TransHaven
Community Conversations => Introductions => Topic started by: zirconia on May 02, 2020, 11:42:45 PM
-
My surgeries haven't been scheduled yet. However, they're not far distant either. I'll book them this year unless things go catastrophically wrong.
...and I've thought a lot about how I got where I am now.
I wrote the following one sleepless night... and never posted it. I feared I might have to defend my feelings. Here it may be safe to do so.
I did send it to two people whom I knew to be suffering. One told me it resonated. That made me glad. The other... did not.
I know we're all different, and our situations are different. And also our needs, desires and destinations. And as such I don't know whether you find this helpful. If not, be at peace. It is my story, and does not need to be yours.
Like just about everyone, I'd felt strange since my early childhood.
Wrong. I wasn't a boy. Or I was, but I shouldn't have been.
The physical reality was undeniable, though. And I couldn't see any way out.
Along the way some things happened that put my emotions in suspended animation. I lived... but wasn't alive. I'd lost all hope. I only existed because I knew I was still useful to others. What had made me me had been extinguished.
But what I thought had died—the core of my being—wasn't annihilated after all. Tiny roots spread out from the seed sleeping in the ashes of its funeral pyre. And fed on the incessant pain I still felt.
That pain guided me. Slowly. I only knew what I had to do. And did. One step at a time. Although as far as I knew it was useless.
I began to search for information. Information on anyone who had accomplished the impossible. And found many accounts of people who were transitioning. But... what I found didn't very much resemble what I needed. It only increased my anxiety and distress. Nothing seemed to fit.
Passing... yes. Not being seen as a man dressed as a woman was definitely important. It was essential. I'd seen the ex-football player in the movie The World According to Garp. That fate scared me. It seemed much worse to me than even being a man.
That said, being seen as a woman was not what I wanted.
Much talk also centered on how trying to pass was harmful. That one should be happy just expressing one's "inner woman." And that it was self-acceptance that was the key to happiness.
But... that wasn't what I needed either.
There was a lot of other discussion. Of politics. And makeup. And clothes. And identities. And expression. And affirmation. And validity...
I myself just wanted to be a girl. No... I needed to be a girl. Not act the part of a girl. Not dress up as a girl. And not be "accepted" as a girl.
Just be one. Nothing else.
And I could not see that ever happening.
Meanwhile my attempts to alleviate the pain continued to mold me. I hated my beard so it had to go. I'd always envied my sisters' long hair and grew mine. If I couldn't have their overall shape I could at least train to get my waist close to the same girth. Whatever brought at least some relief. Even though I was resigned to all of it only making me look, sound and seem ever more eccentric.
Because I was a man.
Had I known back then what some friends have recounted this past year it would have given me hope. And maybe helped free me earlier. Because it paradoxically turns out I was beginning to "pass." But no-one thought to tell me.
Like I've mentioned elsewhere, the turning point was when I was denied entry to the men's toilet. And shown to the women's side. Whose attendant then proceeded to look me over, and turned me back to the men's side. After which both attendants went on to glare at each other malevolently...
That was a shock. I couldn't believe what had happened. But it did give me hope... that I could at least be seen as a woman. And that did feel nice. Maybe there was something to the talk on the forums after all...
But... to just be seen as one still felt foreign. Complicated. Sad. Inadequate.
I wasn't interested in practicing how a woman moves. Or speaks. Or behaves. I'd worked as an actor and model—and knew very well that learning a role did not make me that person. Makeup and clothes wouldn't make me a woman.
Even so, I slowly began to accept that an in-between state was the best I could hope for. And that even a twilight existence just might be better than the status quo.
Meanwhile the pain escalated back to a constant ache whose intensity matched what I'd felt before my quintessence and memories had been obliterated.
The first part of what finally jolted me back to life was seeing my family after a blank of some years. My relatives seemed bemused when they saw me. I was bemused when some confused me with my sisters. And when one of them asked me straight out I told her how I'd felt ever since I was tiny.
The second part was when at my family's behest I went to see a gynecologist/endocrinologist. The first hormone test results were strange enough that he also ordered a karyotype test. Whose results dashed my momentary hope of actually being a girl, and caused me to cry the whole evening and into the night.
But his words—that the result didn't matter, because I'd need the same treatment regardless—did remain with me. Although their significance only became clear after the third part...
...which was my first meeting with the psychiatrist whom I asked for help to get help. At the end of our meeting she told me I'd been born a girl and grown up as one to be a woman. It was just that no-one had noticed.
And I could be fixed.
And I cried. And cried some more.
For the first time out of pure relief. And joy.
Because it was true.
I had been. And I was.
And the memories that I'd erased returned. Together with the accompanying agony. But now I welcomed them. They made me clearly see that what I'd needed then was what I also needed now. And what I'd needed ever since I was tiny.
