So I had never seen the HBO film, "Normal."   I rented it from Netflix and decided it to watch it with my Mom last night.

  While I was watching it seemed like I was fine... but today wound up being a really bad day for me.

  The whole workplace thing brought back vivid memories of being bullied as a child. It's funny that the first thing I did to start my transition was pierce my ears. Unlike the movie, though, it was my wife that demanded that I take my earrings out. She had many of the same reactions at first... but ultimately abandoned me after a few years of emotional abuse.

  There's a scene when Roy/Ruth leaves her Father's birthday party after being ridiculed and goes to the barn; She puts a shotgun to her chin and is about to take her life. I've had a gun to my head 4 times in my life... every time I was alone. I didn't want attention, I just wanted to die. Watching that was hard for me because, for most of my adult life, I was frequently suicidal. Today I cried harder than I have in a long time... I had to leave work. Sometimes, the pain from the past comes flooding back... I know that I'll never have to be "him" again but those 35 years still hurt.
  I'm just venting, I guess.... I'm angry that my parents never paid enough attention to realize what trouble I was in. The first time I held a gun to my head was at 14. In 1983 I had never even heard the word, "Transsexual." I thought I was alone and such a bad, bad person for feeling the way I did. I wish I could go back and tell her... the girl that hid behind the mask... that it would be okay.

Such a bad day.....

 

I've had a lot of those days recently. I hadn't had the suicidal compulsion since last summer until Saturday. I tip-toed to the edge that day because of some thoughtless words said by my ex-wife. I don't think any of us are free of this until we are done transitioning. At least I really hope that it goes away.

I have seen 'Normal" before and I can so relate to the movie.  While I never did the gun thing, I did do drugs and slit my wrist once.

Normal is a good movie but realistically i thought the wife coming round and accepting her i thought was somewhat rare, in my experiance most partners leave. Also i have changed so much and to be honest i think that my wife leaving was a good thing as you need space to explore.

I too know the taste of gun oil. What kept me from pulling the trigger I will never truely know.
Maybe because I have known most of my life (since age 9) that there was a cure for this hell.
Maybe fear of death.
Maybe an angel kept me from doing it.
IDK

I saw the last half of Normal a few months back.
Definatly a triggering movie.
Luckily my spouse choose to stay like the wife in the movie.

I think Normal, Just Like a Woman, and Better Than Chocolate are the three movies everybody should see.

When you said that Normal triggered you, it made me think about the film triggering one to transition.  It was very influential for me, if not the actual thing that influenced me to pull the trigger and actually transition.  It made me conclude, "You know what?  My transition can't be any harder than this, and I could get through this."

I had three big problems with Normal, which is why I put Chocolate at the top of my list, as the best TS film.

The shotgun scene plays as the method by which the wife realizes the husband would rather be dead than live in the wrong gender, and accepts the transition.  I think this encourages people to use that method of persuasion.

Lange is waaaay too good for Wilkerson.  It becomes her movie about how a good woman loves her man no matter what, even if the matter-what is him not being a man anymore.

It would be a different movie if, instead of Wilkerson, that part was played by someone who could be either masculine or convincingly feminine, and Wilkerson can't pull off the latter.  He is the opposite of graceful.  It would have been a significantly different movie if the TS role was played by someone who could demonstrate how significantly different her life was as a woman.

There are alot of good things in the movie too, including the most thought-provoking line (I think) in our whole MtF can-of-worms.  It's Lange's line, "You're not a woman, only a man could be this selfish."  It's a devastating conundrum for anybody in a relationship before or during transition.  What right do I have to spend our mutual resources on something that makes you miserable?

I think the answer is: It's not selfish for me to take the only direction that gives US a chance to be happy.  I think that concept should have been thrown out there for the common person to think about too.

I rented Normal several years ago. It was very hard to watch because it bought up some of the same issues Jessica ...bullying and my parents not understanding. I too had a bad time after watching it.   I think for some of us there is a lot of pain buried and it brings some up in us because we identify with Ruth in the film.
Amelia