Why It's Easy To Talk Here...

[Guest Jeannine Bean]

It's hard for me to take it for granted that any non trans people could "get it." And when people say they do, then they make certain comparisons to other things, I realize they don't.

I think the most frustrating thing to me is the feeling of isolation and being locked inside myself. As one blogger elegantly put it, to the whole world, we're not actually real. Because if my identity were real to anyone else, then a whole slew of societal treatments towards me would have to change. And funny enough, if I ever "pass" very well then they do change... basically what's real to people is what they see.

So I find myself in discussions with people sometimes that devolve quickly into me saying "you don't get it." And them, "yes I get it, I always wished I was taller!"..

I am bald. I know the normal things people have to put up with. I was socially awkward most of my life. My grandfather once touched me inappropriately, my mom was abusive, and I was nearly killed in a car wreck and took extra time getting through college as a result of that and my father having a terminal illness. We lost our family home, I nearly starved in college. I sunk a lot into a business I worked to build. After years of R&D out of my own pocket and legal fees, my patent application was denied and things don't look good for revising it. I think I have a pretty good taste of the things that life entails in general.

For me being trans differs drastically in scope from any of those things, because whereas those things don't intrude on my personal sense of bodily identity (even the abuse eventually stopped, and didn't cause any permanent alteration of my body), being transsexual is a hardcore dissonance between basic instinct and body. It's closer to having a limb or two cut off than anything else I can think of. I doubt that most people can grasp the experience of moving from the most basic and simple feelings, only to discover, every single moment, a body completely alien, brick walls of impossibility of self expression, and the isolation that your identity doesn't exist for anyone outside yourself.

It's frequently re-traumatizing to me. Like those rats with the dinked around hormonal baths, their instincts to copulate being completely altered to the other sex, and thus impossible to satisfy. Maybe they did not have the complex human capacity to project into the future or tell stories about it, but it's hard to imagine they were very happy.

Anyways, that's all just to say, if I hear one more person say, "well no one has everything they want," I think I'm going to give them an earful.

[:-)

Yea. Okay, sorry. My girlfriend told me she's breaking up with me. I basically had a bad month. We went out camping and I was down that weekend. Then I became quite agitated another time we went hiking. Then, in the last couple of weeks, as I was feeling better, I find out I have heart problems and I was stressed about that and went to the hospital with chest pain. She doesn't want to deal with all this. She said her mind's made up. Too much for her.

I guess what's frustrating is that her words echo, almost word for word, things I was told by the last woman I felt this way about, maybe six or seven years ago. I've done a lot of therapy and counseling, and bodywork therapy and deep introspection since then. I thought things would be different. I have dated people in between, but I really believed I was in a very good place going into this one.

I know that being transsomething means that sometimes I have a hard time, and that makes it difficult to be around me. But I find it extra painful that coming from one of the best times in my life, living a years-long dream of being in Asia... going into this with a lot of faith in myself, this still fell apart in just a few months... for the same reasons it always did.

Meh!

--Jeannine

[Sally]

I will not tell you that nobody gets everything that they want - you've heard that enough and you know it to be true.

I am going to tell you that I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who walks away from a partner because they can't cope with their problems - particularly health problems - you are having a heart condition studied at the moment and now is when she choses to leave - well I hope the door doesn't hit her on the way out.

That sounds harsh and it is you deserve so much more in a relationship.

I could never walk out on someone who needs me, I never have and I never will - I have been burned too many times to count by their departure after the healing - they went for someone younger, richer, better looking it didn't matter when they were through using me they left and I am better off for their being gone.

I will never change, I am by nature a caring person and one day I will find the right one or not, I am defined by who I am and not my job or my relationships just by me - a kind hearted, caring nurturing woman with almost supernatural maternal instincts - in short a good person and that is enough for me.

You are agood person and someday someone else will notice.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Hey Jeannine,

Yeah, the ups and downs of life, living and loving, being transgendered, sometimes they conflict. You reflect on your life, that is really good. Reflection leads to purity and understanding. Why is it so good to talk here? Well we understand as you know. For myself, I have lost everything because of who I am. I know the pain, the self-realization, the hope, the reality.

