Gender Difficulty

[Guest EvenClose]

Whats happenin forum! Been lookin through the forums now for months and finally couldn't take it any more. I had to get it out. >.>

So hello its nice to actually say hi to many of you. (waves)

-begin epic wall of text explosion-

I have the same issues that a lot of people have posted in this section, so I figured it best to start here. If yall wanna move it, i would totally understand. Im mainly hoping that u all can help me and much as i can help everyone else.

Like most its hard to ever begin to understand gender. Ive had a MAJOR issue with it for yrs. *BUT* I had honestly never thought about questioning my gender. I was really confused and for the most part tried to put it either out of my head or on the back burner for the time. I have had a really, well, i guess the best way to describe it would be -intense- life.

My childhood was an insane blur of ignorant non-understanding parents. And im not talking about gender, i mean they didn't understand ANYTHING. lol As hard as i tried they were never happy, even with me being completely oblivious to the fact that i had gender issues. I feel it necessary to give everyone a good understanding of where i have came from to where i am today, that way u can see how its progressed. (something ive seen in common with a lot of people, hope it helps) My parents had a crap relationship. My father was a total alcoholic. Not abusive to my mother, just a hard core drinker. He would get home around 3 everyday and start pounding back more beers than a college kid at octoberfest. SOO i had that to deal with. My mom had a real hard time dealing with him being such an alcy. (<-- is that the right spelling even?) I tried to stay strong for my mother most of my life, i couldn't stand the fact that she was so hurt. So I tried being her rock of Gibraltar. Well at 15 they had divorced for the 2nd time, my step dad was now in my life, not a bad guy just didn't understand me. (lol funny now, cause i don't blame him.)

The day i turned 16 i moved in with my dad. My mother had been so repressed in being happy for 20 yrs, she totally gave up on me to make herself happy. (Kinda applies to what goes through most of our heads don't it?) So now im 27 and haven't talk to my mom in about 5 yrs. Its ok. Don't be sad, its most likely for the best. She has way more issues goin on then i do. ( Hard to imagine that at this point, but so true none the less.)

Moving in with the ol man, NEVER worked out, it was always fighting and his drinking and all that crap.

So as u can kinda get the picture, my childhood was sooo busy that i never had got the chance to work on me. I can tell u this...for those of you that are dealing with this now, i feel sorry for ya, i know what im goin through and i know it may not be exactly the same, but it is none the less the same.

So eventually i emancipated my self and got out of all the bad parental problems that were bothering me.. SO yay for step one right? NOPE.. Now i get to be thrown into a world of bills and rent and bills and school and bills and work,work,work. So no time to work on me again.

I have come to realize that i have spent so much time on what i call "survival" that i really haven't known myself very well. Cause after school i moved to a more northern part of -Missouri- (winks, u know who u are. lol). So i had this HUGE adjustment. I had been in these tiny little uber conservative, hard core old testament people kind of towns, to big city and outward thinking type of area.

Can u say culture shock? Go ahead, it might make u feel better. It has me. I realized that the house of cards i had built had slowly started to crumble once i moved to a more liberal area. Basically i was completely unaware of anything outside my poor little hillbilly town i had grown up in. So i was learning how to interact with different people and learning as quick as i could about the world i never knew existed..

Now don't get me wrong, I realized that there was more to the world than what i knew. I felt it all the time. I was soo different in school. I got called a fairie all the time. I didn't know why though. People thought that i was gay. I didn't see why. People thought that i was socially shy and backwards. I never thought so. So i never dealt with it. Remember, i had other problems back at home and all that was more important.

Once i moved i got involved with a gal, had the best child anyone could ever ask for. ( just for the record, its a whole different story watching a child being born as a guy, when u feel differently, and the person giving birth is your significant other. Im just saying, putting that out there. lol)

So this leads me to where i am today. Not completely confused, but scared out of my mind none the less.

There is no real doubt in my mind that i probably should have been born a girl. But on hand number two, I wasn't.

Ive dealt with my life wrong. I should have understood that i have a real gender problem yrs ago. But hear i am at 27 and really starting to realize that i hadn't dealt with these feelings. Work provides a free phone counseling service. I called them and immediately told the random person on the other end ( how uncomfortable) that i needed someone who can talk about and deals with gender issues. They transfered me to a psychologist ( only after a 15 minute wait which felt like i was standing on an emotional fire that kept wanting me to put that phone down and try and forget again). The lady on the other end asked questions and listened and talked about things just as i assumed they would. The also told me to go to a website to look for therapists that deal specifically with gender (lgbt-friendly preferred). After about 1 and half hrs of talking they said that they thought i had all the "signs" of transexualism and need to see a local counselor. My thoughts were thank you for the help, but i knew that and am scared to death of what i thought and what u just told me. I had did a lot of soul searching before i had ever made that call. ( And a local therapist is in the works, and ill keep u posted on that)

The problem i am really struggling with is.. I know how i feel..but that just really scares the crap out of me. My gal is so close to graduating college ( i just told her about this 2 days ago, and she dealt with it a lot better than i. THANK GOD) that i don't wanna screw up her chances at having a successful life and career. I also don't want my 3 yr old to hate my guts. Cause honestly, i think i could transition and make it, but when u get to looking at honest statistics of people who complete and entire transition ( which is what i would want) then u start seeing numbers like 70% suicide rate and all that. NOW I KNOW that is probably not near true, but OMG OMG OMG, thats so scary. It really makes me feel comforted to see u have a suicide prevention plan (per say) in place here. I can't imagine how many people across the *GLOBE* that it has helped. It took major courage for me to tell my girl, and to come here has been easier and im so happy that pple have somewhere to go..

