Here I Am

Talk about leaving things in a cliffhanger. I mean, I post over five months ago about how I’m going to have THE surgery… about how I’m getting ready to take THE biggest and most profound step I’ve ever taken… and then I don’t write for almost half a year.

Well, you see, the thing is… it’s taken me that long to even BEGIN to know what to say about it.

I had surgery on December 27, 2017. It went fairly well. I mean, I’m still healing, so we won’t know final results for another few months or so, but at this point in the process and with what I’ve gone through so far, I’m pretty, amazingly happy.

There have been some complications, but nothing all too major as far as I can tell. Mostly it’s simply about dealing with the simmering frustration that comes with recovery. You finally reach a point where you almost feel back to normal, but you’re not quite there yet. You’re just on the wide periphery of healed, and the closer you get to the core of fully better, the more the impatience nags at you.

All that said, I still really don’t know what to write about. I don’t know how to sum any of it up. I have so much to say about it to the point where I can’t get anything out. It’s like a tidal wave of thoughts are trying to escape my brain through a keyhole, and it’s so excessive that it just gets dammed up.

What I do know is this…. I’m happy that I’ve had the surgery. In fact, I’m beyond ecstatic. I can’t even describe how much better, and clear-headed, and content, and giddy, and confident this has made me. Even with the complications. It’s like someone has been screaming at me for the past few decades and it’s finally stopped. Know that car alarm that goes off for WAY too long and it starts to drive you slowly insane? Imagine that going on for DECADES… then imagine it stopping. THAT is how I feel right now. A thought that constantly entered my mind in the first few weeks of this new experience was: I don’t know how to be this happy.

I truly didn't, and I'm still trying to figure out how to be.

This is all just SO very different, and even I have a difficult time wrapping my head around it. At times I don’t even think it’s real. It’s like I think I’ve somehow fooled myself and suddenly I’ll be reverted back to what I was. All my life I’d imagine SO intently what I SO desperately sought… I’d visualize it to SUCH a degree that I could almost fool myself into believing this blissful lie. Like if I concentrated hard enough, I could pretend I was already fixed.

But then, sooner or later, reality would come crashing in and destroy this illusion I so desperately tried to get lost in.

But… this time…. this time it is real. This time the illusion is that I’ll revert back to that painful feeling. This time the illusion is that I’ll ever have to feel that way again.

THIS is what this experience is like. It is SUCH a hard thing to encapsulate, and I try to even do it a modicum of justice with my description on this page.

Yet, with all of this said, there’s a bad side to it too. You see, I still very much and near unmistakably look like a man, even when I try to present as female. Now, I’m not the most girly of girls, and to be honest, I really prefer jeans and t-shrits over anything more fancy. I’ve always strived for comfort more than anything else. And what would be read as “comfort” on other women, gets read as “completely male” on me.

And even if I play it up… even if I throw on a dress and try my best to appear as “feminine” as possible to people who meet me, I still come across as male.

This makes me hide. Because it’s easier to hide than to deal with the disparity between my perception and the world’s. If I’m not trying, then it hurts less than if I try and still get the same treatment. It’s like my mind can justify it by saying, “Well, I’m not trying, so it’s not as bad.”

And so I hide. Both in the way that I dress, and in the fact that I barely leave my apartment and have become, for all intents and purposes, a shut-in.

My hiding has become even worse since surgery. Because when I’m here, alone, at home, I am INSANELY happy. When I’m not dealing with what the world reflects back at me, I am INSANELY happy. It’s like a drug, and all I want to do is feed that addiction and live in this altered state of reality, because the other version, the REAL version that lurks outside my door, is so very much more painful and biting.

Before surgery, I still had the pain of feeling wrong, so I would hide but still go out and do things to try to deal with and distract myself from this pain. Now that this pain doesn’t exist, it is VERY difficult for me to try to move in and around other people. I don’t even leave the house to go to work, because I can work from home pretty much any day I want to… and lately it’s been every single day. I haven’t been to the office in weeks. I’m telling myself that I’m going in tomorrow. I see even just telling myself this as a sign of progress toward eventually getting out into the world again… but we’ll see if I leave the house tomorrow morning.