Love

bernii

[Guest 1charlotte1]

I was once told that the best times of our life are when it is the crappiest, I have not lived very long, but I have suffered... As far as I have lived I can however say that a lot of your life is similar to mine. I was sexually abused by a babysitter, when I got in trouble my parents would hit me and throw anything near them at me (this no longer happens, but I can not trust them as a result) and two of my family members have died of terminal illness. My grandfather Richard and my uncle will. During the time that I was around the ages of thirteen and fourteen I tried to kill my self a total of seven times. Pills twice self mutilation three times and suffocation twice. I had open heart surgery last summer (my option instead of the operation was two pills a day for the rest of my life) and during this operation I died and they brought me back. That is all the crap I have put up with so far (not to mention having to live as a man) and I am only 17! I truly am sorry that anyone has had a life anything like mine. However, I always make it through and I always find a solution so I can be happy. I'm 100% confident that u will do the same and I say this because I can tell u are a better person than I!

Hug!! Luvs, Charlotte

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Ahhhh - the heck with it - no kind, loving words tonite, just brutal honesty.

You write: being transsexual is a hardcore dissonance between basic instinct and body

AMEN TO THAT! God help us - its sooooo HARD being transsexual.

We muddle through - its been a better than usual day, I am sorry you are down and...

really do....

wish you a better tomorrow.

Thank GOD we can finally become the person we are supposed to be... and you are 100% correct

NOBODY understands - except people like you and me. I know what you mean almost before you write the first sentence - I GET IT! Why? I also live it.

Love you!

Lizzy

[Guest Sarah Marie]

Hello, Jennine --

I can't understand people who walk out on people when they are down. That behavioral urge simply has never existed within me. Her actions suggest a shocking overall inner shallowness that, to me, suggests that you may very well be better off letting her move on. Sometimes in life, the toughest road is the best road.

Like Sally, I never have been a quitter. For me, I performed at least some of the functions of a care giver from 1968 (my 8th grade year) through 1987 (when my mother died at the age of 57) to 1997 when my father was placed in a nursing home. I didn't feel freedom from my responsibilities to my dad until he passed away in 1999. I sacrificed everything -- friendships, a career, a life of my own, a chance at transitioning in my late 20s or early 30s, even my emotional and physical health.

Many (most?) kids would have walked away decades earlier than I did. Indeed, there were several points in time when walking away from my family would have been the rational thing to do. Yet I didn't because my parents had no one else in the family to turn to for the help that they needed. I didn't because I felt not walking away was the honest, moral path to take.

I agree that it truly isn't possible for the non-transsexual community to actually understand our reality or our unique needs. Try describing what it feels like to have the heart of a deeply compassionate woman beating inside a masculine body. I have been trying for years to find an analogy that captures that feeling, and I am still looking. Try describing the feeling of looking in the mirror and not recognizing the face looking back at you because, inside, you know it isn't yours. No, only other transsexuals can come close to understanding where any of us is coming from.

One final though about your girlfriend: in light of everything you are wrestling with, could it be that she is wanting to walk away because she is feeling overwhelmed by everything right now?

The good news is that, here at the Playground, you are connected to a community of caring, compassionate, concerned people who are accepting of you, no matter what your life situation or what you are struggling with.

Hugs,

Sarahmarie

[Guest Deeedoo]

I understand and I don't understand at all. Because I am androgynous, I will never be at peace with my body, but because I am androgynous, part of my body is already correct, and I feel fine on some days. I can feel my penis, I can't touch it. Many times, I wish I were born male.

I would never leave anyone because of their problems; they would have to leave me. I develop strong attachments and I am loyal to people I trust. I cannot comprehend why people leave. It hurts when Skyy is sad, but I have never thought of leaving. That's like leaving a baby because it cries and you can't deal with it. I have a hard time when my baby brother is sad, but I stay and try to make it better.

I want to help you. Instead of making my post all about facts, I want to tell you what can help. Play comforting music and snuggle up in your blankets. Imagine being held by a kind, loving, maternal spirit. It may make you cry at first because you'll realize how much pain you were in. Just don't think about anything else and go to sleep happy. That's what I do sometimes.

[Guest Jeannine Bean]

God you folks are just so darned nice. I know I say it again and again, but the internet never felt like this to me. It actually feels like we all accept that we're talking to real people and we treat each other well.

Amazing!!!

Ahhhh - the heck with it - no kind, loving words tonite, just brutal honesty.

You write: being transsexual is a hardcore dissonance between basic instinct and body

AMEN TO THAT! God help us - its sooooo HARD being transsexual.

We muddle through - its been a better than usual day, I am sorry you are down and...

really do....

wish you a better tomorrow.

Thank GOD we can finally become the person we are supposed to be... and you are 100% correct

NOBODY understands - except people like you and me. I know what you mean almost before you write the first sentence - I GET IT! Why? I also live it.

Love you!

Lizzy

Lizzy, you bring a little water to my eyes and make me want to give you a big warm hug!

And tomorrow was a better day, BTW

;-)

--Jeannine