I don't know if i really do wanna transition. Im comfortable being with who i am with and being in my childs life and having the friends i have. Sad part is, is that i know that i have built all this sort of falsely. Im coming to realize that now, and its a hard place to be. I don't have an urge to cross dress, i don't care about makeup, or any of the things like that, that u see when u look at a majority of women. Ive always been androgynous, as long as i can remember. I just never questioned why i was. Now it seems so stupid for me not to have questioned it. Which is bothering me as well. We all look around and see people all day long perfectly content on being themselves, then we look within ourselves and see this total conflict and it doesn't seem to make sense.

This is where i think real "life management" comes into play. You must come to terms that this is your life and u are gonna have to make choices of what it is u want out of it.( just noticed me shortening some words, lol, sorry bad habit i suppose) So like everyone here, and i know every last person will agree on this, "You just wanna feel like you." Forget the labels, for the terms, forget that u do things that pple of the other gender do, forget that u have more interest with one sex or the other. Strip away all the things that don't make sense until u get to a point where its just yourself and who are u. Its been a huge massive battle for me. I'm like oh well i like fast cars that means im a guy. or I like steak and A1 so i must be a guy. Or how about I really like women because i enjoy them just being them and no guy can do that....Right? Not so much. I'm realizing that all that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with my current gender, vs. the gender my brain is. So that leaves me to where im in a huge conflict. My brain runs who i am and nothing can change that. My body is what it is. But that i can change. Changing my body means losing my girl, my kid, my friends, my house, my car, im in bankruptcy, huge epic disastrous work comp thing, a little poor, being sued by someone i was in a car wreck by, and on top of it all ( just like spaghetti, and i might fix that for dinner) im so scared to be me cause i just can't stand to hurt anyone. I have been hurt for yrs in life and the last thing i wanna do is blast everyone around me with "I LOVE YOU AND IM A GIRL". Its just so hard to try and make a decision on who u need to be. I can't sit here and tell everyone, be who your head says and your life will be rainbows and kittens, cause in reality once youve made that change, life is gonna go back to normal cause your just another person. Which is really what i can imagine most want anyway. Heck i do. I just wanna be happy. And not have the feeling of being something other than what i am.

Like i said, most if your very honest with yourself will know the answer of who you are. I hope that helps and is comforting to a degree. I know it doesn't change the fact that your in a role that doesn't match what your brain tells you. Im not saying that it will even give u the courage or is the correct thing to do -transition-, cause im in the same boat. I don't know what to do. I can't stand the thought of hurting the pple i love most. It does aggravate u and make u bitter to a degree. U get to see happy people all the time, heck even those that are in bad situations or are having marital problems...At least they get to have those problems. I feel like i get to have problems of having problems of problems.. NOT EVEN related to a degree of normalcy that we all seek in some way or another

So how do you deal with the fact that you know you were born the wrong gender, and everything u thought u know was just not true. Let me explain that one a little bit too. If your life was so bad that u can't remember a lot of your childhood then well u ain't thinking about it. U have always been a christian, so what now? U have never understood LBG issues and now u find yourself in a position where u know who u were suppose to be and realize that it would mean you would be a total lesbian ( maybe a little androgynous, which is kinda cute IMO). Nothing makes sense anymore. I look at myself and it don't make sense. I know a GT is the only real answer to these questions. But i had to come here and let u all know. I felt that i have been through so much in my life that it has made me such a strong person, that i know i have something to offer to pple. I have seen it in your posts. I have felt the ways u have felt. Ive thought the things u have thought.

I hope that anyone who reads this can honestly see that this is real, whether u accept it now or later, its nonetheless something thats gonna have to be dealt with inside each and every one of us.. Im really sorry its like that. I know none of us asked for this. But look on the brite side, NONE OF US ASKED FOR THIS. We are all in it together and well get through it. Everyone here has to be some of the strongest pple ive ever seen. I know its been hard. I know u question everything u can possibly imagine in life. I am though VERY confident that whatever it is that guides your path that u will make the correct decision and just don't be afraid to really be hard on yourself to question what u know and who u are. In the end it is you and only u that knows who u are.. So if you gotta live a life for however long that may be, then be the best dang person that u can. Noone wants to live with regrets, thats why im here too. So know every night when u go to bed that your not alone.

Till we meet again

Evenclose

[Guest N.Chaos]

Hey, I wish I could give you advice or say something to help, but I'm just as confused as you and the rest of us. Just know that even though I'm an all-but-anonymous name on here, I'm here. In at least the vaugest sense, we're together in this, all of us, whichever level of lost or confused or upset we're on.

I do have to say, your post made me cry, which is quite a feat...

I feel stuck too, if that helps.

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

I uderstand your feelings, Evan close...many of us do..

I think that N.Chos said it .... In at least the vaugest sense, we're together in this, all of us, whichever level of lost or confused or upset we're on.

Hang in there, hopefully answers will come...

HUGGS

Donna Jean