Maybe this is only a temporary thing, though. Maybe I just need to be with this and with my new self for a time and process it all. I’m not certain, but I know that I’m still planning for the future and trying to find a way I can move more easily in the world… so that’s good, because at least I’m still looking out there. Maybe someday soon I’ll be a part of it again.

Until then, I shall stay in my happy little bubble.

Things could most certainly be worse.

All the best to you. Always.

Pardon Me, I Need to Rant

Alas, the time has come yet again for me to decry the ravings of fools.

And, truly, I don't mean to start off with an abusive or attacking tone, but those screaming sheer preposterousness for any and all to hear about people like myself... about trans people... well, it's difficult for me to see this in any serious light.

Firstly, to these people... not that you would probably ever really read this blog, but I speak to you anyway... You say trans people are mentally ill. You say trans people are simply confused. You compare saying that you're an animal... like a panda or a rhino... to being a human gender other than the one your appearance leads people to think you are...

...okay, see... that last thing you say... this is why I used the word "fools" to start the post. Because really, if you can't see the difference between someone saying their gender is more nuanced and different from most people's and SAYING YOU'RE A DIFFERENT FUCKING SPECIES... well, you a fool.

As far as the other nonsense above, this is actually REALLY simple.

Ready, here it is:

1. Who made you a doctor, such that you would know these things and can diagnose ill people? Do your numerous degrees in Psychology give you a deeper insight of the inner workings of the human psyche?
2. Are you aware that most mental health professionals recognize that trans people are not insane, and that a large portion of mental issues they may have are caused by society's attitude towards them? Do you realize that attitudes like yours make us crazy? Do you realize that your attitude, when tossed into the caustic din of attitudes like yours, costs us lives? Do you realize that when people constantly berate you and degrade you just for being who you are, that we're only human and, as steely as us transfolks can be, it eventually starts to hurt? Are you comfortable with inflicting pain on people for no good reason? And if you do think we indeed have mental issues, do you enjoy inflicting pain on those who have such issues?
3. Who knows more about a subject, someone who lives and deals with it every day, or someone who gets cursory glances into it through media blurbs that are quite often sensationalistic? Chances are that I don't share your job. Do you think after hearing 30 minutes of scattered news stories about your job that I could possibly know more than you about it? Do you think I would know anything at all about it other than what the name of your job is and maybe a really high-level understanding of what it is that you do? Do you think I could have many erroneous assumptions about your job? Can you now see that when you say the things you do about something you barely understand that you could be very, very wrong? Do you think you could possibly know more about gender and the conflict that it can cause than someone who lives with it, literally, every second of every day? Do you realize that trans people are supremely aware of gender and think about it all. the. time., and this includes researching and reading many things about it from a wide variety of sources? Do I need to go on?

Look, this is probably the most abrasive blog post I've ever written, but when you ask and ask for understanding and you get more and louder voices screaming back to you about how you're twisted and inferior, it tends to grate. All we're looking for is understanding. An open mind and/or an open heart. That's it. Can you strive for that, or would you rather stay mired in hatred?

Either way, I'm a fucking hippie at heart, so I'll send you love back, and hope, at the very least, that maybe you'll think twice before plastering hurtful words for your own misguided shits and giggles or to scratch at whatever itch you may have.

And for those of you who are awesome and supportive, I'm sorry you had to read through that, but feel free to send anyone who doesn't get it here if you ever get stumped in trying to get through to them.

I can't thank those in my life and other trans people's lives enough for the good that you do whenever and however you do it. You honestly don't know how much you help, especially when there are people saying the utter shit that this post addresses.

All the best to you all, always.

Therapy and Fairy Tales

I mentioned in my previous post how I've started therapy again, and briefly touched on the fact that it's been amazingly helpful thus far. Now I have been to at least six different therapists over the course of my life, but this therapist asked me to do something I never did before.

She asked if I would be interested in doing some expressive therapy, which, in this case with me being me and me doing what I do, centered around writing. I said I would very much be interested in it, as I want to write more, this was a great excuse to write, and the only way to catch the writing bug again is to write and write until you get it.

