When I came out this summer, I ripped the closet door off its hinges and tossed it on the rubbish heap. Still, I sometimes cower in there, among the musty overcoats, sticky galoshes, and forgotten hockey sticks.

It's kind of hard not to when I can't pass, can't move forward, can't face my issues fast enough, need to take time to decide what to do. I've struggled to stop focusing on my "destination" and focus on the journey, but I hate process. I want results. Now.

I feel stuck. Today I'm desperately looking around for a better closet to hide in, something that can't be destroyed. Ever. But I fear that there is no going back. My former refuge was my final refuge. And now it's gone.

I am so tired, and the day has just begun.

i know just how you feel and i'm having a bad day today too.

Lets go act like a bunch of girls and cower and be wusses together 

-joins the pity party-

I quite relate to your post. Not sure what to say.

Quote from: Arch on August 23, 2008, 02:17:40 PM
I've struggled to stop focusing on my "destination" and focus on the journey, but I hate process. I want results. Now.

That's my entire life summed up in those brief sentences.

boy, dont we all sound like a right bunch of losers! 

It's depressing the hell out of me, i think we all need to party and cheer ourselves up!

Kay. Happy thoughts. Hummmm. If I leave my new jacket unzipper, it's sewn in such a way [didn't notice this upon purchase] that it totally makes my chest look flat somehow, just the way the fabric hangs, even without a binder.

But hell I really want a binder.

I definitely destroyed my closet as well. If I'd thought more about it, I probably wouldn't have come out to my mother when I did. But that was about three years ago, and things are looking up so much lately that I don't even remember what that impatience and exasperation feels like. But I've certainly felt it. Ummm...party at my place? Hah..

I kicked my way out, threw a Molitive cocktail in into that bitch, and watched the whole house burn down. Now i gotta find a new place to live because there IS no closet

It gets easier the more steps you take toward the end.  I felt the same way at first.  Hating  the in-between, hating not passing, etc.

When I started T, I got really calm and focused.  I can't explain it.  As the process starts, each new step becomes much easier, and has an even more calming effect.  I'm so zen now, it's unbelievable. 

We have this new obnoxious woman at work who came out as a lesbian the first night she worked with me, and I could tell she was trying to figure me out.  I pretty much ignored her but she was asking me (and everyone else) very (too!) personal questions.  Last night she was worse, and if she keeps it up she could get called out for sexual harrassment.  Not just of me, but the other straight men and woman I work with on my shift.  There is one gay guy also.

So she came straight out last night and asked if I were gay, and I said no.  And she said she was sure I was.  Then it came out she'd been asking all sorts of other coworkers on other shifts if I were gay. So I just came out with, well, I may look like a dyke, but I'm not.  Which made the gay guy  just roll on the floor, he couldn't believe I said that and said as much.  So I just said, well, I know you're thinking it!  LOL

Anyway, a few  months ago being thought of as a dyke would have pissed me off or crushed me;  now it's just a part of the journey where I don't pass yet, but at least I'm looking more androgynous/butch/male than female.  A step in the right direction.

Hang in there.  It will get easier.  I was very impatient to pass right away, but that doesn't happen for most guys.

Jay

I guess I haven't done much more than state what a lot of guys are thinking. I just need to stop time for a little while so that I can take a break. Seems like every minute of every day now, it's trans this and gay that and what am I gonna do, blah blah blah. The constant chatter in my head refuses to be silenced. The constant tension in my body refuses to be quelled.

"With my freeze ray I will stop--
The world."

Er, no, I won't. Haven't got one.

Shortly after I wrote my post, my partner came up to me and said, "So, we're going out to lunch today, right?" Well, that's our Saturday ritual. I said, "Oh. No, no, I don't want to..." He said okay, and I sat there alone for a couple of minutes.

I didn't want to disappoint him, so I changed my mind. I'm glad I did. We talked a bit over lunch, and I started to feel better. Then he was driving us home and I said, "God, I don't want to go home." So he kept going, and we just went for an hour-long drive. It was, well, nice. Impromptu, freeing, marginally cathartic. I had the opportunity to gaze out the window at the geography. I love Southern California.

