Hi everyone, it's a pleasure to be here - I have been lurking for months, and am so grateful to have found a wellspring of insight.
I'm 32, AFAB. About six months ago, a culmination of everything I experienced and accomplished in life threw me over an unexpected tipping point and I realized I was non-binary (and have been, my whole life, but lacked the concepts to express/engage this part of myself). The whole experience has been complex, layered, and intellectually thorny in places, and I need a safe space to work it all out.
The most challenging, difficult, and painful part of it all is that I have absolutely no one to connect with in real life about my experiences.
When I broke the news to my partner, he was superficially accepting. He said it's cool, whatever makes me happy. That's his stance, and I don't think he's comfortable discussing it any further than that. I also don't think he knows how to approach me about it. I don't know if he has realized the depth of this huge part of me that I need him to recognize. It's not simply, "Ok. Cool." There's more to it than that. He's also in the final few rigorous months of finishing an insanely difficult degree, so I don't want to badger him. We agreed to take stock of everything and reconnect as soon as school is out of the way.
My best childhood friend, who is gay, lives six hours away from me. He's the only person I can talk to who comes closest to understanding. We had drifted apart when he went through his coming out phase in early college years, and I wasn't really there for him in that part of his life. It's not like we had bad blood (I was one of the first people he came out to in high school) for any reason. But I feel selfish, firstly, having any one person be an emotional crutch for me. I feel selfish, secondly, asking him to be here for me in a way now that I wasn't there for him (and I have expressed this to him, he is kind about it). Finally, I also feel annoying, because he went through the whole self-discovery thing over a decade ago, and this is all new to me now. I am late to the party. I don't want to tax him or disrupt an equal give and take of friendship, if that makes any sense.
I told my other best friend, who I have known since I was four, and it made her uncomfortable. She insisted that I'm just a girl who is smart. It made her uncomfortable about her own decision to be childfree (we are both childfree). No bad blood, either. But it's challenging to explain the concept of non-binary to someone who never questioned the binary. I also wonder how much resonated and frightened her. She's also finishing school, and we don't see each other often.
So, I'm feeling pretty alone. I also feel like an integral part of me is effectively invisible, if some of the people closest to me can't/don't know how to take it seriously, or simply haven't been raised in an environment to understand (hey, I wasn't!).
I discovered a trans meetup maybe 15 minutes from where I live (the only meetup that wouldn't be more than an hour away from me, in an urban setting I wouldn't feel safe visiting alone). But it's at a bar. I hate bars. I never went to bars. I don't know how to meet people at bars. I'm super introverted. I don't know what I would do, besides stick a sign on my back that says "shy non-binary needs friends," and would probably start crying if someone did talk to me in person, because it's such a deathly personal subject.
From a young age, I have been unconsciously skilled at exploring the "other" parts of me through art. I have always played androgynous avatars in videogames, I have huge stacks of books and love to write. Intellectually, I keep myself busy. I've been writing a lot lately, and have connected with some other brilliant LGBT minds that way. So this is a healthy hobby for me.
Looking for a therapist is out of the question until I can get health insurance (through my partner, would still be months). I recognize this may be a helpful thing to do.
I will stop here for now. I have lots of questions for everyone, so you will see a lot of me.
Thanks to everyone for listening, and for sharing.