The writing assignment she gave me was this: Write a fairy tale about yourself.

It seemed like it could be a lot of fun, but I was waiting to write it because I wanted to give it some thought first. Then my appointment got cancelled due to the president being in town last week and it shutting down like five city blocks to the plebs like myself (side note: *GROAN*). So this writing assignment slipped out of my head... until last night... at midnight. And my appointment was today.

I knew it would probably be fine if I explained things and completed the assignment for my session next week, but I figured I would give it a go. So, I sat here, on my sofa, at one in the morning, and words just came out of me, and they came out of me in rhymes for some reason (though I guess some fairy tales do rhyme... maybe?... idk).

Annnnnnnyway... while this is stupid rhyming verse, and is actually kinda embarrassing, I'm going to share it below. I figured it's as good an update as any as to where I'm at now. Additionally, dealing with embarrassment has always been tough for me, so in an effort to get better with it, here's something potentially embarrassing that I will then have to deal with.

Lastly, when I was done writing this last night, as cheesy as this writing may be, a giant smile smeared itself across my face and I literally said out loud a few times, "That was awesome. That was fucking awesome." This is because a LOT of feelings came out of me, and writing became some sort of solace for me once again.

It also made me realize that I had forgotten one of my most favorite feelings in the world—getting in a zone with words spilling out of you, and you don't know where you are or what time it is. You eventually look up from writing (sometimes hours later), and you have something completed, and, on top of all that, you feel emotionally exhausted and cleansed.

God, do I fucking love that feeling.

So here it is. Make what you will of it. Much love to you all.

Fixing the Broken Girl 

Once upon a time, there was a girl,
Who looked like a boy,
And everyone talked to her like she was a boy
And everyone treated her like she was a boy

And so she acted in this role as best as she could

She learned all the Dos
And she learned all the Don’ts
She learned the You Shoulds
And she learned the You Won’ts

She learned what it was like
To not ever fit in
This lesson she learned

Many times and again

This filled her with hurt
This filled her with rage
This feeling she felt…
Like trapped in a cage

She battered around it
And clanged off its walls
It broke her and bent her
Her movement, turned crawls

Now limping, she falters
On broken down bones
And with each step she takes
She stifles back moans

But onward she plods
Into what, she knows not
No other option to choose from
This… is her lot

But striving for, working for,
Fighting for more
It’s what she must do now
She arrived at the door

And on she must go
As scared as she is
For what she does now
‘tis no way to live

So kick the door down
And do so with laughter
It’s the only way you can ever find
Your Happily Ever After

The End 

Back in the (Horrifying) Saddle Again

Over the past 15 years or so I've been a participant in a good handful of trans support groups. My time with these groups varied, and there are different reasons why I stopped attending each. I stopped going to the most recent one I went to, which was probably about five or six years ago, because seemingly any time someone had something to say about their lives, it was essentially, "I really wanted to kill myself this week," and this was said with all the tragic earnestness in the world. We would then discuss it until it was time to move on to the next person, who then would echo these same engulfing feelings of mounting despair and hopelessness… "I really wanted to kill myself this week." And so it went for the full hour.

The sentiment was as ubiquitous as it was affecting. These dreadful feelings cast a palpable pall over the meeting room every time I attended. 

Still, I was at a point where I was trying to connect with and help others, so I went to this group every week for a few months and tried to offer input and advice whenever I felt like I had something supportive to say. Eventually, though, it just got too grueling and depressing, and going to this particular group really started to bring me down more than not going. This is especially so because I had dealt with the whole wanting-to-kill-yourself-on-the-reg kind of feelings for years. I fought my way through them, and hadn't been truly suicidal in quite some time. Hearing the despair in the room was starting to wake these dormant feelings from slumbering deep inside me, and I knew it was time to get out.

And I don't mean to sound glib or cavalier about this, but in dealing with being trans, and reading about it, and hearing people's stories about their own journey with it over the course of a decade or so, you realize that the statistic saying that 40% of trans people attempt suicide is not only accurate, but may very well be a conservative estimate.

