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.

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.

The Disgusting Disguise I Wear at Work

After one long-ass hiatus, here I am, back again. I'm not all too sure how much things have changed in my life since the last time I posted to this blog, because I'm still stuck where I have been stuck for quite some time. The reasons why I'm stuck can mostly be found scattered throughout this site, and these reasons are being added to and examined for a few hours each month with my therapist... but this really isn't the reason I'm writing today.

So, the one thing that HAS changed in my world since the last time I wrote anything on here is that I have a new job. Though this job isn't exactly "new," because at this point I've been there for well over a year now.......annnnd this shows you just how long it's been since I've written anything.

Anyway, a new job is an interesting thing. You get injected into an entirely new situation and are instantly surrounded by a whole new cast of characters who you know nothing about, and who know nothing about you. It's like the pseudo-classic teen movies where someone goes to a new high school and becomes an entirely new person. There are zero expectations for how you're supposed to act (you know, within the confines of a professional environment) and who you're supposed to be. This, needless to say, can be very liberating.

The thing you have to realize, however, is that this liberation from your old self can also backfire. You can be so thrown by the unfamiliar that you regress into old thought patterns and behaviors. Things that you worked so hard to rid yourself of can suddenly swamp you like a flash flood, and you have to struggle like mad to keep from downing in the torrent.

This is essentially what happened to me.

Since I've started this new job I have become more and more unrecognizable to myself. For one thing, I used to be far more healthy and active, whereas now I feel like I'm the unhealthiest I've been in years. I also used to be exceedingly more confident in who I am and where I'm going, and because I had this confidence, I used to let MUCH more of myself show to the people I worked with. Now, on the other hand, I feel like I've donned a total disguise and I'm having great difficulty in escaping from it.

And yes, I know that people wear their masks at work. Who someone is in the workplace is quite often a shadow of the true being that they are. Okay, that may be overstating it, but if the person isn't a shadow of themself, then they are at least a slightly altered version of who they are, which is NOT an inherently bad thing. I mean, I don't think very many people want to emotionally expose themselves to the people they work with, and a degree of professional decorum is something that is most certainly called for, and something that I think the large majority of people attempt to cultivate. It becomes an issue, however, when you stray so far away from your core self that it renders you an empty husk that's filled and fueled by the reactions of others. Now I KNOW I'm overstating this just a bit, but here's what happened to me...

I have almost completely reverted back into Boy Mode bullshit, to the point where I don't even know who the hell I am sometimes. This not only scares me, it also pisses me the fuck off.

Why would I do this to myself? Why would I let this happen? Why would I waste all the years I strove to find who I am and all the work I did in the process? How can I just cast all of this off? Am I THAT much of a fucking coward?

Well, being that I've been going through this transitioning shit for almost ten years and I'm still completely mired in stagnation, if not out and out careening backwards, maybe I have to accept the fact that I am most certainly acting like a coward.

In work I talk different, move different, and act different from how I used to in the past, and this has even bled over into my personal life... because if you do something for 40 hours a week, how can it not? Comments that strike me as ignorant and offensive either slide right off me or I concoct feeble retorts so I can convey a modicum of my point of view without letting anyone even gain a glimpse of my truth.

I still do express my viewpoint to a degree (hooray for small victories and all that!), but I curb it. I hold back and I slap my mouth shut during situations where I should either fervently express my displeasure, or, at the very least, try to shed light on a situation that means SO. FUCKING. MUCH. to me.

For example, there's a guy I work with who seems to love pointing out that he thinks another male co-worker shaves his legs; like it's somehow the biggest, strangest thing he's ever seen. Now when he points this out to me my response is generally along the lines of, "Who cares? There's a lot of reasons why a guy would shave his legs. Maybe he swims, or he's a cyclist, or his wife digs it, or he just ENJOYS it. Seriously, who cares?"

Whereas Old Me would say something more like, "Oh yeah, so do I," and just wait to see his reaction. I used to get something out of pushing people's ideological boundaries and challenging their preconceptions. With the way I handle this now, however, I feel like I'm essentially hiding in a corner.

When I first started at this job, there was also a time where I was in a meeting with my entire department. During the course of this meeting the conversation turned to a former co-worker (whom I didn't know) who was trans. I don't know if I could have been more uncomfortable during this conversation, and while what they were saying wasn't like TERRIBLE terrible, it certainly wasn't good. And I didn't say peep throughout all of it.

Now being that I was coming off of nine weary months of unemployment, only a few months into the job, and still in the "contract" portion of the contract-to-hire thing (not to mention that four people got laid off that very morning) I felt that rocking the boat at that juncture probably wouldn't have been the wisest decision... and yet my self-hatred swelled.

And finally, just today a co-worker who sits next to me wanted to show me a picture that he took when he and his wife were in Thailand. Before I even saw it I just KNEW that it was going to be someone who falls under the whole trans umbrella. And of course it was.

He shows me a picture of a young woman. I say, "Yeah?" and he says, "That's a dude." To which I say, "Oh, she looks good," and he responded with a disgusted "BLECH" type of sound. This prompted me to say, "What? Do you have a problem with people like that? Why? It's not like she's hurting anyone." His response: "Dude, what's wrong with you?" followed by another series of revolting sounds... and I didn't even know what to say after that.

What made all of this even more bothersome is that I get along pretty well with this guy. He helps me out a lot with work, and overall I think he's a good and funny dude... well, at least from what I can tell from sitting next to him for 40 hours a week.

The fact that he doesn't know who I really am, though, or even have an inkling that I'm anything but what his assumptions tell him—which is, presumably, that I'm a straight guy just like him—was a pretty big reason why he felt he could share a picture of what was a fairly attractive girl wearing an over-sized polo shirt and some capris, and then go off about it. And the fact that she was wearing what she was meant that she wasn't like flaunting it in his face or anything, which I suppose can cause the easily freaked out to overreact.

The whole scene that went down today makes me loathe myself even more because I KNOW that visibility leads to normalcy, and normalcy leads to acceptance. I KNOW that suffering through a few potential moments of discomfort can go a long way in helping someone understand, and it could maybe even change someone's opinion about people in my progressively shitty position. Now I know one person may not seem like much, but if that one person understands, that's one small piece of the world that's better... and we all have the power to make that happen, myself included.

But instead, the conversation died... and I let all of this hurl itself around my brain and trouble me for the better part of my evening.

Maybe if he knew someone who he was friendly with and who was contending with this, it could help change his thoughts. Though, maybe if he knew this about me to begin with he would have just aggressively avoided me altogether. The latter part of this is impossible to know now, but the first part of it isn't. So what the fuck am I doing pretending to be something I'm not, especially to this degree?

I do not like this at ALL about where I'm at right now, and I adamantly vow to muster the courage to be more true to who and what I am in the future. I have realized my fault, and it sickens me. Now what the fuck am I going to do about it?

Thank you for reading, and all the best to you, always.