Don't feel bad. I grew up unloved, physically and psychologically abused. It may or may not have been due to gender. I told my parents I wanted to be a girl when I was seven years old. This was in 1970 when transitioning as a child was impossible, and transitioning as an adult was extremely difficult. After I was told I had to be a boy I always thought my parents pretty much forgot about that conversation, but -- no matter how hard I tried to be a boy, and then a man, I was always treated like I was something less than my younger brother and sister. There was never any praise from my parents -- more like a grudging attitude that I had narrowly escaped punishment by turning in an adequate performance -- no matter how well I did or how brilliantly I performed.
My brother, who was diagnosed in adulthood with schizoaffective disorder, was given free rein to be as abusive toward me as he wanted to be.
My father pretty much forced me to become a lawyer. It was as if he was out to completely destroy my own identity and substitute his own preferences into me about everything.
After law school and moving out of my parents house for the last time, I tried to put severe limits on my parents' relationship with me. I had no relationship with my brother. I learned the hard way that I had to limit things with my sister as well. Dad continued his campaign of psychological warfare through my whole life, until he suffered a stroke in 2009. Mom did too, until she went senile last year.
I came out to my sister when she was here on a family visit and got a very lukewarm reception. A year later, she had absolutely no interest in my transition even when I raised the subject after she asked how I was doing.
Bottom line is, my transition is for me, not for my family. I have given my family 50 years of my life, and I am keeping the rest for myself. I have lots and lots of friends, and I have in laws that love me. I have a wife who loves me. And I have close friends that we invite for holidays and events.