Okay, I don't have a ten-ton weight hanging over me anymore...a couple of tons have gone off to plague someone else.

Happy thoughts. Hmm. I"m glad that I never had to cope with coming out to parents. I'm glad that my partner hasn't deserted me for a real girl or deserted me, period. I'm glad that you guys are here. And now I'm thinking that it might help me if I wrote up a list of things that I'm doing and thinking and feeling that are good. And things that are maybe even better than they were before. It won't lift all of the gloom, but it should help. Right now that limbo feeling tends to crowd out everything else. It can't be good for me to dwell on it so obsessively.

Jay, I'll keep in mind what you said. Every step makes it easier. Perhaps I should granularize--redefine my perceived steps so that they are smaller. Don't know if it will help. I've still got that Alice feeling that I'm falling down the rabbit hole--such an apt metaphor for how I feel--but guys like you remind me that sometime I will hit the ground (softly, I hope) and find a whole new world to explore. Maybe transition will be like Wonderland and life after transition will be like coming back to the real world with a whole new perspective.

Or is that just plain sappy?

Quote from: sneakersjay on August 23, 2008, 03:41:14 PM
It gets easier the more steps you take toward the end.  I felt the same way at first.  Hating  the in-between, hating not passing, etc.

When I started T, I got really calm and focused.  I can't explain it.  As the process starts, each new step becomes much easier, and has an even more calming effect.  I'm so zen now, it's unbelievable. 

We have this new obnoxious woman at work who came out as a lesbian the first night she worked with me, and I could tell she was trying to figure me out.  I pretty much ignored her but she was asking me (and everyone else) very (too!) personal questions.  Last night she was worse, and if she keeps it up she could get called out for sexual harrassment.  Not just of me, but the other straight men and woman I work with on my shift.  There is one gay guy also.

So she came straight out last night and asked if I were gay, and I said no.  And she said she was sure I was.  Then it came out she'd been asking all sorts of other coworkers on other shifts if I were gay. So I just came out with, well, I may look like a dyke, but I'm not.  Which made the gay guy  just roll on the floor, he couldn't believe I said that and said as much.  So I just said, well, I know you're thinking it!  LOL

Anyway, a few  months ago being thought of as a dyke would have pissed me off or crushed me;  now it's just a part of the journey where I don't pass yet, but at least I'm looking more androgynous/butch/male than female.  A step in the right direction.

Hang in there.  It will get easier.  I was very impatient to pass right away, but that doesn't happen for most guys.

Jay

Hahaha she's definitely going to get turned in for sexual harassment. At first, this story was so enjoyable I forgot why you were posting it but thanks for the support Jay And if I may be so bold as to say I'd like to know if she DOES get turned in haha. It's only a matter of time.

Quote from: Arch on August 23, 2008, 06:12:37 PM
I guess I haven't done much more than state what a lot of guys are thinking. I just need to stop time for a little while so that I can take a break. Seems like every minute of every day now, it's trans this and gay that and what am I gonna do, blah blah blah. The constant chatter in my head refuses to be silenced. The constant tension in my body refuses to be quelled.

"With my freeze ray I will stop--
The world."

Er, no, I won't. Haven't got one.

Shortly after I wrote my post, my partner came up to me and said, "So, we're going out to lunch today, right?" Well, that's our Saturday ritual. I said, "Oh. No, no, I don't want to..." He said okay, and I sat there alone for a couple of minutes.

I didn't want to disappoint him, so I changed my mind. I'm glad I did. We talked a bit over lunch, and I started to feel better. Then he was driving us home and I said, "God, I don't want to go home." So he kept going, and we just went for an hour-long drive. It was, well, nice. Impromptu, freeing, marginally cathartic. I had the opportunity to gaze out the window at the geography. I love Southern California.

Okay, I don't have a ten-ton weight hanging over me anymore...a couple of tons have gone off to plague someone else.

