun, and he's just trying to wait until his sentence is up, and can be free, from being unjustly locked up.
I've realized, the only way to set myself free is to open up the prison door and let him out, and throw away the gun. Because... He is me. Destroying him, is to destroy me. Everything that I am, comes from him. Without him, what am I but an empty prison cell?
Quote from: MaxForever on August 28, 2017, 07:46:44 AM
It was worth it for you to type all that out just so you know it helped me a LOT.
I also played with barbies mainly because I didn't have a a lot of friends and they were my friends (Sad right)
I had been bullied most of my life and my father was mentally abusive and that might have held back any real
thoughts about this. I always hated dresses since I was little. (even the skirts in highschool uniforms I didn't like wearing them). I cosplay and when I am male characters I feel more comfortable than in a dress as a princess character. I started liking girls in highschool but didn't tell anyone for fear of judgement. (I went to a catholic school too). Some days I didn't want to go to school and cried to stay home. In the past some cosplays I have done people always asked online "Is that a dude as Sailor Moon?" And it offended me because I was a GIRL but now I am like maybe they were onto something even though to a girl that makes you feel unattractive. I always acted as a girl too because I knew that is what I was supposed to be. Now discovering this I know I can be anyone I want. (PS not that it is offensive to be a girl but other girls will get that comment being hurtful when you were trying your hardest to look pretty and it didn't work out).
I am glad that what I wrote helps! And no, inanimate objects being your friends isn't sad. Its a method of survival when you have nothing else. When I look back on my life, there are so many things that no one should have to go through, and especially not alone. But I was. If I didn't talk to myself or my stuffed animals and dolls, if I didn't write, I would not have had the strength to carry on. I do not doubt that if I didn't have those outlets, I would have taking all that self-deprecation, and made it more physical. I do not doubt that I wouldn't be here if I didn't have those coping methods/friends. So NEVER say your only friends being dolls, concepts, stuffed animals, talents, or whatever, is sad. They helped you move forward. They were your survival.
Its my hope that soon, your self-deprecation comes to a complete halt and turns around and becomes self-love. It won't be easy, and it won't be immediate. It takes work, but you're coming to the realization that many of us have that your only way of surviving is to accept yourself.
