Rant
In the first days of fall, I still wonder
about my status as TS or TV.
I'm
undecided. Every time I consider transition
seriously, it has this unreal
dream-like quality. I speak to other
people who are or have transitioned,
and I know that it happens, but I don't
know if I can internalize that
feeling. Too unreal. Could I accept
life without my wife? I think I could.
Could I accept my change in society,
taking on the role and limitations of
living as a female (and yes, there
are limitations placed upon you just by
virtue of gender. If you don't think
there are, you're fooling yourself)? I
again believe so. I have no aspirations
of corporate climbing. I don't live
for the material. I wish no position
of great status.
Fear keeps me from moving ahead. And
uncertainty. I was on the TG chat
room
last night, and put to task by the
room's founder to answer for certain
whether or not I was dedicated to being
a TS in the next 24 hours. I was
pissed! She then began saying I wasn't
TS, I wasn't committed to the change.
Basically I felt I was being accused
of being a poser. Does she think I'm
dredging up all this crap to make my
life more interesting? The anger I felt
was in part from the knowledge that
she may be right. I don't know for
certain that I AM TS.
That uncertainty is painful, and instead of trying to
help me, I felt she was attacking me.
It hurt. I don't know if I wish to
return any time soon. I really am glad
she is happy with her decision, but I
wonder if now, having looked back on
her struggle to MAKE that decision, has
she forgotten the difficulty of finally
committing to the change? Doesn't
she remember the pain of giving up
her life? I feel like isolating myself,
burying the urges, and letting my life
continue at status quo. Not think,
not analyze, just be, no growth, just
existence. Better than going
insane...I think.
I dreamed about war in harshly broken
lands last night, and how I was
stumbling from one near-death experience
to another. I never took serious
injury, but was constantly in danger
of extermination. Death, avalanches,
explosions, and some moments of utter
silence, where the waters gathered in
the craters and fissures would cease
to ripple. Smoke and fog, haze and an
overcast gray sky. Anyone care to offer
some insight on this?
I'm afraid that my problems will destroy
my marriage and then I'll determine
that I am in fact NOT TS.
Everything will have been lost for nothing.
I used to think some people would love me unconditionally. I was wrong. I used to think one book held the answers to all the problems in life. Again, I was being a bit naive. I guess it really doesn't MATTER what I believe. life will continue on with very little heed to my beliefs. People will do what they believe, and matter will follow the laws that govern it. Do we even HAVE free will really?
I spent several days looking at the 'other' me, examining THAT life. Sometimes it's not bad. It's very comfortable in ways. Very average. I wonder if I'm shunning it because I believe I MUST be different, or if I AM different, and I'm fooling myself with my 'normal' existance. It's a hell of a head-game, let me tell you!
I spoke to both my brothers now, about the transition. No, I'm still not clear that I will, but every morning I get up, and it jumps back into the front of my mind. Neither of them think I'm thinking straight. I don't think I'd understand if one of my friends or family told me the same thing, and I hadn't experienced it. I understand their position. Why can't they understand mine?
I also realized that the sharp stabbing pains from this transition aren't simply going to be over when I make my decision. I'll find people all my life with the same thinking. No matter how passable I am, I may still feel like an imposter. Now though, instead of being a fake in a bunch of guys, I'll be a fake in a bunch of ladies. If I could only say for certain that the transition would make me happy, then it would be easier.
It's just pain on top of pain. Well, at least I realized I'm not trying to be 'Lynn' as an escape mechanism. If it were that, I'd abandon it for failing at it's job of making my life more pleasant. It's not pleasant right now. I have no desire to dress any particular way, other than to stay warm. It's about ...what? How others perceive me? How I see myself? Is it about freedom of expression? It may be. I don't think I'm doing this for the reaction I'd get from others. Those are almost universally negative. It must then be something I want of myself. How I wish to see myself.
Still, it all sounds good in theory, but none of it rings true. Nothing. No answers. Stumble around in the dark some more dear! You'll get there eventually! (snicker)
Oh, yeah, read Time magazine, October 11, 1999 issue page 76. It's relevant. More TS stuff.
Hmmm. Out of things to say...for now.
Oh, Ha! I lied. I ended going back out
to the TG chat room I visit again,
and patched things up (I hope) with the room founder. I think we were both
just having a bad night. One can always hope (seems to be a recurring theme
huh?)