Happy thoughts. Hmm. I"m glad that I never had to cope with coming out to parents. I'm glad that my partner hasn't deserted me for a real girl or deserted me, period. I'm glad that you guys are here. And now I'm thinking that it might help me if I wrote up a list of things that I'm doing and thinking and feeling that are good. And things that are maybe even better than they were before. It won't lift all of the gloom, but it should help. Right now that limbo feeling tends to crowd out everything else. It can't be good for me to dwell on it so obsessively.

Jay, I'll keep in mind what you said. Every step makes it easier. Perhaps I should granularize--redefine my perceived steps so that they are smaller. Don't know if it will help. I've still got that Alice feeling that I'm falling down the rabbit hole--such an apt metaphor for how I feel--but guys like you remind me that sometime I will hit the ground (softly, I hope) and find a whole new world to explore. Maybe transition will be like Wonderland and life after transition will be like coming back to the real world with a whole new perspective.

Or is that just plain sappy?

First off, no it isn't sappy. And I want to thank you for creating this thread. I feel much the same way in a lot of the things you said. I definitely get very easily impatient. I told people that I was trying to take this new change in my life slow to see if it really is me, and more than anything I find it hard to keep that promise. A lot of the time I rush into things, get stung, then regret having ever done it and I don't want this to go the same way but my impatience is overwhelming all the time. Two months after knowing who I am I almost rushed into going 24/7 and 1) I don't even pass 2) that's not taking things slow, what if I'd come to regret it later? So no matter how impatient I am I'm trying to hold off.

But yes, I also agree that this is all I think about practically from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, EVERYDAY. And at this point, it's just depressing because it makes me think about all the things that are wrong with me right now. I mean being trans isn't what's wrong with me, but not being accepted and other things are what bugs me. I feel like I should go ahead and make that list too like you mentioned, of all the happy things in my life right now. But I've done that before when my problems were fewer in number and size and it didn't actually cheer me up. Who knows, maybe I'll do it anyway. 

That's where I am right now. I want progress, but I'm just not getting any. My fingers a crossed that I'll get good news on Monday.

Jay's right. Every step you take makes the journey easier. The worst time emotionally is the time between coming to the realization and being able to do something about it. It's hardest and seems longest. That's the time where you've just come to terms with it and you have to figure out how to tell the people close to you, and figure out your own way through transition. It's a rough time. There will be no rougher time for you during your transition, I promise.

Then one day, you'll wake up and realize you're just a guy. Just a regular guy a little different from all the other ones (who are all individuals too - cue Monty Python). My mother made a pronoun slip today in front of two friends I'm stealth with and my heart didn't even lurch. I realized that if they even noticed it (which they didn't seem to), they'd just think she's a batty old lady

Dennis

Quote from: Dennis on August 25, 2008, 12:22:34 AM
Jay's right. Every step you take makes the journey easier. The worst time emotionally is the time between coming to the realization and being able to do something about it. It's hardest and seems longest. That's the time where you've just come to terms with it and you have to figure out how to tell the people close to you, and figure out your own way through transition. It's a rough time. There will be no rougher time for you during your transition, I promise.

Then one day, you'll wake up and realize you're just a guy. Just a regular guy a little different from all the other ones (who are all individuals too - cue Monty Python). My mother made a pronoun slip today in front of two friends I'm stealth with and my heart didn't even lurch. I realized that if they even noticed it (which they didn't seem to), they'd just think she's a batty old lady

Dennis

This is so true, Dennis.  My transition felt like it took forever to start.  It took me a while to get to the point where I knew I needed testosterone, but the time between my first shot and now...  my god!  It's flown by so, so quickly.  I remember every time I got naked before showering I would find a new hair, see a new ridge of muscle definition..  At times I wished it would slow the hell down! 

So try and breathe, Arch, and know that before you know it you'll be wishing for a break!  Living in a constant state of change is even more stressful than waiting for change to come.

And that's where I am right now! It feels like it's taking forever, and worse, like it isn't going to happen!

I my life, nothing has ever worked out for me. I've always been single, I've always been small and weak, I've always been second-rate, I was never the best at anything. What makes me think I'm going to be good enough for this, too?

In my heart of hearts, I know I'm a guy. But I fear that the doctors won't believe me.