Reeling in Recovery

In the tomes of literature I received from the doctor’s office prior to my facial surgery in November, I read a few things about how patients should try their best to stay positive in the weeks following surgery, and that depression or regret is natural. I certainly felt a tinge of that from the first surgery I had in contending with this gender bullshit that is the utter bane of my existence, but at least with my bottom surgery I also had the feeling that part of me was finally right… so there was a bit of internal harmony that drowned out most of the depression I felt when I was laid up, cloistered and healing.

The experience I have been contending with since my facial surgery in November has been quite different. I saw this surgery as crossing a finish line of sorts. I saw it as the second of two surgeries I wanted for decades, and that I needed to have so I could be the truest version of myself, fit this truest version of myself into the world, and grant me some semblance of internal peace.


Wow, has it not been that at all.


First off, I need to say that, even though it’s been three months since my surgery, I still feel pretty beat up. My chin is almost completely numb, as is my upper forehead and the crown of my head. I also now have an incision that crescents across the top of my head from ear to ear, and the scar is very visible because they had to shave that area to make the incision AND because the scar there is going to prevent a swath of hair from growing back. Couple that with scalp trauma from the surgery itself and the hair loss that seems to come from going under general anesthesia, and my hair has never looked worse and never looked thinner.

Add in to all of this, that while the surgery has helped soften me a bit, it’s still nowhere NEAR enough. While the frequency may be a little less than it was before, people who see me on the street still pretty much instantly “sir” me. In short, to the world… and to me… my face ultimately still looks male, and my staunchest hope in going through this ordeal is that this would NOT be the case.

On top of that, my neck and jaw still look SO wrecked that they may have looked better before surgery, and I don’t know how much, if any more, I'm going to heal.


All of this is CRUSHING to me.


People have told me, “Well, if you’re not happy, you need to tell the surgeon. You paid a LOT of money for this and he should be able to fix whatever you’re not happy with.”

But the thing to realize here is that: a) you can only do so much, and I kind of trust that the doctor did all he could, and b) if I have to go through the pain and discomfort of yet another surgery (not to mention cover the additional cost of reserving another operating room and anesthesiologist, which both aren’t covered by the surgeon), the very thought of it makes me want to dive headlong through my third-floor window and plummet skull-first into the concrete below.

I just can’t bear the thought, especially after going through the insane pain, expense, stress, and struggle of having two major surgeries in the span of 11 months.


But if all of this… if all I struggled DECADES to get to and get through... isn’t enough, then what do I do? There is nothing left for me that I’m planning on. There is nothing I can look forward to for solace.


Before the surgeries I had, I was depressed, and hurting, and upset at my situation in the world, BUT I lived with the constant hope that once I got these surgeries taken care of, it would be enough for me, and I would feel better.

Now that these surgeries are behind me, and there is nothing else I can point to that will help me live my life and help me fit my new self and my new life seamlessly into the world, I am beyond depressed. I am completely forlorn and utterly hollowed out. I am supremely bereft of hope. Because I know now, FOR CERTAIN, that no matter what I do and no matter what I struggle to achieve when it comes to this transition, that it’s not EVER going to be enough. People are ALWAYS going to see me as something I’m not. I’m ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL WRONG… ALWAYS. There is NOTHING MORE I CAN DO ABOUT THIS.

And with all of this weighing on me, I can’t think straight, I can’t be social. I hole myself up and avoid everything and everyone. I struggle just to make it through the work day and be constructive and it is enormously tasking just to do that. I have never felt this hopeless in my life. I have never felt this upset in my life. I’m trying to fight on and do whatever is next for me, but I have no idea what that even is, because with this plan there wasn’t another step. There were the two major, difficult steps that I took, and now there is nothing. There’s just me contending with the results and trying not to break down every other minute of the day… which is even more difficult every time I look in the mirror.

