A Crazy Making Process

[Guest NatashaJade]

Hallo dear ones,

I can’t say that this has been one of my best weeks ever. Here’s the problem. I hear everything that people say to me or about me in regards to my transition with a negative spin. It’s like there’s this voice in my head that completes their sentences in a way that makes me feel like I am under attack. I know people are genuinely concerned and absolutely care for me. What I often hear, however, is doubt that I know what I am doing or understand the implications of the path I have chosen. When I hear that doubt, I amplify it in my head to the point that I want to scream that people must think I’m completely daft and tell them that if they cannot trust that I know what I am doing then they must not trust me and if they don’t trust me then why would they want me in their lives. And I know this is the wrong way to think and the wrong way to take honest questions, but I have become somewhat irrational in my defensive thinking.

This got totally out of hand on Friday night when my wife and I were having one of our discussions. She began by asking if I would mind if she went to speak to my GT without me so she could ask some questions that she felt I might respond badly to if I heard them. I had two reactions. First, I kind of freaked out because if I cannot be completely open and honest with my therapist, I see no point in seeing that person. I have probably been more open with this therapist than I have with any other mental health professional in my life. It’s not that I don’t want my wife to see her, it’s that I don’t want to feel that something I shared when I was venting about this or that would come out and then I wouldn’t feel right venting anymore. So then I asked her what kind of questions and she got into this notion that as I am an excellent performer, it might be possible that I was just performing in some manner for my GT to get the diagnosis I wanted and it was maybe possible that I was pursuing transition as a means of disposing of myself because I have always had a deep self-loathing. She wanted to know how my GT knew for certain that her diagnosis was the correct one.

And then I lost it.

I started to say out loud all of the negative thoughts that my defensive barrier created. I started to attack her for even believing for a moment that this was something I had made up, but everything I said came out the wrong way and I quickly went from angry-defensive to almost catatonic crying. I couldn’t breath and couldn’t speak because I had this booming voice in my head that said over and again, “EVERYTHING YOU SAY COMES OUT WRONG,” and when I tried to open my mouth to speak, I couldn’t say anything. I wanted to talk, but that voice would cut me off.

I really cannot say how long this went on for. I only know that my wife was freaking out and wanted to call an ambulance or my GT because she didn’t know what to do or say. After whatever period of time passed, I found a few words that I could allow myself to say and began to open up a bit more, but it took a good long while and it was one of the worst moments of my life. While I never felt like I wanted to die, I did feel like I couldn’t be here because I was the cause of so much grief. I just wanted to run away (which I’ve done before). But I didn’t and I won’t.

I needed to have this moment, this painful cathartic moment to understand that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to others and how they feel. They’re just trying to figure this all out and I have been putting up this effective barrier when I feel that they are not totally 100% supportive, which is unfair of me. I need to be open to how people are feeling if I expect them to be open to me. While this is not harder for them, it is hard and I must allow that it took me a good long time to get over my hang-ups and issues about being a transsexual. It’s going to take them some time as well. I need to allow other people to feel what they are going to and work it out.

Aside from all of that, I think I am allowing my novel to be over and done. And while there will be more to the story, it can exist in another volume. This is a major life accomplishment for me and I am excited about the possibilities of publishing it. I hope other people think it is as good as I think it is.

Finally, I am finding that being a transsexual is really really complicated. The more I read from others going through this and the more I think about the implications for myself and all the things that I must do and ways that I must work through this, it boggles me that anyone ever comes out the other side. If people really knew all that we must go through, they would never think it something frivolous or irrational. It’s a crazy making process and it affects some of us in a very negative way, to the point that our self-loathing is too much to bear and we lash out at others or even ourselves. For some of us, it is the most liberating time of our lives and we find the peace and positive life vision that we never had before. For me? It’s a mixed bag. I neither see the glass as half-full nor half-empty. I see a glass with water in it that could have more and will soon have less, but can always be refilled as needed. I’ll make it through all of this in my own way and in my own time. As always, I’ll take the scenic route.

This week, try to turn a negative experience into something positive and don’t eat all the Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters come to your door.

love to you all

Virginia

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

Tough stuff, Gin.....ain't it?