Well, my wife and I were scheduled to go see the John Popper band this eveing down town. John Popper is the lead singer for Blues Traveler. Well, the show was cancelled (postponed actually). Regardless, it was a great dissappointment.
Well, here I sit, as always, watching my life slip away. I went to work this morning, was there about an hour, threw up, and came home. I don't know if my illness is from some bug, or from stress. I don't know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but I frequently feel that I'm about to find out. I can't stop thinking about my future, and almost all that thinking involves SRS. I also can't muster the courage to begin. My relationship with my wife is on a day-to-day basis. I love her, but sometimes I think it would ultimately be better for both of us if I just ended this. I'm stuck.
I've been thinking about what my brothers said. They both seem to think that my gender thing is related to childhood trauma or something. I think about my childhood some times, and I feel this pain, this regret, but I don't live it out every day. I don't dwell on it. The problem that eats at me is PERSISTANT. It wakes up with me and follows me every moment of my life. It's this double sided problem of 1) wanting and not being able to express myself in whatever feminine manner I wish and 2) feeling ashamed of wanting these things at all. I punish myself both for not being brave enough to be who I am, and also for not meeting with society's expectations. Sick, huh?
Well, I'm done for the evening. G'Night.
17-OCT-99
Okay, it pretty much boils down to
these two conflicting problems when the fear is removed. I may never be
happy with myself without transition, but I have found one truly good thing
in life, my spouse. Can I accept my role as it is and be happy? I really
thought my love for my wife would be enough to override my need to be female.
I was wrong. Can I find an outlet for the feminine expression that allows
me to stay in my 'normal' life? I don't know the answer to that, but somehow,
I doubt it.
I went to a party last night, a costume party at the house of one of my wife's co-worker/friend. There were two young (early twenties) girls there talking about this transsexual that came into their store (they were cashiers at Walmart) in a skirt, and bought a bunch of stuff (make-up, home electrolysis kit, women's clothing, etc.) and they were discussing what a weirdo that person was. My heart went out to that weirdo. She was brave, and I can only salute her courage. I wonder what they would have said if I'd pressed them on the matter?
Does anyone stop to consider how strong the desire must be to risk public ridicule daily? To risk loss of family, friends, job, ...everything? There are several things said to be the highest stress events in life. This mess draws most of those together (moving, changing job, divorce, loss of people close to you) and ADDS several other things not normally listed (sexual identity, changing role in society, risk of physical assault).
For those interested, this link on Gender Dysphoria is very good. the first two essays discribe the condition very well. I must admit that I haven't read the entire site, but I am working on it as time allows. If for some reason, the link doesn't work, here's the URL: http://www.avitale.com/
I have a choice. I wake up with it on my mind every morning, and go to sleep with it every night. Do I start the change? Do I remain where I am?
Sometimes I dream that the change would bring me inner peace, and from there, I could rebuild my life in whatever manner I saw fit. Most of the time, very few things seem beyond my grasp. Happiness, strangely enough, has thus far eluded me.
I'd like to thank again, all my friends who put up with my dark and somber moods, my crankiness, my fits of depression, etc.. Please try to understand I'm just fighting through something tough. I'm looking at my life being shredded, and that's frightening. That puts me right where no-one likes to be, right in the middle of the unknown. 'There be Dragons' was never more true.
Well, I woke up late this morning after getting home very late last night from the party, and haven't yet had breakfast. So, I'm off to find something to eat. I'll write more later.
Well, here's a sad bit of truth for you all. I've come to a point of understanding. You know, some times truths are small, and seem obvious. This one was not obvious to ME, even though it may have been to you, the reader. This is my discovered truth: I will not find the answer to my question on the web. I will not find the answer to my question in the office of any healthcare professional. I will not find the answer to my persuit on the lips of any living person. Noone can answer this question for me...except me.
What does this MEAN to me? It means, I have to take full responsibility for whatever the outcome of this is. It means that I am not a victim of some inexcapable fate. I am responsible for it, and the decision is mine alone. It means that no matter what others before me have done, my path is unique, and I cannot follow the coarse of any other person, no matter how similar theirs has been. I am the only person who will ever really know how much this need drives me. I am the only person qualified to say whether the drive is enough to justify the change. I am the only one who has a chance of guaging whether or not I have the strength to take the punishment the change will bring. And, most importantly, I am the only person who should have any say as to whether the change should happen. As much as it may affect others, it primarily affects me. This is my life. These are my decisions.