I feel completely crushed and I don’t know what I can do to make me feel better, if there is anything at all. It hurts in ways I can’t even describe. I feel like my life has careened into a dead end. How do you recover from this? What do you do next?


Well, if you’re me, you continue to go to therapy, and work on your weight and your overall health, and hope there is still some miraculous healing that’s going to take place and things can somehow still get better. What else is there to do? I’m stumbling like a beat-up zombie through the world at this point, trying to find any source of joy I can in what has suddenly turned into the most excruciating and painful time of my life.


And for those who say, “Well, you just need to learn to accept it,” well, they just need to learn what it is to be trans and about the pain that comes with it. They need to learn that THIS is what the experience is… you CANNOT accept it, because if you COULD accept feeling SO off and SO misunderstood all of the time, then you wouldn’t be trans. It is the VERY DEFINITION of what it is. You feel wrong. Always. I hoped that this would make me feel not wrong, and while the first surgery did to a big extent, it’s still not right. It’s STILL all wrong. It’s all wrong and I don’t know how to make it better.

THAT is what the experience of being trans is in a nutshell. Dealing with these feelings and trying to just hold on in the middle of a raging tempest. Though why I’m holding on at this point is anybody’s guess. Yet, I do. I honestly don’t know what else there is to do.


All the best to you.

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As an addendum to this post, actually writing this stuff down and getting it out of my head and onto “paper” has helped a little. I felt a bit of an uptick in my attitude from a few days ago when I first spit all of this out of my brain. I’m still plodding on the best I can and trying to take the best care of myself… even when the depression hit so violently that I heard cigarettes calling to me again after spending years with the habit pretty much kicked. I was just looking for that stress relief again, and, really, a distraction. It says something that I haven’t gone back to them yet, like so many other trans people do… because, let’s face it, when you have no hope, do you care about the damage that nicotine is inflicting upon you? Apparently I'm hanging in there enough to not go back down that path.

That said, I’m still not good, but I’m a smidge better than when I wrote this post initally. This being a blog about the whole trans experience, though, I felt it important to share the rawness of it all.


One final thing. Yes, I’m partially destroyed at this point, but I still do realize that people have gone through worse than this and that I do not hold a monopoly on life struggles. This is just my struggle… and while there are worse things to go through, it doesn’t make what I and other trans people are contending with any fun at all. In fact, it’s still pretty fantastically terrible.

Thanks for reading.

Facing Forward

I have huge news. Really, really huge news. I've been trying to come up with something to say about it for the past month, but the right words elude me and don't want to come out. I can't seem to write about it because there is just too much. But here I am, and I'm going to give it a shot.


The path life takes you on sometimes is a strange one. You feel compelled by forces seemingly beyond your control to do things you never thought you’d do. You take irreversible steps in your life because the universe drives you in that direction. We’re all being pushed and pulled upon by these unseen energies that act on us every day.

This past December I had bottom surgery. It’s the biggest decision and leap of faith I’ve ever made in my life. While ultimately it has been AMAZING for me, my psyche, and my soul, it hasn’t come easy after. There is just a PROFOUND amount to process with it, and I’m still doing so some eight months later. There are times where I feel astoundingly happy and at ease… and at peace. And then there are times where the world comes at me and places me back into the box I appear to be in to those who can't see ME, and it hurts even more than it did before because physically I am different.

But I’m also the size of an NFL lineman, and I’m big for a human being, let alone a woman. So people are going to see me the way they do no matter what I wear. Even if I hung a sign on me in all caps screaming at people “I AM FEMALE” they wouldn’t see me that way, and then, because some of our society is oh so loving and accepting, the comments and the ridicule would begin because I look like the stereotypical “man in a dress”. It’s ever so fun.

So, to correct this, and since I can’t change my size (though I can lose weight, which I am fighting through the process of), the only other outward thing I can do at this time is to have my face changed. To have my face feminized. It’s a common thing among transwomen who can afford it (though, by all means, not every one of us goes through this, nor should anyone ever ever have to). I feel like I have to, though. I feel like I have to try it. I feel like I have to do everything I can to present myself to the world as the person I know myself to be. This is my personal need in my personal journey.