Being as stalled as I am with this process, lately I’ve been trying to make a firm effort to finally get past this stage of transitioning and on with my life. In doing so, I have started therapy again (which has been a GOD. SEND.), and I am fairly certain that I need to be around some people sharing this experience and to try to at least be some part of this community. I don’t have any trans friends, and while I have a ton of support from some awesome and amazing people in my life (MANY thanks!), there is a different kind of connection that you can forge with people that truly understand on a deep, innate level what you’re going through and what you’re feeling… because they’re going through it and feeling it as well. I need this in my life right now.

So, even though I was filled with the trepidation that my past forays into trans support groups instilled in me, I went back to one tonight. It was an interesting experience that I haven’t fully processed yet, but there were some first impressions that I’d like to share. 

There was a degree of familiarity to the proceedings, even though I knew no other people in the room. And while there was only one mention of a suicide attempt (in the past tense, thankfully), the stories that these people told were still tear-inducing, infuriating, and, in some cases, utterly horrifying. To hear these people… these strangers… bear their souls, to hear about their heart-wrenching struggles with their families and the people closest to them was all too similar to stories I’ve heard through the years from trans people who I’ve sat in groups with, and brought back to my mind in crystalline fashion the heartache, fear, anger, hurt, and raw vulnerability that I have experienced in similar situations and that still wells up in me during bad times.

Weirdly, this almost took me aback. In contrast to how much visibility, acknowledgement, and public support trans people have begun to experience over the past few years, the reality of the experiences I heard this evening was a clear display of just how much further we need to go as a society so that trans people aren’t suffering the way these people are… and the way I do as well.

In addition to this, I have felt that with as much acceptance as trans people have been getting lately (compared to even just five years ago), there is now a backlash. There is now a staunch, focused outrage about us, and with the most recent election, and the reaction elicited from this election… be it hate crimes, hate speak, or just amplified hatred in general… things with transpeeps have taken a step back. And it’s scary for us, even more so than the usual day to day is.

And so I’m writing today to implore everyone to seek a deeper understanding, to strive for an abundance of love, and to truly embrace those good people who happen to be different from you. Help acceptance grow. Help alleviate suffering. Help heal. Help in any way you can. There are people who truly need it, and help can only be achieved through a unified, concerted groundswell of effort, because there is seriously a mountain of work that still remains undone. Tonight proved this fact to me.

The good news here is that one mere minor step anyone takes in this direction can go hundreds of miles in helping someone out. If we all take that one minor step, think of how much bad can be eradicated.

Sincerest thanks to those of you who have already taken a step in this direction, be it large or small or many. You know not how much good you do. 

As always, much love to you all.

The Bounce

A few months ago I was enjoying a night of dining and drinking with a bunch of people I work with. One of these people, who is in the process of learning about me, though who knows I’m trans, was chatting with me. During the course of the conversation, I said something that I can’t even remember now, but whatever I said sort of took him aback. His response to my comment was a sentiment that I’ve heard thrown at me quite often, especially over the past few years. Basically what he said was…

“You’re one of those people aren’t you? You’re just….special. You’re an extremely good person who goes out of their way to be nice and respectful to everyone. I know so few people like you, that when I meet someone like you, I’m always amazed.”

And despite the fact that this is a wonderful thing to hear, I essentially shrugged it off.

This is because I knew what he said was true (well, with the exception that I always thought there were more people like this in the world than he made it out to be… though perhaps that’s just his experience). I also knew that people saw this kind of “specialness” (for lack of a better term) in me, because people have a tendency to tell me about it. I’ve been told something similar to this dozens of times, because apparently I have a “really good energy” about me or something.

Anyway, after he said this, he essentially continued with, “I especially don’t know how you do it, because if I was in your situation (read: trans), I would be mad at the entire world and wouldn’t know how to hold it back. So the fact that you’re exceedingly nice astounds me.”

Again, I shrugged this off, because, at the time, I thought to myself, What does being mean, angry, and mad do? It’s not going to change the situation, and it would really only make things worse. And while what this person said has stuck me with (obviously, since I’m writing about it), it’s not something I thought much about since then. Well, not until recently anyway.