Not to change me, but to simply correct what was physically wrong.
...and that's my story. The path I walked to where I am.
Now... I only want to step through the door to freedom.
-
Hi zirconia :)
Welcome :)
Best wishes
Margrit
-
I get it Zirconia, I really do. So much of that is similar to my experience. I have been conversing with Complete as well to gain life experience & insight into this trans condition we have to deal with.
Please keep putting it out there. That raw narrative is huge interest to me. Also your posts on that other site ( Not TransRefuge) go back a fair way. I would love to hear more of your story.
Warm regards, Kirsten.
-
Kirsten,
What I posted here was my story as I sent it to you earlier.
I thought long before writing my reply to what you wrote to me then. And have since tried to think of better ways I might have worded it. But I still can't offer anything of substance.
That said... I couldn't forget our exchange about limbo and passing... Because I've come to feel "passing" probably is a side effect of what we are. Not the goal. Or at least it shouldn't be. And I'd like to explore that just a bit more. I hope you don't mind me writing my further thoughts here. I really think this is a subject not discussed openly enough.
While the word has been diluted I believe it to have originally meant "to pass for the real thing." Meaning that no-one could tell the difference.
To me this is significant... because it takes a lot to make a truly convincing counterfeit. Take an antique cabinet. The wood grain density has to be the same. Any screws must be hand carved. Even the very tool marks must match.
Meaning that in a sense it must be real. The single factor that makes it counterfeit is having been made by someone else in a different period. The loveliest modern designer furniture cannot ever be remade into a fake Chippendale.
So... I guess that at least to me passing in its truest sense requires one to be a woman to start with. And that to be recognized as one one just needs to strip off all superfluous paint and whatnot.
In my case the pain just forced me to do that. Eliminate the pretense. And to expose what was underneath.
Which in turn forced me to face my situation, examine my past and present, and determine what I must do in order to live.
Kirsten... My own choice was simple although painful. As was my reason. I was a woman. And holding on to the pretense that had kept me going would have destroyed me. I had to give up everything that tied me to being male. It was the price of my freedom, and staying alive.
How about you?
Were you told your transition will start the moment you clearly voice the true core reason that makes you need it... what would you state it to be? The caveat being that you can't take it back. And the price being to lose everything you now have.
What do you need? What drives you? Do you have a choice? What is the choice?
I ask you to think of this because at least judging from what I've seen on these boards, whether people transition fully or stop halfway most do forfeit everything. Or at the very least the current shape of it. Even as the pain of its disintegration is drawn out.
Frankly, it seems to me that the torment of trying to hold on to everything is why so many make these forums their home. They find comfort with others who share the eternal torture. Some—many—do profess to be happy. Happy at least in the companionship they find. But... if truly happy in the real world, why not just live there? As I've said, I believe that's where we all should be.
I decided to return to posting because Dena's forum can be different. I looked for the answer for impossibly long, and never found what I needed until someone else who had found her way wrote about it. And I do wish to also leave a trace of myself behind. Perhaps my words may eventually find their way to someone who needs what I do... and help her to also find her way.
But... in truth, right now I want to leave. Once I'm whole the real world will be mine. And then this twilight zone will hopefully be just a place that I walked through, and don’t need to make my home.
I don't know whether any of this makes sense... or is of any use to you... but it is all I can offer. Once again, our situations differ. As do our backgrounds. And likely our ultimate goals... unless you also feel a burning need to live and experience love as a heterosexual woman.
That we don't need to be the same is something that people seem to want to obliterate on every discussion board I've seen. I never realized how ferocious this propensity was until I began to dare to write from my heart.
In any case I do hope this may help even a little, in some way. And truly hope from my heart that you can find your way to peace.
(Edit: Grammar, Clarity)
-
I really have to wonder why it is that so many find the individual stories of those who actually seem to know where they are going, and WHY, they have done or are doing what they did/are doing.....so beguiling.
It should be understood that individual stories are just that; INDIVIDUAL STORIES. They are different from yours or anyone else's.
Of course it is understandable that such stories might be seen as a way forward, but in truth, that is a mistake. Those stories found all over the web, are just that, stories.
Maybe some things of value can be learned but only, if it is recognized that there are huge differences in the circumstances that caused those stories to be written.
Those stories are NOT your stories. YOU need to write your own.
I see the value of these forums in the examination and free open discussion of ideas, recognizing always that those different ideas come from distinctly different points of view and perspectives.
-
Hey Zirconia, I do remember our chat well and it was of great value to me. Complete, I love your non sugar coated commentaries as well. I will post again later today as I am off to work soon.
I will re-read and digest this thread today.
-
Kirsten. Know that you are loved, cared for and valued. You WILL find your way.