And so, coming this fall to an operating room in Boston, I’m going to be having facial surgery. By this winter, I’ll have a new face.

It’s beyond crazy to think about.

"Facial feminization surgery" or "FFS" are the monikers for it. Essentially, it's a series of procedures designed to make my face look, as my surgeon put it, "unquestionably female." It's incredible what can be done today.

What's going to happen when I go under the knife is my forehead will be resculpted and my hairline lowered just a bit. My jawline and chin will also be recontoured, and my Adam's apple will be shaved down to something that is, hopefully, unnoticeable.

I'm doing all this in hopes that, in spite of my size and any other "male" characteristic I may possess, that people will somehow see ME, or as close to how I perceive me as the available science and my financial situation will permit. And while there are aspects of my face that I do like, there is so much about it that I, quite adamantly, detest. It sounds awful to say such things about yourself, but it’s just the way it is, and it’s what this “being trans” condition makes me feel.

I'm doing this because every time I look in the mirror, it hurts... it literally hurts... because my face is not the face of who I truly am. My face is of someone else... someone who I used to be... or, more accurately... someone who I used to fill the role of because I thought there was no other recourse.

What's to come is scary, and trippy, and exciting beyond words. I mean, in a little over a month and a half I'm going to have a new face looking back at me in the mirror. After this is over, my life is instantly going to change, and I have no idea to what degree. How the world sees me WILL change… something that did not happen at all after bottom surgery. It’s staggering to think about.

After this surgery... from that point forward... I will literally be showing a new face to the world. There will be no masking of things. No clothes covering and hiding. This face… this new, more feminine face… will be what I present to the world from now on. It's going to be out there, and it will be exposed for all to see. How fucking mind-warping is that?

Part of me thinks I'm not ready for this, and part of me thinks this should have happened many years ago… but I don't want to dwell on the regret that is birthed from the passing of time. I want to concentrate on what's to come. I want to be hopeful that this will be a massively grand and amazing step in my crusade to present my best self to the world, and, more importantly, that it will allow me to feel more at ease in my own skin and heighten my internal peace. 

If it has the same kind of impact as my last surgery, and I'm STILL realizing and processing all the good I've gained from it, this next surgery is going to be well worth the pain, and the trouble, and the ridiculous amount of money that it's costing me, even with taking out a loan to pay for half of it because not one cent of it is covered by insurance.

But this is where my life and my soul has brought me to. My last surgery pushed me all in, so now I have to play my hand to the best of my capabilities. In this instance, it means being bold and brave and letting who I am at my core guide my actions, even if that means having a new face and entirely new interactions with the world come November. And even if it means having two incredibly life-transforming surgeries in less than a year. 

I spent over a decade mired in a type of stagnation. Now I'm caught in an avalanche of forward movement, momentum, and progress. I'm terrified and I'm exhilarated. There is a GIGANTIC unknown waiting for me on the other side of this surgery, and all I can do is hope I made the right decisions and chose the right doctor. 

Outside of surgical complications, my biggest fear is that I go through the pain and expense of this and nothing is different and everyone says, "You look exactly the same!" On the other hand, my mind races with thoughts that my face may look so feminine that people will start "miss" and "ma'am"ing me, and I strangely question how I'll even handle that. Most people I bring this up to, however, all tend to say the same thing—"You're more than ready for that to happen!"

Well, if that's the case, then let's make it so! Let's do all I can to make myself as happy and at peace as I can be, and I'm hoping everyone else is doing the same bold, terrifying, and wonderful things in their own lives.

This journey I’ve been on, while insanely difficult, has certainly been different and has certainly been interesting, and for the first time ever I’m starting to appreciate it rather than being only pain-ridden and distraught from it. It’s funny how when things start happening and your life REALLY quickens that things get more enjoyable. And as scary as what awaits me is, my life and my transition are becoming both fascinating and, dare I say, kind of fun for once. Let’s see if it gets even more so when I’m wearing my new face.


