I’ll be home for Christmas...

[MonicaJean]

…alone. After coming out early last month, I haven’t talked with the inlaws since then. The usual talks of how I’m misguided, deceived, abhorrent, an abomination, etc.

Trying to explain to them the fork-in-the-road moment nearly 4 months ago was a waste of time. I shoulda just took my dogs for a walk than ‘conversing’ with them.

So I’m not invited to travel back to our hometown for Christmas, wife’s taking the kids. So I’ll be home alone, for the first time in my life, without family for Christmas. I understand military and certain service industries have people tied-up out of town and across the oceans, but this is the very first Christmas in 40+ years by myself.

How many of you have been summarily pushed-aside for the holidays after coming out…or years later? How have you coped?

[Rogina B]

Not sure how well you are connected in the alphabet community,but there are lots of members that are in the same boat. So,someone is always having an eclectic gathering of wayward soles..Do you have a local community that you are part of?

[MonicaJean]

I went to a meeting for the first time last month, some very nice people there. However, due to schedules not working out this busy month, I could not attend any of the events. I reckon I’ll make a few phone calls or simply post on a local social media site where I spend too much time on, to see if anyone wants to just meet for a drink at night.

[Bria]

Michelle, I'm so sorry that you will be alone, that really sucks. Hope you can find someone to at least share that drink. Merry Christmas,(I hope).

Hugs, Bria

[justmetoo]

I'm sorry you have to deal with that!

I have spent most of my Christmases as an adult alone. I'm an introvert so I don't mind it too much. I'd rather be alone than with people I don't want to be with. I've had lots of practice, too, at being alone. I've ordered myself a bunch of presents, and will cook up some food I like, and watch movies and maybe dress up (or not, depends how I feel at the time), and generally make the most of it.

Best wishes to you! I hope you can manage some way to have an enjoyable Christmas. I know some people who are alone on the holidays who volunteer at various places. Might be something to look into?

[Jean 103]

Sorry that you will not be spending Christmas with your family. I to will be alone this year after separating from my wife a few months ago. I talked to her today, the family are all going to her house. This is why I am driving south to LA to spend it with millions of people that don’t know me and I can dress full time.

[Sandra]

Ok please don't shoot me down in flames but.....IMHO even though your wife is not on board I think she is being mean and nasty going to family without you for the holidays. If it was me then I would have told family that if my SO wasn't welcomes then i wouldn't be going.

Sorry you are going through this

[Leona]

I'm with Sandra. If my wife went to visit family without me because her family didn't like my gender identity, that wife would become a soon-to-be-ex-wife.

If I'm going to spend it alone for that reason, my relationship status will become single faster than [insert your favorite simile here].

[Nikkilovesdresses]

Please know that you won't be alone in spirit- even if we aren't there to give you a hug, share a glass of eggnog, and google mother-in-law jokes.

I'm sad that your wife would be so selfish towards her own children, as well as you, to split you from them at Christmas.

Love and best wishes- hope 2015 is good for you Michelle,

xxNikki

[KellyJameson]

I have always had friends on the LGBT spectrum who are often treated as outcasts or outcast themselves to be and live who they are. We create are own community and family.

Those who transition later in life have created lives that they "transition out of" so in a sense they are doing two different types of transitioning at once. I had very little of this in my own life because I was already living separate from the "cis normals" so had already adapted.

You are building a new life and this takes time and it will be painful at times. Loneliness and feeling unwanted and unloved are some of the painful experiences that go with this.

It could easily lead to depression and a defeatist attitude if you think this is a permanent condition (which it is not) or you do not know how to go about creating this new life.

Imagination is your friend along with learning how to enjoy your own company.

You want to look for ways to engage life and to be a part of it but in ways that complement your own personality and interests.

Developing your passions will go a long way towards insulating you from the shock of living as a minority and sometime outcast.

We are "different" from the "norm" and anytime someone is different they need to be resilient, creative and imaginative in learning how to survive and thrive with these differences or the differences will destroy you.

One way is to reach out to your community and "give back" and another is to reach out to that which is inside you and develop that which up to this point has been ignored.

Develop all those latent potential abilities.

You must constantly be creating and expanding yourself if you hope to survive GD or it will consume you as it's consequence.

It does not stop with physical transitioning and living full time.

In my own life I have found that I now fit in but I'm still "different" but everything I created before because of this "protects and insulates me" from this "difference" that no one see's any longer.

Recognize that you stand apart from the vast majority of humanity even when you are surrounded by a sea of humanity. You cannot find connection in the usual ways or you will suffer terrible loneliness and isolation.

Live your life as a creative act. In my opinion there is no other way.

[ReineD]

So I’ll be home alone, for the first time in my life, without family for Christmas.