My wife also has accused me, on several occasions, of feeding answers to my therapist to just get my HRT...it really made me angry....

I had never seen a therapist in my life before seeing one for this, and once I got my letters, I haven't seen one since. Besides, she has no idea what I told the therapist, so, why the accusations?

Like you, I told my therapist my deepest, darkest secrets and held nothing back...he determined that I was, in fact, Transsexual.. and gave me letters accordingly.

Sometimes I feel that many of those around us want us to please them and not so much ourselves..

Us transitioning stirs the pot and changes the status quo...

How dare we?

Donna Jean

[Carolyn Marie]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Gin. I'm glad you came through it in one piece, and are at a place where you can talk

to us about it calmly and rationally. I can only imagine how much your wife's inquiry must have hurt.

If my wife asked to see my G.T. without me, I would probably freak a bit too, and I seriously doubt I would allow it. I doubt

my G.T. would allow it either. There is no way that a therapist could see a spouse, alone, and not risk divulging confidential

information. Without it, what would be the point? Your therapist was hired by you to treat you, not treat your wife. What if

your G.T. saw your wife as a patient? They would then be forbidden from telling you anything about it, leading to you being

paranoid about what was discussed.

No, you had the right to be upset.

I hope things get back to some semblance of normalcy.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest kelise]

Once upon a time, a woman left her village to go on a long journey. As she traveled her path, she came to a bridge. An troll appeared from beneath the bridge and said, "Ye cannot cross my bridge until ye answer my riddle! Answer me wrong however, and ye shall DIE!!" The woman agreed to try the troll's riddle, so the troll asked, "In the middle of the village, Trantasia, there is a great house. What color is it's door?" The woman grew very excited, as she had come from the village of Trantasia, and knew the house well. "Red," she answered, "the door is red." The troll clapped his hands at her correct answer and allowed her to cross the bridge. When she got to the other side, she found a WiFi connectionj and sent an email to everyone in the village of Trantasia. It said, "if you wish to follow me on my journey, you will come to a bridge, where a troll will ask you the color of the door of the great house in our village. Simply tell him the door is red, and he shall let you pass." When the people of Trantasia heard this news, they all packed their bags and hurriedly followed the woman's path, one-by-one. As each approached the bridge, the troll appeared, and asked "In the middle of the village, Trantasia, there is a great house. What color is it's door?", to which each person answered proudly, "Red!", and was allowed to cross the bridge. After several had crossed, the troll became annoyed, and to the next lady who answered correctly, he screamed, "You only knew that because somebody TOLD you the door was RED!! You may NOT cross my bridge! Go home!" The lady didn't know what to do. She had grown up in Trantasia and saw the door many many times, and knew it was red before she had even heard of the troll and his bridge. So she kicked the troll's donkey over the bridge and went on her merry way down the path after the others.

[Guest NatashaJade]

Tough stuff, Gin.....ain't it?

I don't think we can make it clear enough to others just how tough this is for us. It isn't easy and every success is hard won.

How dare we?

Most of us don't dare. For years we tell ourselves that we dare not. When we do dare, when we are finally crazy brave and begin this, then we have to start fighting the fight every day to justify our brave journey.

How dare we? With all our hearts and souls.

love

Gin

[Guest NatashaJade]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Gin. I'm glad you came through it in one piece, and are at a place where you can talk

to us about it calmly and rationally. I can only imagine how much your wife's inquiry must have hurt.

To be honest, I gave serious thought to giving up. I felt that if the person who has been through this along side me had this much doubt, then maybe I shouldn't even try. I was hanging onto the edge by my fingernails and I felt like they were breaking. It took everything in me to climb back up. To be fair, she helped me.

No, you had the right to be upset.

It's not a matter of having the right. It's a matter of how I take things. There's upset and then there's massively, destructively defensive. I need to learn to respond better or this will be a really traumatic next few years.

I hope things get back to some semblance of normalcy.

They are. I went to Costco today and picked up a pair of those camisoles you told us about. I love my wife and we tend to solve things rather than letting them fester too long. We're working on it.

love

Gin

[Guest NatashaJade]

Once upon a time...

