Greetings!

[Samantha2020]

Hi everyone.  Its time for me to let you into my life and share my story.  Like many of you I have been struggling with my gender dysphoria most of my life. My childhood was a time of confusion for me.  I grew up at a time when gender roles were black and white, which didn't reflect how i felt. I tried to play with dolls and was told I should play with trucks. My sister played dress up and I was in envy but couldn't.  Eventually one day my mom cross dressed me for a Halloween contest and something click.  I felt good and normal and I was so happy.  Later on as I grew older and went through my teenage years,  I knew I had a conflict with how I felt and how i was being told to live.  I continued to cross dress during this time using my mom's and sisters clothes.  It helped me calm down and relax.  Eventually, I got caught and was shamed and was told i am a guy and men that dress as women are sick. I quit cross dressing and started drinking alcohol to show everyone how much of a man I was and to mask the pain I was having.  After high school I figured I could cure myself by joining the military and letting them make a man out of me.   Needless to say, it didn't work and my drinking got worse.  After I got out of the military,  I decided to continue cross dressing.   It was in the late 90's and I started browsing the internet for cross dressing sites.  I started learning about trans people and thought seriously about transitioning them.   However,  the requirements to get surgery and HRT were that you had to live as a women for a year or more before you could transition.   I was too unprepared and scared  to do it and wasn't sure I was trans,  so i passed on it and did a 180 and purged everything.  I joined a church and prayed for God to cure me as I was told the feelings I was having were evil and to confess and ask for forgiveness.   I tried this and prayed but I guess God's cure and my cure were different.  Finally, I snapped and couldn't take it and left them and started drinking heavily again. I stopped going to church and decided to go back to school and I started a career in Computer Science.  After graduating and getting a job, i started getting harassed by my co-workers, friends and family to get married. I rarely dated anyone as i was growing up.  I was afraid of my gender conflict secret getting exposed and if I could really be man and leave that in my past.  Eventually, I tried an online dating service and met a lady I could talk to and enjoyed being with.  She too, was late with marriage and we ended up getting married after being together for only 6 weeks.  The marriage lasted 16 years, however it only took about a month for my secret to come out.  Initially, she seemed OK with me cross dressing and feeling the way I do, however I never could feel passion and strong attraction for her because she wanted me to be something I couldn't be. I tried to stopped cross dressing and purged all my clothes we bought together.  However without passion, we grew apart and she divorced me and told me she wanted to be married to man and not a women.  I have been divorced for 4 years now, and then last summer my father got sick with cancer and I had the same cross dressing and feelings of gender dysphoria come back stronger.  I said screw it, this is not going away and I started slowly feminizing myself.  My father passed in November and I loved him deeply.  However he was trans-phobic and would have never accepted me as my true self.  His passing made me think about how short life is and how valuable each day is. I decided I need to transition to be true to myself and the others in my life. I started HRT a month ago and have been seeing a therapist.  My support line of friends and family is non-existent, so my therapist recommended I get involved with online support groups like this site.  I started reading everyone's intros and feel like I can fit in.  Look forward to corresponding with everyone and would like to help out were I can.  

 

Best Wishes on your journey

 

Samantha2020

[Audrey]

Dear Samantha, it's nice to meet you and welcome to the Trans Pulse community. I'm hopeful you'll feel welcome here, this is a very warm and friendly community and I'm sure you'll make many friends here to support you in your journey. Thank you for sharing such a personal story in your introduction. I'm very sorry to hear about your father's recent passing due to cancer... I imagine your relationship with him was quite complicated because of his feelings about your identity. I relate to many of the same challenges you have faced over the years, such as wondering about my gender identity during childhood, the contradictory nature of my feelings vs. what the world was telling me, putting on a facade, drowning pain with alcohol, and discovering the transgender community online at a younger age and questioning whether I was or wasn't trans. Sorry to hear about your divorce as well - but you're right, it's impossible to be someone you are not. I tried that too and paid a high price of years of depression, anxiety, and failed relationships. All that said, I'm so happy to read that you've come to a point in your life where you are living authentically and how wonderful that you recently started HRT. I'm looking forward to getting to know you!

 

Love,

~Audrey.