I'm sorry.

This is an aside, but I'm hoping to help. I was not pushed aside for gender reasons, but one Christmas I was indeed alone for the first time in my life and without my kids for the first time in 25 years. I did feel cast aside and the inner emptiness I felt at the prospect was indescribable. So on Christmas day I chose to volunteer at a church Holiday dinner for others who were alone. I showed up early to help prepare the meal, I helped to serve, and I spent a lot of time talking to people there about all sorts of things. It turned out to be a great day.

Does your wife know why you are not going back to your home town, and did you ask her to stay with you this Christmas? Some people including my SO do not see Christmas as a day any different than any other day, and in the past (one year I went to spend Christmas with my dad), I worried about my SO being alone. My SO did not want to come with me, but he assured me that he was going to be perfectly OK on his own. Is this your wife's understanding of your situation, or are the two of you going through marital difficulties because of your transition?

[Michelle789]

Michelle, I'm sorry to hear that about your family.

Here's my story for Christmas. As a kid, Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year. I would spend it with my grandma, grandpa, and uncle (all from my mom's side), who came over our house on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. I spent Christmas Eve with relatives from my dad's side of the family (the ones who lived locally) who cam over our house. When I was in 7th grade, my grandpa died. In 8th grade, my uncle died at a very young age. A few years later, my grandma was kidnapped by two of my aunts and sent to a nursing home 500 miles away from everyone. My family grew increasingly dysfunctional.

My mom and dad, who I don't remember ever seeing them kissed, actually kissed on the lips on Christmas Eve when I was in 10th grade (1995). That was the last decent Christmas we ever had. Christmas just went downhill from there. My parents always fought, and as a family we just lost the Christmas spirit.

Eventually I moved away from my family to go to college and then for work. I still went home to visit them most years, and every time I went home it was the same old mess every year. I got to a point where I just gave up on Christmas.

In 2006, I took a job in Virginia, and my mom and my brother came out to visit me for a few days. We had the best Christmas since 1995, and I thought that since I started working that we could start a new tradition. In fact, I ended up not even drinking during those days. Any hopes of starting a new Christmas tradition was quickly killed.

I hit rock bottom with drinking. I moved back to L.A. in 2007. I found work out here, but my family refused to ever come out to California to visit me. There were three years I didn't go back home (2008, 2009, 2011), and the rest of the years I went home to visit them. The years I didn't go home for Christmas, I still managed to visit them at a different time of the year. In 2008 I visited them two weeks before Christmas.

The years I went home, it was the same old mess. The years I stayed out in L.A. were pretty disappointing, especially 2008 in which the person whom I was supposed to spend Christmas with flaked out on me.

So I got used to spending Christmas, and the whole holiday season alone. Thanksgiving was always a different story. I have never spent Thanksgiving alone and have always had a place to go every year.

But in general I've become accustomed to spending Christmas alone, and didn't really do too much during the month of December. I didn't even put up decorations the past two years.

This year, everything changed. I transitioned. I got a boyfriend. I joined MCC. My father told me that I am not welcome to visit them or their town dressed as a woman, so I decided that I am not going to visit them for Christmas this year. I personally think my father is too concerned with what the neighbors are going to think if they see me.

I started getting my hopes up for Christmas. And guess what, I have way too much going on, both for Christmas Eve and Day, and for the entire season. I am going to church on Christmas Eve, and again on Christmas Day, and then to the French Market with some friends from church. I got an invitation from another friend to go to her house, and I'm not sure if I'll have time to go or not. Cody and I might see a movie that night. I've had way too many Christmas parties to go to, we're going to Universal Studios tomorrow. We were supposed to go yesterday but we slept in an hour late, and I cut my lip and it took two hours to heal, and we wasted like another hour, so we postponed Universal until tomorrow.

Honestly, I wish I could spend Christmas alone this year. I wish that I didn't have so many places to go too. I'd be perfectly happy doing like justmettoo and cook some favorite foods, enjoy my decorations, watch a movie on TV, not go to the theaters, on Christmas Eve and Day. I'd be perfectly happy if I didn't have to go to all these parties, amusement parks, movies, and everything else that is causing me sooooo much stress this year. I wish I could have the freedom to walk in and out my own front door without worrying about being obligated to make anyone else happy.

I am completely stressed out, and burned out. I just want to be at home, and by home I mean my own apartment not visiting my family on the east coast.

Call me crazy, but I prefer to do nothing during December, and do my fun things the rest of the year. I feel like fun things, parties, movies, amusement parks, museums, eating out, can be spread out over the entire year, and shouldn't be concentrated all in one month.

