Uncomfortable with being Comfortable

[Guest Emily H]

Where am I know in my journey of womanhood? It’s tough to say, but I think I’ve been stuck at a crossroads for a while now. I feel lost, which I know is common for people my age, but it’s a different kind of lost. I feel my identity lost, I feel almost as though I’ve forgotten whom I am. I’ve stagnated and grown comfortable where I am, but my journey isn’t even close to being finished. But why should that matter- I just said I am comfortable, didn’t I?

I’m not. I’m not where I want to be with myself as far as my body and my expressions go. I’ve transitioned enough to no longer be dark, miserable, and suicidal. I can- and frequently am- happy and hopeful. But there’s a lot about myself that I hate. I hate every trace of masculinity on me- and I don’t mean just the physical. I still have way too many male mannerisms that I haven’t ditched. There are so many times that I legitimately forget that I’m a woman and regress into my old self. It’s very difficult to pinpoint exactly what qualifies as the old me versus the new me, because they are not mutually exclusive. But I know that it happens, and I know from some close friends of mine that it’s noticeable.

When this ‘slip’ in identity happens, I usually realize it after the fact, and it’s very similar to realizing you just gave a speech with your fly down. I feel worried that I let my [my deadname] show, and that I just proved to everyone that I’m not a woman, and I am just faking. I know I’m not faking- there is no doubt in my mind about whom I am or whom I should be. Rather, the issue is that I feel invalidated by my own actions. It’s one thing to have somebody else try to invalidate who I am, but it’s much worse when the problem comes from within.

Maybe that’s why a good chunk of me hopes for some type of confrontation some day- a random passerby calling me a name or even trying to start an argument about my validity. It’d be easier for me to face an external enemy than the one within. Faced with a direct, immediate challenge to respond to, I’d be able to validate myself by standing up for myself and not backing down. I’d feel proud and powerful.

But facing [my deadname]… that is difficult. That is scary, painful. I compare the experience of even acknowledging my male past to stepping in quicksand- yes, the kind you’d see in Indiana Jones and not the real-life kind. It’s where describing my thoughts and emotions would start to sound psychotic. The name [my deadname] shouting through my head from the voices of unidentifiable characters in my past, the rush of horrible, horrible memories of being trapped and living a lie, and the awful feeling of being gross and freakish and just wishing that the girl in my would go away and stop existing.

I can’t just skirt around the quicksand or pretend it doesn’t exist. I have to face it. I have to clean it up. I have to continue moving forward and live my life. I used to live in a shell before I came out and transitioned. Lately, it feels as if the shell has been growing back, but it a different way. I need to stop it from completely overshadowing me.

After just finishing the book Being Emily (great title for me given I am Emily), I realize that I have a really strange feeling of nostalgia for coming out of the closet and starting to transition. During that time, I felt powerful and like I was making progress, despite all of the challenges. Maybe that's what I thrive on- challenge. Now that my life is 'easy' (as far as being accepted goes, and yes, I realize how privileged it is to be saying this), I'm sort of missing hardship. At least I always had a clear next step and a clear problem to overcome.

 That damn book stabbed me in the gut, so here I am spilling my guts.

[VickySGV]

Not everybody needs this, but most people I know actually need to step back and acknowledge their "assigned self" and lead that self to what I think is retirement, and not obliteration or cremation in body and spirit.  My "assigned self" whom I have taken counsel with never did feel that they did anywhere near an adequate job of living life.  I can see more clearly today what was done well and with honor and yes, even love, that was not seen when it happened back then.  In acknowledging and even celebrating what my "assigned self" did, and realistically assessing that life, I find a calmness that gives me a better place in my "True Self" to see what adventure it is that I need to do today.  I have made necessary amends for what  the old self did when harm occurred to others, especially my children.  I know that self today better than I ever did in the past because I am trying to uncover those things that were hidden  in dishonesty, and all too many that were hidden were things that did drag that former me in like a quicksand and hid the good.  Finding that, and there is more than we will ever believe as we begin transition, has given me a greater value to my current life.  The huge lump in the rug where things were hidden is growing smaller as I get to find the old and let it see daylight where it can be evaluated, honored and THEN put behind me as a solid foundation and not a scatter pile of rocks that make me trip on my way to the future.

[tracy_j]

I think things are a little different for everyone, but maybe most get to this stage at times. It's such a push forward that when we get to a point in which great things have been achieved there is a bit of an anti-climax as, in many ways, life is not really so different.

My thinking at the moment is similar in so many ways. I think 'Have I done anything?' and 'Where am I going?'. Granted I am not legally female and not living 100% of time as a woman, but I look at myself and see I am not a man. I am so seldom 100% male now - if fact, on thinking - very very seldom. He does not exist any more! The change is so gradual that I don't even see it until I really look!

Where am I going? As my dysphoria, which was more situational than body, has now been supressed greatly, I am calmer. I think 'where am I going?' is somewhat dependant on social interactions. Many of these are as a woman, and I am becoming more confident in initiating contact as such. Progress is slow but it is still progress!

Tracy