[Susan R]

1 hour ago, Samantha2020 said:

I joined a church and prayed for God to cure me as I was told the feelings I was having were evil and to confess and ask for forgiveness.   I tried this and prayed but I guess God's cure and my cure were different.  Finally, I snapped and couldn't take it and left them

Hello @Samantha2020, It is truly a pleasure to meet you. I can’t tell you how many key points to your intro rang true to my life story. The quote of yours above is one that I try to explain to ‘religious’ folk who say I am doomed to hell for being myself. I explain to them, probably much like you have in the past, that I gave it my all. I did. My girlfriend at the time and I went to a non-denominational church that preached on being able to heal anything with enough faith and prayer. Shortly thereafter, I called the church pastor and set up a time one evening to meet in the church office. I went there dressed as a man which was hard to do (with what I was going to say) and explained a compressed version of my life story and asked for a healing....the healing that he described. I was prayed upon and I truly believed I was healed. If God was ever going to change me through some miraculous event, it was then. I took a risk, believed I was healed and then a week later I had to be my TRUE self once more. It never goes away...never! You can hid it for awhile, you can learn to live with it sometimes, or you can accept it for what it is...it’s YOU. In any case, it has to be dealt with at some time or another as you have already found. We are all here on a journey to find ourselves and find a place of happiness and fulfillment. That means many different things to many people but the one thing we can’t change is ourselves at our core. Our gender identity, despite the package that everyone sees, never changes. Society grooms us into one of the binary packages that most have come to accept as the ONLY packages available...but we in this community know different.

 

This ‘trying to pray the gender identity crisis away’ hits me every time I read about someone else experiencing it. The righteous religious tell us... “we need to turn away and be cured” but long term I have never seen it to be the case. If God was wanting to change us in this way, coming to him and asking for it with a genuine heart would have been the best time to do it.

 

Well, I’m glad you’ve joined us. You have a great introduction and I’m sure many others here will also enjoy what you’ve wrote as much as I have. Join in the fun!

 

Warmest Regards,

Susan R

[Jandi]

Welcome Samantha.

I can understand lot of you story myself.  I spent a large part of my life trying to force myself into this "Christian" mold.  It didn't work very well for me either.  I had to step away before I could finally accept myself for who I am.  

[DeeDee]

Hi Samantha, pleased to meet you.  

We all have different ways of walking that path to discover who we are and yet there always seem to be a lot of similarities. 

If society was not so narrowminded or full of hubris they wouldn't be so quick to tell others what God is thinking (curious how it always seems to match their point of view) and then we would not spend so much time and energy hiding this part of ourselves and struggling with self acceptance, when the obvious answer is that we are already fine and that's why it doesn't go away, we just need to learn to love ourselves.

Arriving here is good place to meet new folks, keep reading and just join in!

[Timber Wolf]

Hi Samantha,

Welcome to Transpulse. I'm glad you're here!

 

Lots of love and a big welcome hug,

Timber Wolf

[DonkeySocks]

Welcome, Samantha. I am really glad you got out of that destructive cycle of alcohol use to mask your pain. I hope you continue to get better, healthier and happier.

[Carolyn Marie]

Welcome to Transgender Pulse, Samantha.  Thanks for sharing your story.  My condolences on the loss of your father.  I wish you all the best on your journey to womanhood, and hope that you find the friendship and resources here to help you on your way.

 

HUGS

 

Carolyn Marie

[Vanessa Michelle]

@Samantha2020thank you so much for joining the group and for being so open about your struggles and your journey  I can identify with much of it as well. I really felt for you as I read it and I am so proud of you for taking the steps you have and for joining TP. Please feel free to reach out to us and to post as you need to as it does help to chat with others in this process. We also have a Christian channel on here if you are interested in chatting with others in our faith community there. Many of us grew up in the Church and have, just like you found out through trial and error, that God doesn't change our orientation and loves us exactly as we are. I'm so glad you have joined us and I look forward to talking with you more. 

[Samantha2020]

Thanks everyone for the kind words, advice and support.  I feel so lucky to be able to learn from and socialize with women like you.  Look forward to sharing more and getting to experience our journies together.  HUGS  

[Drayse]

On 1/14/2021 at 4:52 PM, Samantha2020 said:

It was in the late 90's and I started browsing the internet for cross dressing sites.  I started learning about trans people and thought seriously about transitioning them.   However,  the requirements to get surgery and HRT were that you had to live as a women for a year or more before you could transition.   I was too unprepared and scared  to do it and wasn't sure I was trans,  so i passed on it and did a 180 and purged everything.

Oof, familer.

 

Isn't it funny how a little time and consideration makes the prospect of HRT and living full time as a woman for a year not only less daunting, but something one might even be impatient to do?

On 1/14/2021 at 4:52 PM, Samantha2020 said:

I have been divorced for 4 years now, and then last summer my father got sick with cancer

 

On 1/14/2021 at 4:52 PM, Samantha2020 said:

My father passed in November and I loved him deeply.  However he was trans-phobic and would have never accepted me as my true self.

For me it was the reverse order. Dad died of cancer and a year later my wife and I separated. This part of your story resonates very deeply with me in ways I cannot really express. Much courage and love to you, my sister.

[Samantha2020]

My love to you also.  Thank you for sharing.  HRT is a blessing for me.  I feel so normal and my dsyphoria has lessened.  I have started loving myself again and embrace the changes that are occurring.  The weight of trying to hide my true self is gone and I am very happy and eagerly look forward to embracing the woman I currently am and will become.  My condolences on your father's death.  Thanks again for reaching out.  Best regards. Samantha