Michelle, one year your fortunes will all change. Your family might come around. They might not, but maybe you'll find someone else to spend the holidays with eventually. For this year, enjoy the freedom to walk in and out of your own front door without any strings to tie you down. You can do what ever you want. You don't need to make any compromises or try to please anyone else. That is something I surely miss, and I really missed it this month. I guarantee you that some day, it will all change, and you'll be looking back on Christmas, 2014, and wishing how you could spend Christmas alone, and you'll miss the freedom you had this year. I certainly wish I could have my freedom back and have fewer obligations.

Oh, how I can't wait for January and the madness of the holidays to be over. This is the craziest Christmas (and month of December) I have ever had in my entire life. I have never, in 34 years of living, had so much going on during Christmas, like I have had this year. Even as a kid, we didn't do a whole ton of stuff during the month of December.

[MonicaJean]

Amazing to see so much pain in so many stories. Why does transition have to be painful? We do our best to not only minimize pain, but smile and find new, joyous things to help us carry on and live better lives.

Reine, She doesn’t want to be with me, evidently I’m suddenly evil, terrible, etc. Yet I’m nicer and better than I ever was.

Found out that one restaurant here in this town is open on Christmas Day so I can treat myself to not having to cook

[traci_k]

I hoping you get up here for New Years as we talked and even though I'm still living as a male, I hope to meet you, go out for coffee and let you know there are people who care..

Virtual Hugs for now.

[MonicaJean]

Some neighbors invited me over for dinner so that will be very good, they are fun people. Got to hang with other neighbors for a little while the last 2 nights so not so lonely really.

And the best Christmas gift ever, was totally by chance (blessing?) yesterday, the 1st day of my 4th month on HRT. I’ll spare you all the fluffy details but the bottom line is that I bought my first wig yesterday, didn’t even know I was going to buy one, but I did.

Came home after errands, made up mysef a bit to refresh my memory from a makeup lesson (my very first one) I received on Monday from a local salon (they’re amazingly supportive!), tossed on a pair of JMS jeans and a comfy top…looked in the mirror expecting to see horror (I never liked wigs, ever) and when I looked in the mirror, I saw something very much unexpected and very much unplanned: the woman that has spent decades screaming “LET ME OUT!” showed up. I liked……no…..loved what I saw in that reflection. For the very first time she saw the light of day and she is beautiful.

I couldn’t stop smiling. The I was her. The her was me. Her name is Monica. (Can I change my name on the board from michelle1 to something else?)

For the first time in my life, I saw the real me. Pure joy overwhelmed me. She has pretty eyes, a nose line that needs some work and a gorgeous smile. Her already A-cup breasts are growing and aching (literally) to be what they always At the same time I finally understand these passages below:

(from oft-cited abstract regarding gender development
http://avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

"Cloistered (G3) gender dysphoric boys appear to others and even to themselves to be heterosexual. Although as a group they are not especially active daters, they clearly prefer to date girls when they do date. Significantly, unlike other boys, their dating motives are markedly different. For these boys, being on a date with a girl is a chance to spend time with a girl in a way not generally allowed under other circumstances. Dating serves two purposes for these boys. The first is social, as it gives them the all-important appearance of being normal. The second is therapeutic. Being close to a girl's softness, and even her female smell, has a mitigating effect on gender expression deprivation anxiety. The fantasy is not to make love to her but to actually be her."The lines highlighted in red have shed light on why I never crossdressed while dating, her being close to me was enough of a mitigating factor to fend-off my own gender expression issues.

The line highlighted in red have shed light on why I never crossdressed while dating, her being close to me was enough of a mitigating factor to fend-off my own gender expression issues.

The line highlighted in green, I never agreed with. Until now. It was a fantasy back then, this all makes sense now. While I truly loved her/them, I can not deny there was a large part of me attempting to live the real 'me' in that woman's life, projection? Vicarious living? Either way it's defined, it still is truth and I understand it now.

Oh I long to live life authentically as the real me. The road in front of me is another 6-9 months to travel in order to make it happen. It will happen. She will fly like a butterly, as they say.

Suddenly, I really like wigs.

Best Christmas ever! Truly a surprise revelation (Thank you Santa! ) And ironically, I was all alone.

Merry Christmas to you all!

[charlenesomeone]

Monica what a wonderful story, thank you! Merry Christmas
Hugs

[Dianne S]

Michelle, I'm glad you found a way to enjoy Christmas.

I too am alone this Christmas. Although I don't celebrate Christmas, we did usually have a family day at the movies. But my wife and I separated a few months ago and the kids are with her today. Plus, I have a nasty cold.

But it's not so bad. I was curled up with a nice mug of tea and a good book. Then I watched some Youtube videos on makeup and in a little while I will go practice applying liquid eyeliner. Sometimes a little alone-time is quite nice.