The absolute best to you all. Always.

White Coat Hyperstressing

A few weeks ago I had an appointment with a dermatologist about a shiny bump I had on my face (which turned out to be nothing to be concerned about). However, since I’m in my 40s and have very pale skin, the doctor suggested I come back in a few weeks for a full body check. I suppose this is a smart thing to do, but now it’s causing me a ridiculous amount of stress, as most doctor’s appointments tend to freak me out for various reasons, a lot of them having to do with the whole trans thing.

This anxiety is exacerbated even more because the procedure I’m going in for requires me to strip down, and, since I have been on hormones for almost ten years now, my body is a mishmash of two different sexes. 

Now all of this could turn out to be totally fine, and with the visibility and empathy that trans people have been getting lately, and with the fact that this office is in the heart of downtown Philadelphia (a very LGBT-friendly city), many of my fears should be allayed. Yet they still exist.

And these fears still exist even after writing all my medications (hormones included) on the patient information form I filled out during my initial visit. I also even had a conversation with the dermatologist and another doctor about some minor scarring that has appeared on my face (probably) due to the extensive hours that I’ve had a needle repeatedly stuck in my face during my electrolysis treatments. 

When I told the doctors that I was having electrolysis, they asked if I was just getting ingrown hairs and other similar problems addressed, or if I was having my whole face cleared. I answered that I was getting all of the hair removed from my face, and that was pretty much that. The conversation may have paused for a second, but then they jumped right back into what could be done to treat the scarring, and even talked about how their office offers laser hair removal (though that doesn't work for me due to my blonde hair).

I should have just told them that I was trans then and there, and that probably would have helped me either feel more at ease with my upcoming appointment… or realize that I should cancel it altogether (as I wish I could've with some of the other AWFUL doctor's appointments that I've had in the past). But that ship has most certainly sailed.

So, what I described above would make many people think that everything would be fine, and that I should just go down and not worry about it and get checked out. But I also want to go because I was MUCH heavier than I am now, and I have just AWFUL stretch marks under my arms that trail onto my back and chest. So I’m hoping that something could be done about this, as sleeveless things are SUPER comfortable to wear and also make me look a lot more feminine, but I would have issues with going out in public like that because (among other reasons) it looks like someone dug in and scraped a rake down my armpits.

All of this being said, I’m STILL thinking about cancelling this appointment, because this is how heavily the whole situation is weighing on me. And because the scarring I’m looking to have addressed is where it is (primarily talking about my chest here), I’m just SO filled with agita about it. I keep thinking about what I would have on during this exam, and how things would play out, and it just makes me nauseous with how much it’s making my head spin.

On top of ALL of this, I’m just INCREDIBLY annoyed that I feel this way, and that I’m thinking about being a complete coward and cancelling this appointment. This leads me into beating myself up for ALL of the fear that has rooted itself deeply into my psyche, not just with this doctor’s visit, but with the entire trans issue.

This very minor situation is making me realize more and more that I am utterly immobilized by fear, and me being trans is at the core of it. After all this time, and all the progress that I have made, and all the effort I put into trying to be okay with myself and who I am, I still can’t fucking bring myself to do it…and it’s killing me. 

And the fact of the matter is, what many friends have told me about the trans thing is more than likely true: “No one cares about this as much as you do. NO. ONE. Most people give absolutely no shits about it.” So why the fuck do I care so much? Why am I so mired in this horrible position and why do I keep doing subconscious things to keep me pinned where I’m at? How do I get past this fear? 

Well, I think I can start by realizing that people are who people are and they feel what they feel (even if it's open contempt toward me), and accept that fact and be who I need to be regardless of that fact. People being who they are should have ZERO impact on me being me. Other people should have no impact on me EMBRACING who I am, and not just grinning and bearing it. This is a lesson that I desperately must incorporate into my life, because even in spite of all of this, I’m STILL thinking about cancelling, and I have about two days to decide to do so. 