The first time I admitted to having any trans-fueled feelings to someone was in 1998. I started hormones in 2005. And through all that time, while I have made great strides in the process of accepting myself and moving forward with this snail’s-pace crusade, the way I live now is STILL a lie. And even though the people closest to me—and perhaps even ALL my family and friends at this point—know that I’m trans (an achievement in and of itself), I STILL live a lie.

One of the gigantic reasons for this is because I have a severe issue with how I look. I struggle incredibly with my appearance. Actually, to be completely honest, I loathe my appearance… and I find it impossible to try to be true to myself while feeling the way I do about how I look, as I appear NOWHERE close to who I actually am.

My appearance, or more specifically my feelings about my appearance, holds me back in a MAJOR way and keeps me from publically jumping from the Male side of the fence to the Female side… which is something I desperately need to do. I’ve been saving money for years to try to address this in any way I can, and recently I thought I had FINALLY scraped enough together to make a good, solid push to address it so that I can FINALLY feel more confident about moving forward in this process… and, you know, just feel better about the everyday action of looking into a mirror.

So what I want to do (and have wanted to do since I first came to this I-am-trans conclusion) is have surgery on my face to feminize it, to make me feel better about looking at myself, and to help me make the huge and scary-as-hell step of entering the world in a way that is more representative of the person I am. (Though the thought of surgery certainly is frightening to me, but that’s a topic for a different post.)

After exploring what surgeries were available and how they could help me, I reached out to a surgeon, who is apparently excellent at this kind of work, and I had a good consultation. The next day his office sent me an estimated cost of the surgery. That cost was $28,000.

As I’ve mentioned, I have been saving for years to try to get the money together for this, but this price was FAR more than I expected it to be, and it sent me spiraling into a wild exploration of my options and what I could do to make this happen as soon as possible.

And, let me be clear when I say this, I need this to happen as soon as possible. This is because the way I’m living my life now has simply become agonizing. Every day I’m forced to endure living like this, and all the badness that comes along with not being your true self to pretty much anyone, is excruciating. To think of doing it for even another year is unbearable. To think of suffering it longer than that… well, that’s when I start thinking about giving up on everything and just yanking the power cord out on my life.

Yes, it is THAT painful, and destructive, and maddening. This is why trans people are so disproportionally self-harming. This is why over FORTY PERCENT of trans people attempt to kill themselves. Whatever you think about this situation, please keep in mind that the feelings associated with it can be THAT horrendous.

On top of this, I’m overwhelmed by bitterness that I need to spend THAT amount of money in an attempt to physically get myself to the point where I feel I somewhat coincide with who I am mentally, which is something that 99.9% of the population doesn’t need to even think about. (Though I do realize that people who aren’t trans experience body issues, and image issues, and all of that awful stuff. I’m coming at this purely from the whole contending-with-being-the-wrong-gender standpoint here.)

Despite all of this, I have recently been exploring options that basically boil down to taking a loan or using some crazy combination of credit cards just so I can get through THIS part of it. And I will say that while I make a decent salary, I would barely make enough to cover the not-at-all-extravagant expenses I generate now if you throw another huge monthly payment on top of it.

Still, if this was just for a few years, I could tighten my belt for this time and I’m sure I could navigate my way through it. The additional issue, however, is that this is just the first surgery for me, and the other surgery… the bottom surgery… is something that I also need to have as soon as I possibly can, because every day I feel wrong is another day that erodes at my will to go on. This surgery can cost up to $20,000, and I would then have to save for that, which I wouldn’t be able to do if I took a loan or credit card payment for this first round of surgery, because I would have exactly zero extra money to put away with the massive monthly payment the first round of surgery would rain down on me.

All of this, combined with a bunch of other factors in my life right now, are a swirling mass of stress and pain that surrounds me. And that stress and pain was insanely exacerbated when I finally got the strength and resolve to try to address this, and then just hit massive roadblocks that I don’t know how to navigate around.

