MtF lying to everyone that I’m a cis woman but it’s created serious issues

[chocolatnoir]

Hi. I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it has gotten to the point where I basically have no one I can talk to about it, and I just made an account here so I could at least reach out about it somewhere.

 

When I say lying to everyone, I mean everyone. EVERYONE. Only my parents and family (as well as my doctors) know that I’m trans, and I lie to them about lying to everyone else that I’m cis, so I can’t tell them about it without being caught in that lie too. I thought this is what I wanted, and I felt so good after I started passing consistently and everyone stopped suspecting I was trans. I wanted to ride that high of people thinking I was a cis woman forever. But this is where it’s gotten me.

 

Of course I’ve cut off everyone who knew me before my transition or before I started going completely “stealth.” I have no trans friends and I actively distance myself from the trans community whenever possible to keep people from suspecting that I’m trans. I feel like I even have become kind of transphobic because my determination to be seen as a woman in every way has become toxic and filled with bitterness and hatred. 

 

After I first started going stealth like this, I had a boyfriend who of course knew about it. But he was a bad guy who fetishized trans women and had a lot of issues. When I broke up with him he knew that this secret was a power he held over me. So he tried to tell a bunch of people who knew me and expose me as trans so he could get back at me, which was terrifying. I was able to dismiss what he said as slander that he made up and it didn’t spread very far, but I ended up dropping a lot of the people involved anyway because their exposure to what he said felt like a hazard.

 

It’s no exaggeration to say that this was a traumatic experience (that’s not even the half of what this man did to me). And of course the consequence was that my self-hatred for being trans only increased along with my determination to keep it absolutely secret. I started dating men online who I even lied to about being cis. I dated one guy for almost two years without him ever finding out that I was trans. I have an online boyfriend now who I actually really like and I trust and I want to tell him but I’m terrified because I’ve become so emotionally dependent on him that if I lose him I feel like I will completely collapse mentally. We have plans to meet in a few months and it’s going to be hard to keep it from him so the moment of truth is probably coming soon. I’m not sure when and how I should do it which is part of why I’m posting here.

 

I also lie to my therapist about it. She thinks that I’m cis. She’s a great therapist and I tell her basically everything, but I carefully filter all of it specifically to avoid any mention of being trans and to reframe my problems in different ways. I do this with all my friends and my boyfriend as well. It is exhausting. My mental health is deteriorating lately due to being incredibly hard on myself in general, and a lot of what fuels that is the way I have been incredibly strict with keeping my true identity a secret. 
 

I don’t know what to do. I can’t imagine a life where people know that I’m trans anymore. I don’t mean to sound conceited but I pass so well that whenever I tell someone, it’s a terrifying experience. I told a male nurse a while ago and it wasn’t in the chart he was looking at so he was surprised. He looked visibly unnerved, taken aback, shaken and disturbed. He was nervously laughing and saying he never would have guessed. I feel like my very existence makes people, especially men who are insecure about their sexuality, paranoid and scared that any woman they know might be trans. It’s a -censored- terrible feeling, like any time I tell someone who I am, I risk tearing their world apart and provoking some kind of hostility. My current boyfriend is a good guy who is supportive of trans issues but he’s also straight and it’s hard to know how he will truly react to all of this.

 

I can go on and on cursing the world but truly I feel like I have no one to blame but myself. I feel as though I am a coward and a bad person. I’m not religious but I keep feeling like I’m committing some mortal sin by living a lie inside of a lie inside of a lie. It’s not being trans that I have a problem with, I would never regret transitioning in a million years, it’s that I wish I had the strength to be honest about it and I don’t. I’m at a loss and I’m scared. I feel like I’ve completely lost track of what’s moral or isn’t, because I have no one to discuss these choices with. I don’t know what to expect from posting this here, any helpful advice would be a bonus, but at the very least I just needed to vent and I pray that someone doesn’t recognize and expose me again.

[VickySGV]

1 hour ago, chocolatnoir said:

I can go on and on cursing the world but truly I feel like I have no one to blame but myself. I feel as though I am a coward and a bad person

 

I am a recovering Alcoholic and Addict, and one of our sayings is that you are only as sick as your secrets, and maybe your dwelling on the secret nature of yourself is going to make you sick.  For the others like myself, "rigorous honesty is the way to inner peace.  You are not a coward or a bad person, but you are one who is making life harder on yourself by hiding that self.  All that said, I do not go out of my way to advertise that I am Trans, and a large number of people have no real need to know since our relations have nothing to do with my being Trans.  I do participate in the Trans Community, I have done it here for 11 years, and yes I have gotten myself into some really fun and satisfying things on behalf of the community.  I have also taken some grief from doing it, but unless I am doing something obviously Trans related, it does not matter and I do not make a deal of being Trans.  It is fine with me for you to live "under the radar" and I respect your desire to do so, but I will not put myself to the stress that hiding is doing to you even now.  You would not be here if it was not bothering you.  You let one doctor know, bring your therapist into the circle, they are the safest to do it with, and it makes you a complete person who is being rigorously honest, which will boost you along with the other issues you are working on.  It will take some courage, but even though I may sound like I am chewing you out I think you know what you have to do.  I can give examples of who you don't need to come clean with for several paragraphs here, and by all means leave them in the dark, but hiding is what  I tried to do in a bottle that damn near killed me. Please stay and learn to be part of our community of really great people and we will help you along your life way.

