Today marks 6 months since I joined this forum, although I didn’t write my first post until three days later. I wanted to write about where I have come in the past 6 months. Sorry, this one may be my longest one yet. Please feel free to search the threads that I started, since I will make references to them, to learn more about me.
Last year was an extremely difficult year for me. I was working with this psychic who was pressuring me into dating and marriage. I was unemployed. And I was suicidal over my gender issues. I wasn’t planning on actively ending my life, but rather on passively ending it. I was praying to God every day that I would die in some accident and be reincarnated as a girl. I even started researching lifespan calculators and statistics of dying in various accidents, only to my dismay that the odds of dying in an auto accident are only 1% in your entire lifetime, and only like 1 in 1000 that it will occur in the next five years. What a depressing thought. I finally had the gender talk with the psychic on August 8, only for her to tell me that I would be dealt “more male” incarnations in the future, and that “gender confusion comes from the devil” and that I was “unappreciative” of being male. I fired her on August 11, and I saw her for the last time on August 12 when I went there to return some supplies.
I also was researching transgender, transsexual, and transition related stuff on and off since late 2012, and I started getting some answers about what was going on with me. By early September, I was unsure if I was a cross-dresser or a transsexual, or even possibly something else. I googled cross-dresser vs transsexual and discovered a number of old threads on this forum. I eventually decided to post my own such thread, stating a summary of my gender feelings and history. I ended up getting a lot of responses from other transwomen who related to some or all of my story, as well as advice to go see a therapist. At that time I was terrified of seeing a therapist given my experience with the psychic. Although most psychics are charlatans, and therapists are qualified professionals, I lost my ability to place my trust in another person to help me. Remember that even though the psychic is a fraud, I trusted her to help me. She was like a “mock therapist”. I’m sorry to say but it’s one of those things you may not understand unless you’ve actually been there. I was also unemployed for 15 months.
I eventually got more involved in the forum. In mid September, I started a thread about people calling me girl, gay, and cross-dresser. This “girl jokes” thread was probably the most out of place thread I started, and possibly the most confusing thread to read. My purpose for writing this thread was to figure out why anyone would joke about me being gay, girl, or CD, or make more serious such comments, especially since no one had ever seen me cross-dressed. Well, that’s a lie, I let a girl put lipstick on me four years ago, in front of a group of friends, and that may certainly have affected some people’s perceptions of me. Although people making such comments started long before the infamous lipstick event on April 30, 2010. I was also wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, since I have seen threads about people being teased about being gay/girl/CD and where others thought you were gay. Sometimes we hide our gender stuff very well, sometimes we don’t hide it so well. Sometimes we hide it well but we slip up from time to time.
Anyways, I followed the advice to move on to better things and not worry about what others think. My next five threads were all about improving my appearance. By late September/early October I improved the way I shave my beard and now I get a cleaner shave, which bleeds almost never, and is much smoother and easier to cover up. I bought a new wig, new clothes, and got a makeup lesson at MAC. I posted my first pictures and avatar. I took down my avatar because I was afraid some software might link my male picture to my forum profile by linking similar facial features. You can still go to the “New Avatars of our Members” thread under the picture gallery and look for post #499 and find my avatar pic. I have also been practicing makeup at home more frequently. I also spend more timed while dressed at home.
By mid October, I started a new job, and have been gainfully employed for the past 4.5 months. My (passively) suicidal thoughts disappeared by mid October. I feel pretty convinced that firing the psychic, joining this forum, taking steps to improve my appearance, and getting a job all contributed towards removing the suicidal feelings. I think God wanted me to take some steps towards relieving the gender dysphoria before going back to work, because I was certainly in no condition to hold a job in August. If I was working in July or August, I would have probably called in sick a lot, been unproductive, and got fired. In fact, I already had suicidal grade gender dysphoria before I got laid off from my previous job and that affected my ability to perform on that job, and is likely a huge part of why I lost my last job.
I also started communicating via private message to some members here about my gender issues, and about the psychic. I swore to God that I would never post about the psychic on this forum. I was afraid it would somehow out me as being a CD or TG, and I felt like a fool for trusting the psychic for so long and that no one here would understand my relationship with the psychic.
In December, I started a thread about male privilege. This is clearly a hot button for many of us on this forum. This turned out to be a key moment. I personally don’t believe either gender has it better than the other. Some of us disagree and think that men have it far easier than women, and others here believe that women have it far easier than men. Someone from outside the USA called me on my viewpoint, and told me that my viewpoint was obviously that of a white male. I PMed this person and told her that she was being harsh. She replied back that she doesn’t care about the feelings of privileged white males. That triggered another round of suicidal feelings. Once again, I started praying to God that my plane would crash (I was planning on traveling to the east coast two weeks later) and that I would die and be reincarnated as a woman. I sent her another PM saying “Please dear God, amputate my male privilege”. I had trouble sleeping that night, and got only three hours of sleep, and I had difficulty performing at work on December 9. By this point I was pretty much convinced that I am trans and not just a cross-dresser, although I still have doubts sometimes.