If anyone has any suggestions for how to get past fear, please let me know. In the meantime, however, I wish all the best to you, always.

Part II: The Bad

Where we last left off, the protagonist of this-here story (i.e. yours truly) had just gotten a written referral to see an endocrinologist to hopefully get prescribed hormones. I called the office, made the appointment, and waited something like two looooonnnnng months in a feverish anticipation that was riddled with both fear and apprehension. Talk about a fun two months.

Now when I called the doctor's office, I told them that I was coming in hoping to get prescribed hormones and all of that. They gladly took the appointment and didn't say anything that would make me think that this was not the place to go. Well, it wasn't.

When I finally met the doctor, he asked me why I was there. I thought that a question like this would have been addressed by what I said when I made the appointment. Obviously I was mistaken.

What followed was me nervously stammering my way through an explanation of what I wanted to do. I was having these feelings; I wanted to try hormones to either confirm these feelings as being one thing... or another. When the doctor wasn't sure what I was asking for, even after a long explanation, I explained it again, and quite possibly even a third time.

Finally, the doctor understood. Here's what he said (again, paraphrasing a bit here):

"I think that this is a crime against nature, and it's not how you were meant to be. I don't know why anyone would do this to himself. What are you hoping to get out of this? You were born a male and you'll always be a male. How could you want to do this to yourself? This is very, very wrong."

And so on... and so on. This went on for an excruciating five minutes. Finally, I just said, "Okay, I get it," and started to get myself together to go. Then this braying jackass had the stupendous amount of gall to ask me:

"Would you like us to keep your information on file in case you decide to come back here for treatment?"

Ummm... what??

My response was:
"Look, you obviously have a problem with this, so why would I ever want to be treated for something by someone who has a problem with it?"

"Well," he answered, "we have prescribed hormones for people before."

"But you have a problem with it, so why would I want YOU to prescribe them for me? So I can come back here and have you tell me about your problems with what I'm doing? No thanks."

"We could still keep your information on file..."

"That won't be necessary."

"Are you sure?"

"Ummm... yeah, I'm pretty certain."

WTF!?

I walked out of there and I was FURIOUS. People have problems with this kind of stuff, and whatever, I sort of understand that. However, how could you, as a "professional", start laying into someone like this... and then have the sheer audacity to ask me if I want to come back for treatment? Seriously, what IS that??

I was actually shaking when I walked out of the office. I didn't even know what to do. I was mad that he acted that way towards me. I was also pretty mortified by the fact that I went there in a pretty iffy emotional state, baring something that was VERY difficult for me to talk about even under the best of circumstances, and then I was met with a lecture about how I was a "crime against nature."

This experience, needless to say, was nothing but BAD.



As a postscript:
On the way home I was so upset that I stopped off at a pay phone to call a friend (remember pay phones?). While talking to her, I actually just started to laugh about the whole situation. Then I just started to feel kind of bad for the doctor. He was so blinded by his own fear and ignorance that he never took time to even look at the situation from a different perspective, or to talk to me about it, or to talk to anyone about it. He just decided to think what he thought about it and be magnificently blind as to what was really going on.

But as nervous and scared as I was, I got through it. Even with his wondrously supportive words scraping every soft nerve in my brain, I got through it... AND I wound up laughing it off soon after it went down. It made me stronger. It made me less afraid. It made me want to do it more... though I wouldn't be prescribed hormones til some five years later.

One final note:
When I next went back to my primary doctor and related the story, she was aghast at the endocrinologist's behavior. "Even if he does have a personal problem with it, it was HIGHLY unprofessional for him to talk to you like that."

Yeah, I'll tend to agree with that assessment.
As I've said, my primary kinda rocks.

That's all I got tonight.
I hope all is well.