The past few weeks have been a tornado of awfulness, and it’s certainly started to affect this nice, respectful person that was referred to at the beginning of this post. Because this pain is transforming me into a sullen, bitter, spiteful, hurtful, terrible person.

I’m an ardent believer that people have a good nature, and that when you see people acting in awful ways, it’s due to a pain they’re experiencing… either due to the fact that the pain makes them focus on themselves so much that they can’t see past it to see how they affect others, that this pain fosters anger in people and then they take that anger out on those that surround them, or the pain makes them so bitter that they just stop caring about anything and anyone.

This is the road I can feel myself getting pulled down. This once always-good person is now finding that I’m careening towards being someone who is so engulfed with bad that I am now taking it out on the people around me. I am not at all pleasant to be around. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t steer out of destructive behaviors, and I truly fear where all of this is leading me. I don’t know how to address it and I don’t know how to make it right.

I’m am trying, though… at least for now. Though, because of everything I described above, I had an EPIC meltdown over the past weekend that literally left me gasping for air. For someone who has undergone their share of stress and panic attacks, this is the worst that I have ever felt, and I am not exaggerating when I say that for a while I was keeled over in tear-ridden agony, uncontrollably shaking, nauseous, and hyperventilating, and then spent 24 hours in and out of overpowering crying fits and ugly tears, like to the point that I was amazed that someone could cry that much. And to top all of this off, also mixed into that 24-hour period was an insanely nasty fight between me and someone who I considered to be my best friend.

So, you know, life has been a cavalcade of fun for me lately.

All that said, I feel that 24-hour span was my rock bottom, and when you hit rock bottom, oftentimes you get a bounce, and with that bounce comes a much-needed catharsis that can clear your head and give you the resolve to move on with a little less burden, because you cleansed so much of that bad emotion from you through tears, and painful howling, and having most of your brain functions shut down just so you can process everything that’s screaming at you through all of these horrific feelings.

And so I try to find a way to muster on through this. I try to find a way to resolve these issues… but, that said, I feel like I’m doing so as a lesser version of myself, and as someone who has a festering overload of hurt and bitterness that forces me to not be nearly as good as I want to be to the people I come into contact with and to the people I’m closest to.

So, you may now be wondering, “Okay, emo kid, do you feel good that you dumped this mountain of shit on us?”

Well, no, of course I don’t, though one of the reasons I decided to write and post this was to try to find some sort of clarity and strength through writing about it and getting these thoughts out of my head and on “paper”. I also put this together to show just how much of a picnic this whole trans experience can be (since, you know, that is what this blog is about)… and yet all I continue to hear from certain people is that we’re dangerous because OH MY GOD THE CHILDRENZ IN THE RESTROOOMZ!!!111! (Again, a topic for another post.)

Lastly here, I wrote this as an attempt to tell people that one person’s pain is all of our pain. When someone is hurting, if affects them and their behavior, and will affect those that surround them. If you could make someone’s pain less, everyone’s interactions with them become better, as they become a better version of themselves. So I implore people to reach out and help others with their pain as much as they can, because in doing so you are truly improving someone’s life, and in turn, making this world a better place. One day soon I hope I can again be the kind of person that my friend from work described above, because right now, I feel as far from that person as I can possibly get.

All of this said, I’m actually going to leave you on a positive note.

In the time since this magnificent meltdown, I did indeed get that hitting-rock-bottom bounce that I mentioned above. Since then, I called about getting back into therapy, I reached out to someone about a trans support group (that I plan on attending next week), and, oh look, I’m actually writing again, which is something that has provided great solace to me in the past, though something I’ve steered away from over the last few years because I work as a writer, and with that being the case, sometimes the last thing I want to do when I get home after a long day is write for myself. I’m currently re-realizing just how helpful this can be, though, and I already have more writing ideas that I’m working on, which is good.

On top of all this, I have gotten some amazing support, care, and love from friends who realize the severity of what I’m currently going through, and I am insanely grateful for this and for them. Again, nothing but good.

While I am still not entirely well right now and still a lesser version of myself because of what I’m contending with, what I’m trying to get through, and the pain that this is causing me, through all of that I wish much love and nothing but the best to you all.