By New Year’s I felt comfortable posting on the TS forum, and about the psychic as well. Some of my more recent threads are on the TS forum. I also suffer from severe depression and anxiety, although I have never been officially diagnosed with it nor am I on any meds. When I read an article about “Indirect Dysphoria”, I identified with seven of the eight symptoms there, which are essentially depression and anxiety, and are quite common in transgender people.
I finally feel more comfortable about posting about the psychic. I also learned that I am not alone, and that other transwomen have had similar bad experiences with psychics. Psychics who claim to be able to see into the future and pick on other’s energy, and yet she completely turned a blind eye to my gender issues. The ironic part is that when I first met her in 2008, she saw the girl in me. She told me that I was “half man, half woman”. My feelings at that moment were “man on the outside, woman on the inside”. At that point I was not yet at a point of desperation about my gender issues, so we worked on other things, mainly work and dealing with life.
I still thought I was just a closet cross-dresser and I could be happy with the occasional private cross-dressing. It wasn’t until late 2011 that I started feeling suicidal about my gender, and by 2012 I really was hoping that this psychic, who saw some serious degree of female identity in me, would be able to help. Well guess what, she did nada. She completely ignored my gender issues, and every time I attempted to talk about them she would take complete control of the conversation either trying to convince me that being male is good, or by bringing up some completely different subject. This woman is poison, she is evil, if there is a devil this psychic lady is the devil herself.
I was always fearful that the psychic would pick up on my closet cross-dressing, and that she would try to get me to quit. She never did. There were so many red flags that I just ignored. She clearly cold read me and had no real psychic abilities. She couldn’t pick up on my private cross-dressing. She ignored my suicidal grade gender dysphoria. Sometimes I feel like she has an agenda – to torture people, to take their money, and to push the gender binary and family structure. Sometimes I feel like she just didn’t see my gender issues. Sometimes I feel like she saw them and purposely ignored them and purposely tried to make a man out of me. It was very strange that she tells me to “man up” at the start of 2013, at a time that I started telling a friend in northern California about my gender issues, and at the same time I really wanted to have the big gender talk with her. Her words just sent my gender dysphoria on yet a higher dosage of steroids for seven more months, before I finally had the gender talk with her and fired her. The biggest red flag of all was that when I first met her, she told me not to tell anyone anything she tells me because she didn’t want anyone’s energy interfering with her work. Sometimes I feel like an idiot.
Enough of the psychic story for now. On January 24, I went to my very first transgender support group. I went presenting as male, but used my female name. On February 7, I went to my second TG group, presented as female in public for the first time and we went to eat dinner afterwards. On February 26, I had my very first session with a gender specialist. I told her all about my early childhood feelings, about my history of cross-dressing, the psychic, my suicidal grade GD, and my dysfunctional, negative, cult-like, family. She affirmed that my childhood feelings of saying that I was a girl at age 5, and wanting to grow up to be a woman, are in fact gender dysphoria, and not some other mental illness, and certainly not a result of my father. She was completely outraged at the psychic and told me that the psychic should have her psychic license revoked.
On February 27, I got my full body from below the neck downward waxed. I felt moderate pain, and no soreness afterwards. The lady who did my waxing said that I handled the pain very well, and that my hair came out unusually easily for a guy. It feels really great to have smooth skin. I really felt like a Neanderthal having all that body hair. I tried shaving my hair, and it is no fun, doesn’t do as good of a job as waxing or epilating, and is prone to bleeding. I might eventually get laser hair removal to remove my beard and body hair. In fact, I definitely want my beard and body hair removed, and will likely use laser. On February 28, I braved the torrential rain in L.A. and went to my third TG support group, and second outing presenting as female. We went to dinner afterward again, I think our group goes regularly afterwards. I cancelled my tax appointment on Saturday due to the rain, but I went to my TG support group in spite of the rain. Maybe I really am on a train to girl town.
Am I still confused? A little. Not as badly as I was the other day before I saw my therapist. But still nonetheless I’m a bit confused and have some doubts. God, this gender stuff is so tricky. But my recent girl town adventures on Feb 26 to 28 cleared up some of those doubts. Maybe I am still fighting myself. I will keep you posted with what lies ahead and where I end up going in the future.