[chocolatnoir]

13 minutes ago, VickySGV said:

 

I am a recovering Alcoholic and Addict, and one of our sayings is that you are only as sick as your secrets, and maybe your dwelling on the secret nature of yourself is going to make you sick.  For the others like myself, "rigorous honesty is the way to inner peace.  You are not a coward or a bad person, but you are one who is making life harder on yourself by hiding that self.  All that said, I do not go out of my way to advertise that I am Trans, and a large number of people have no real need to know since our relations have nothing to do with my being Trans.  I do participate in the Trans Community, I have done it here for 11 years, and yes I have gotten myself into some really fun and satisfying things on behalf of the community.  I have also taken some grief from doing it, but unless I am doing something obviously Trans related, it does not matter and I do not make a deal of being Trans.  It is fine with me for you to live "under the radar" and I respect your desire to do so, but I will not put myself to the stress that hiding is doing to you even now.  You would not be here if it was not bothering you.  You let one doctor know, bring your therapist into the circle, they are the safest to do it with, and it makes you a complete person who is being rigorously honest, which will boost you along with the other issues you are working on.  It will take some courage, but even though I may sound like I am chewing you out I think you know what you have to do.  I can give examples of who you don't need to come clean with for several paragraphs here, and by all means leave them in the dark, but hiding is what  I tried to do in a bottle that damn near killed me. Please stay and learn to be part of our community of really great people and we will help you along your life way.

Thanks so much for your reply. I think what you say is right. Part of why I have trouble with this is ironically that in every other respect I am a very open person and even have a tendency to overshare. I have struggled with addiction and alcoholism in the past too as well as many mental health issues and I try to be transparent about it. I still have some issues with addiction actually but I won’t go into that here. I have avoided addiction recovery communities after having a brief and disappointing experience with Narcotics Anonymous which is probably unfair of me.

 

Initially when I went stealth I resolved that I would at least be open about being trans to anyone who asked me or if it was relevant. But people didn’t ever ask me and after mentioning it in a few situations made things awkward, I just felt like I might as well avoid it completely in my social interactions, but this significantly limits what I can talk about. So I rewrote my entire life history as a cis woman and I share things in those terms, which I’ll admit has allowed me to have many wonderful and fulfilling interactions, even though they’re based on lies. And despite living a lie like this, I have actually been doing better in almost every way after going stealth than I was when I was open about being trans.

 

When I was open about it I felt terribly stigmatized and like whenever I talked about it I was humiliating myself. But now I get to go extended periods of time where I essentially don’t think about being trans at all. I think I have had a lot of internalized transphobia from the beginning which contributes to this. Like I said before, the feeling of being a cis woman is kind of addicting to me. I have always simply wished that I was just a cis woman. It was like a dream when I got to live that way, but I have never really recovered from my self-hatred, I have only bottled it up and hidden it and no matter how much I pretend that it doesn’t exist, it always eventually comes back to me and just hurts that much more.

[Kelly2509]

Living in hiding to that degree for an extended period of time is VERY hard and I do understand the stress that can put on a person.  I spent over 30 years kind of doing the opposite of what you have going on, hiding as a cis man, and the stress drove me to all kinds of bad places.  I won't get into the details here, but eventually I realized I could have to walk the earth for 40 more years (give or take) and I couldn't do it anymore, I had to take the mask off and allow people to see me instead of the person I had tried to make them see.  Getting to that point was SUPER HARD.

 

I don't think you're a coward or a bad person either, the world/society we live in is engineered to discourage us from being open about things like this, and your experience of having the threat of being outed by the ex would absolutely be scary AF.  But not everyone needs to know you're not cis.  Take your time to gather up the courage to talk to the people you really care about who you don't want to hide from (I know, easier said than done!) and have those conversations.  It'll be a huge load off your shoulders, or at least it was when I finally did it.  I mean, at the very least your health care team should probably be in the know so they can do their jobs effectively.  The rest of the world doesn't need to know.

 

Best wishes as you work your way through this. ❤

[KathyLauren]

I made the decision early on that I did not want to live in "stealth mode".  After 62 years of hiding who I was, I'd be darned if I was going to step out of one closet right into another.  Like Vicky, I don't go out of my way to tell people I am trans.  I am sure that many of them can figure it out, and that is fine with me.  Since I mostly don't talk about it, neither do they.  But it isn't a secret, and if the subject comes up, I am fine with talking about it.  And, of course, I an happy if I am treated as just another woman.

 

This is one of those things that everyone needs to decide for themselves.  I only know one trans person who chose to live stealth.  She almost pulled it off, until she was outed by her dental hygienist.  (Apparently male and female teeth are different.  Who knew?)  That is the trouble with secrets: they work until they don't.  (My friend was lucky: no one minded.)