Thank you for that. It was perfect.

Love

Gin

[Carolyn Marie]

So she kicked the troll's donkey over the bridge and went on her merry way down the path after the others.

Oh, Noooo! That wasn't Shrek's Donkey, was it? Please say it ain't so. Please.

BTW, there was no trans-princess in that fairy tale. What's up with that, Kaira? Hmmmmm?

Carolyn Marie

(sorry, Gin, you can have control of your thread back now)

[Guest NatashaJade]

Oh, Noooo! That wasn't Shrek's Donkey, was it? Please say it ain't so. Please.

BTW, there was no trans-princess in that fairy tale. What's up with that, Kaira? Hmmmmm?

Carolyn Marie

(sorry, Gin, you can have control of your thread back now)

Carolyn...now Shrek is an ogre, not a troll. Trolls do come in all forms, however. We meet concern trolls all the time. They offer advice that is counter-productive to our purpose, but they care.

I would like to toss their donkeys...

And I have no crontrol of a thread once it is let loose upon the world. It goes where it may.

xoxo

Gin

[Guest KimberlyF]

Gin,

I'm sorry, but this parallels a bit like what happened with me a week ago though I don't think as violently. I'm hoping your relationship can get over this bump but I think your wife kinda laid some cards on the table. There's a difference between being 100% supportive or unsupportive and what she was wanting to do, which was sabotage everything you worked for the last 50 weeks or more correctly, your whole life. She'll just have a few words with the nice GT and straighten everything out. Obviously there's been a mix-up. Maybe she can get your brother to join her and they can both get to the bottom of you?

And I'm no therapist, but I'd guess you'll bring this up with your GT asap about how quickly and violently you reacted to this threat? I think the fear of this whole thing being taken from you sent you into panic mode that scared you deeply. This might not be the kind of thing you can ever learn to control. Believe me, it's just like what I posted about here. It's not the same as an anger management type deal. My guess is this was an attack on your whole being and your brain went into protection mode.

When I started I would not do this without my wife and I do believe I've seen you make statements like you're going on this whole journey together and I felt so happy for you. I'm now at a point where I'm going with or without my wife. You may have to chose which direction you'll take if you already haven't. And I know it sucks. But with each post lately she sounds a bit less thrilled with the journey.

You know you are TS and its really complicated like you said. It's not going to go away. And you're not going to be able to make everyone happy. You have to know that. It seems so much easier to dismiss a brother who doesn't get it than our spouses. And I'm not saying give up hope. I'm saying you have to prepare for the worst, decide your course, and hope for the best.

Kim

[JJ]

Gin,

This couldn't have come at a worse time than right after your encounter with your brother. And that probably isn't a coincidence though I doubt it was a conscious decision.

Your wife is fighting for something vitally important to her. Even when a loved one expresses support and works hard to be accepting it doesn't mean they like it or won't stop it if it looks possible. Or be affected by the same conflicts and questions and failures in understanding that afflict us.

You have fought this so long, and tried so hard to make it okay for everybody as well as yourself, that it is no wonder it all erupted so forcefully. Most of us push our emotions back as a way of handling them so that eventually they just overwhelm us. Your way was actually a healthy release. It's very hard to learn to deal with how we feel and express our emotions in healthy was as they happen when we are already in a situation where there are so many things to deal with and such strong, sometimes conflicting emotion.

My daughter told me yesterday that almost everybody feels that who they see in the mirror is not the real them and that who they are on the outside and inside are different and upsetting even though it isn't about gender. I am verbal, we have discussed trans a lot. She knows the facts and yet-she clearly doesn't actually grasp it. She is my biggest supporter and I can't get the words right to explain so she'll understand. I felt so frustrated and so sad and helpless all at the same time. I felt I couldn't say the words either and quit trying because the more she misunderstood the worse I felt. I understand that voice in your head. We all have it sometims-it just doesn't get so dramatically overwhelming for the most part.

You have come a long way now. You'll make it the rest of the way. I hope your wife will be at your side - if not you will find someone who will be.

Love

John