Well, wasn't THAT a pretty speach? (smile)
Yesterday I had BOTH a therapy session, AND an electrolysis session. It made for a long day. I discussed several things with my therapist yesterday, one was what I wrote in the previous post. My decision. Whatever I choose, I will need to live with the consequences. I also told Helen (my therapist) I was tired, mentally fatigued, and that sometimes I wish she could just give me the answer. I told her that I hold up everything else I stand to loose against this Gender issue, and they all fall away. Even lumped together, all these things do not match the strength of conviction of my knowing I should change.
One thing does stop me. Still. Six years ago I met this woman that was great. Fun, up-beat, energetic, down-to-earth, and strong emotionally. She was ... everything I could have hoped for in a spouse. We make a good couple, and I love her so deeply it hurts. She has even had the strength to stay with me knowing all that's going through my head right now. How could I turn my back on that? How could I throw that away? How could I ever hope to find something so perfect again?
She's sitting behind me now, at her desk, paying the bills and keeping the household running, while I waste my hours here at my keyboard lamenting my existance. Sometimes I want to just shove all this mental shit back into the box I let it out of, and turn back to my ordinary existance, throw out the gender shit and live as the husband she deserves.
I wonder if I am only holding onto her from fear of being alone. It's hard facing the idea of losing the person that is my shoulder to cry on, when I know I'll need that the most.
And, DAMMIT! I feel so self centered
even considering leaving her, breaking up all her dreams. Damn!
25-OCT-99
Went to the St.
Louis Gender Foundation halloween costume party this weekend, with
Aoi. It was pretty fun. I spent a ton of time and about $100 in supplies
on my costume (look under the 'pics' link in the table of contents for
pictures). I won for best costume. When I was walking down the center of
the room with about a dozen cameras pointed at me, flashing away, I didn't
feel grotesque. I didn't feel like a freak. I felt good. I felt like people
were looking at me, not for being deformed, or ugly, but because I was
beautiful. I was, even as a demon, more beautiful than I feel normally.
Sad, huh?
Aoi again seemed uncomfortable and reserved until late in the meeting, then after one point she loosened up, and was fine afterward.
26-Oct-99
I feel like shit. I feel like a miserable
failure. I want to die, but I'm just uncertain enough to worry that there
may be an afterlife, and I would damn myself eternally for ending my misery.
I'm a total fucking mind-job right now. I crashed into a wall of depression
this afternoon. I asked for the afternoon off, and instead was told I had
a major meeting with our customer to discuss system requirements. This
is the same guy who consistantly gives different requirements, killing
our deadlines and causing us tons of rework. I hate the project I'm on
at work. I come home and my wife is pissed at me for my introspective gender
bullshit. She hates that I don't spend 'quality time' with her and my stepson.
Does she want me to ACT happy?
I was spit on today (unintentionally) and managed to stain both my pants and shirt.
I hate my entire existance. I walked to the drug store to pick up a refill on a perscription, and imagined on the way many gruesome ways of dying.
Man, something's got to change. I wish I knew for certain that this gender crap was what's causing all my pain. I'd jump at the change right now. I've had enough bullshit! I'm so tired of being constantly unhappy, depressed, angry.
I hope that tomorrow finds me in better spirits, but somehow, I doubt it will.
27-Oct-99
Well, wasn't that last post cheerie.
I've given up trying to determine why my moods swing so wildly. I'm feeling
okay today. I think I'm going to change, then the next day, I'm filled
again with horrible doubt. So I wait for all this shit to clear in my head,
and I continue to pretend to be in a normal existance. And I think horrible
thoughts of what it will be like if I transition. And I think horrible
thoughts of what my life will be like if I don't. I dream, and I wait.
I wait for the truth to reveal itself. What a pain.
Every morning I look in the mirror and try to see Lynn. Sometimes she's there, just below the surface, waiting to come out. Sometimes I only see her in my eyes. I think this phenominon is one of the things that makes me think I should change.
My therapist explained that my fem side may be strong now because I push back so hard against it usually. I feel like Lynn is given the slightest time and she clings on it like a drowning woman, desparate for existance. She may be strong enough to make it all the way into reality. The male me doesn't much feel like fighting anymore.
Some day I just hope I'm happy.