 

It sounds like the stress of secrecy is getting to you.  It gives anyone who learns the secret power over you.  The way to disarm that power is to remove the secrecy.  No one can threaten me with revealing that I am trans.  My response would be, "So what?  Everyone knows that already."

 

One useful place to start is with your therapist.  They can start helping you to deal with the stress and perhaps plan to what degree and to whom you might want to reveal yourself, while still maintaining client confidentiality.

 

BTW, I love your username.  I am a big fan of dark chocolate!

[Charlize]

One of the first trans people i knew was an FTM who was a dear college friend and our sons god mother prior  to his transition.  He was so insistent on being stealth that he moved from San Francisco to NY so no-one would know his previous life.  We still heard from him at Christmas when he sent our son presents.  As he was dying from cancer we went for a brief visit.  He had two memorial services.  One in a NY bar, he had frequented, where no-one knew and one in SF.  

I think he was essentially lonely and quilty for being himself.  

Like Vicky i am in recovery and honesty is paramount.   It has taken time but today i can actually honestly say i'm proud to be me....... a trans woman in recovery.  I pass in the world but those close to me know.  Being here has helped immensely as did honesty with my therapist and health care team.

Welcome to our group. 

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[Carolyn Marie]

Hon, you've already received some great advice from people who know well about lying to themselves and others, and the pain, anguish and self-loathing that brings.  My best advice is to come clean with your therapist, and if she can help you then you will be on the road to healing.  If she cannot or will not help you, then please seek out a gender therapist who is much more familiar with the issues you bring to the table.  A therapist is no good to you if you will not be truthful to them.

 

Lying begets more lying.  The metaphor it brings to mind is one of digging a deep hole.  At some point the lies will make that hole so big you'll never be able to climb out.  You are making your life a living hell, and only you can make it better.  I wish for you the courage to make the right choices from here on out.

 

HUGS

 

Carolyn Marie

[Kylie]

You’ve received great advice from all who have posted. I love my life as female; echoing what has been said - unless it comes up I simply do not discuss me being trans. I am also ‘passable’ so to speak. But even with that, I am proud of my story - and when the situation presents itself I will share my story. Because our story is what makes us unique and show not only our outer beauty, but inner as well. 
 

You are reaching out via internet, you can always divulge your story here; our eyes are always reading.
 

Be you ♥️ 

[BrandiBri]

My story has been told pretty much by all the comments made by every one here, so I just want to say that you have found a place where you will not be judged, a place where you can feel free to vent and share comments without fear of being put down. 

 

I tried to go stealth right at first, but decided to just be myself and I am by far happier than I ever have been. The choice to begin therapy (which by the way was difficult because I thought I did't need one) was the best thing to happen to me. I agree that you need to talk to your therapist about it. Just starting to open up is liberating. 

 

I wish you luck in whatever decision you make and just remember that your journey is yours alone but you have people here who have your back.

Hugs,

Brandi

[Mary]

You have had some great advice here, but let me just add 2 things:

 

1. You are a woman. Period. Perhaps not average, but no one is actually average. People are born with all sorts of "imperfections". It doesn't make them "not normal". But there's also no need to parade previous issues about - someone who has had a problem, let's say with a kidney, does not tell everyone about it. They are normal people, who happen to have overcome an issue. As have you.

 

2. I must support the advice you have had about speaking to your therapist about it, or finding one who you can speak to about it. These people have seen a whole lot more than you can imagine - they spend their lives doing that. There's nothing you can say that will shock a good therapist. And they are bound by their profession not to divulge to anyone. So you are perfectly safe. But the first time you talk about your identity, it's scary. But actually very important. They can't help you properly if they don't know the whole story.

 

But we are all here on your side - lean on all these broad shoulders (or some not so broad!)

Lots of hugs.

[Red_Lauren.]

I honestly am 50/50 on stealth vs open The people that need to know know, and to the general population I'm a chick with a slightly deeper voice. Which works well for me. 

 

As for pretending to be cis. While I can walk the walk per say. For 35 years I was a hetro straight male, and was good enough to fool every one. There is stuff that no matter what. That none of use will ever deal with. I usually say I've never had kids, or change the subject when it comes to the period stuff. Here is the weird stuff. I have actually gotten more Info about menopause, and tips on how to deal with it. Then I probably would have ever as a man. I just nod my head, and say thank you. 

[Artpetal]

Please tell your boyfriend that you're transgender. It is very important for him to know. If he somehow doesn't like you, then you can move on knowing that he was just someone who judged you. I know it's very difficult to be in the dating world because of this, but as a woman you're pretty popular and you should take advantage of that to feel good about yourself, and seek out only men who are supportive of you. Also, I don't think you should judge yourself by telling us that you 'lied' about being cis. You haven't done anything wrong. It's just that you might need to tell the people who are closest to you because of their own feelings in this equation. The women you talk to in the bathroom at work who are pretty much strangers don't need to know everything. Your distant aunt who, let's pretend, never really liked your mother doesn't need to know everything. Many people can be kept at a distance but not absolutely everyone.