If I say I'm a programmer, does that definition keep me from being an artist? If I say I'm a musician, does that mean I can't paint? Does seeking to define myself create artificial boundaries? Does it make me think there are things I can and can't do, or things I should and shouldn't do?
Who am I? Does the definition matter? I am. That matters. That I am allowed to be all that I can, and that I do not hold back others, that's really ALL that matters.
Here's a truth of life: The world does not stop for you when you have problems.
Damn, I tell ya! This is philosophy at it's finest! (smile)
I am completely fed up with gender identity disorder. It does not allow me one day of rest. I opened the box, now everything in it has come out. I can't put it back in. It seeks resolution. I read a good site today. It detailed many points that I myself have already mentioned here, and stressed concepts that I'm sure I should revisit before beginning hormones. The page was entitled the Treatment of Gender Identity Issues.
Especially it stressed treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and/or clinical depression, and internalized rigid gender stereotypes before proceeding with transition. Both important things to consider. I've wondered if I'm just going to be depressed all the time, or if the gender conflict causes the depression. The page mentioned SSRI's as part of the biochemical treatment, and therapy. It also stressed that some healthcare professionals pushed people into the SRS industry for profit. I know my therapist has seen several other patients with gender identity disorder and has had them decide against SRS after therapy. She seems very conscientious about this. That's good.
One of the things that's bothered me throughout the reading I've done is there's no ridding myself of this. It's part of my life forever. I am not today finding any comfort in that. And although many days I'm okay with it, there are still many days when the old voice recurs and tells me what a freak I am.
One of my disagreements with the statements on that page was this: they stated 'purging' was due to the times when TG's brain chemistry finally came back into balance. They would no longer feel female, and would purge. That's never been my case. My desires persist constantly. If I give in to them I would feel bad, and finally feel SO bad, that I'd make new redoubled effort to quit, sometimes that effort would include a purge, but the urges NEVER went away. On the other side of that, if I managed to contain the urges, this sort of mental pressure would build, along with stress, and agitation, until I'd be almost literally forced to return to dressing.
I believe the source of my depression has been that struggle. Fighting to master the balance between what I felt was socially acceptable behavior and what my femme self needed.
I know there's some truth to the fact that I project my positive qualities into my femme self, and project my negative qualities into my masculine self, and that I've created a division in myself by doing this. I'll need to work through this issue before continuing any thoughts of gender reasignment.
The Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) doesn't seem to fit with me though. And, SSRI's are supposed to cut the effect of OCDs, which hasn't happened with me. What HAS happened, is I've felt less pressure from social sources, and been able to explore my femme aspects more. I've actually felt MORE desire since starting the Paxil. Anyway, it's late...g'night!
29-OCT-99
Wow. read 'Smashing
Gender Differences'. I thought (mistakenly) that we as a culture had
made some steps toward understanding.
31-Oct-99
I guess this is my last entry for October.
Feel like I oughta make it good. Currently, I'm trying to figure out what's
up with two 'girls' I chat with. Each is telling me a different story.
about something. Even in a small comunity of people desparate to hide their
differences, we sometimes open our armor, hoping against hope for the warmth
of another human, and sometimes, we pay the price for that.
I'm STILL, after four months of heavy correspondance, without another person to really relate to. There is one TS in the Gender Foundation who seems sane and comfortable in transition. Who else do I have? Aoi is nice, but young and terribly in need of something I can't BE for her.
I am faced with this hard fact: Every moment of my life, I can only depend on one person being there, me. All other people are prone to conditional love, death, divorce, relocation, estrangement, falling-outs, you name it. But then, putting all my energy into myself leaves me hollow and empty. So I expend hope and love, in hopes of it coming back. I am, right now, feeling like a very miserable wretch.
Theres this hard fact also: All my expendature of love and hope drains away, because I can't accept any returned love from others. I deny myself love, feeling it must be false. I hate myself too much to allow others to love me. I deny myself what I'm craving most. Sick huh?
I have everything I should reasonably want. From my origins, I should be proud having gotten this far. I should applaud my courage, I should smile upon my works. But instead, I hate myself. I don't wish to rock the boat, stand out in a croud, be in the limelight.
I was briefly feeling okay about my gender status today. I felt that I'd successfully merged the two halves this weekend with some success. Then, the slightest ripple, and the boat capsizes. Shit!
I've been inventorying my personality traits, trying to place them on a gender spectrum. Trying to determine my 'color' on that spectrum.