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View Full Version : I'm not sure if i can do it + Whats going on...



RachelDee
11-30-2005, 07:46 PM
A few posts down i stated about how it all came out about the wanting to be female and wearing female clothes, by accident, but still my immediate family know now.

Well my dad has been rather.... well.. he hasent mentioned it since... though he seems to be acting normally around me... so thats ok. But my mum keeps bursting into tears :( when she asks me something and i start talking to her she starts filling up with tears.

She said to me today, after she mentioned once more that maybe the OCD had caused this and the feelings would probably go away, a few things that made me think more. She didnt want to tell my Dad that the therapist said it could actually be the other way round, this issue caused the OCD (either completley or at least made it worse).

Well when i told her that the therapist said its 'not the end of the world' if i wanted to change sex, she said 'Its easy for him to say, its not him is it'.

She also indicated that i might be being influanced by people online, or by websites or things im reading. Hmmm, she said its probably because i dont socialize much right now... I said that it was the other way around, I felt like this and went to find the sites. I didnt find the sites then start feeling like it. She also then thought she might have caused it, by 'molly coddling' me when i was younger... I told her that wasent what caused it and she asked me how i knew for sure... I did ask if she wanted me to bring up a few sites for her to look at but she said not at the moment.

Well I told her that there is a solution, and it shouldnt make any difference to anyone but me - ill still be Robert just the Robert i wanted to be. To which she replied, Surgery? Then she said she saw people/stories in the newpaper who used to be men and are now women, and you can tell as they still look like men mostley... she was saying what kind of life would i have? Also she said 'And you wont be able to have children either' she said she hoped i would meet someone and have Children one day... which led back to me being gay. She said if i felt like a women i must like Men then... So thats what the having children was about i guess, she thought i was going to 'hook up' with a guy and expect to have babies... :confused:

Well, i dont think i can go through this no matter how much i might want to. It's different if there was just me, but i dont think i can do that to my family - sort of kill off someone. It's like intentionally hurting them, I mean its December, and im making my mother cry FFS :mad: It can only get worse... the christmas season and she is probably thinking that she is losing her 'son'. Nice christmas gift im giving them this year :/ I feel so angry with myself at times.

I havent felt this sure about what i wanted for a long time, and i thought id finally made sense of the feelings i was having... and i have moments where i know 2010% that its the right thing to do. But the feelings of 'guilt' and 'shame' are really taking their tole on me at the moment and making me feel very mixed up again. It might be what i want but would it be really selfish to put my parents through that (and the rest of the family).

On a side-note, I seem to be having a strange reaction to all this. My tastes in things are changing... I don't mean to stereotype but i was watching a film today, and actually felt bored, it was action/fantasy. I keep finding myself 'hooked' on stupid soaps and stuff that are on TV.... and caring about what happens in them.... Maybe its my imagination but sometimes it feels like my brain just unlocked itself and is now re-re-programing itself ready for the change, dumping anything that i really dont like but i thought or convinced myself i did..... I know thats impossible but at teh moment i feel Angry one moment, sad, happy... Also since this started, I keep having the wierdest dreams. That is in 90% of them im female. Im not exagerating, infact im 'me' in the dreams except im female or dressed like one.

No one can answer this really, I mean about the 'whats best' bit its something i have to decide for myself unfortunatley. :) I just needed to write down what i felt like somewhere. Anyhow if you made it this far down, thanks for reading :thumbsup: and sticking with it lol.

EDIT:

I have been thinking that maybe it would be better for everyone if this had stayed 'buried'. Maybe i should be 'strong' and just get on with it and throw out the clothes ive bought so im not reminded.. I dunno life sucks sometimes, well often (ok mostley).

Elizabeth
11-30-2005, 11:15 PM
Robert,

I would advise you to read "Self Matters" by Dr. Phillip McGraw. We do not have to be compelled to live our lives for other people. It is not selfish, or if it is selfish, to want to live our own lives the way we do, we are entitled to it. In fact, it is doubtful anyone can be truly happy living thier lives for others.

I know that I did not dress up for 14 years because my exwife did not approve. I did finally start underdressing, but not once in 14 years did I put on women's clothing, shoes, makeup. In the end it did not make her happy. Just knowing I wanted to was too much for her.

I do not believe you will make anyone happy by not being who you beleive you were meant to be, but even if you did, are they more entitled to live your life than you? I also do not beleive you will be able to stop dressing, or feeling the need to do so.

If you want to live an unhappy, unfulfilling life, just so others can "be happy", you can certainly do so. However, is not each person supposed to live for themselves and create thier own happiness? I mean, why is your family not changing who they are to accomidate you? It is most likely because years of self loathing, denial, depression and feeling like an alien has made you feel that your needs are not as important as everyone else's.

Who is going to make you happy if not you? Who is totally for you? Who is living thier life to your standards to make you happy? It is not selfish to take control and responsibility for your own life. Yes people can use emotional blackmail and say they will not love you if you do not conform. It happens, it happened to me. However, I could find no other way to leave behind the feelings of hating myself for not living my life the way I wanted to.

I wish you all the best and hope you can find some kind of happiness.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Nyx
12-01-2005, 12:18 AM
Well. I will confide something to you, in the hope of making a parallel...

My mom is my only family. And from the way she acts. I can tell she is schizophrenic. She has delusions (believes people are out to get her, etc..), auditory hallucinations (people are "telepathically attacking her"), etc... I am sure she is, in fact, since it was diagnosed in the family before. But she has been jobless for 9 years and doesn't want to get treated... She has also isolated herself (no friends, no contact with the rest of the family).

Let me put it this way. I love my mom. She is a good person, but living with her is difficult. And she doesn't accept the way I feel about my gender. When I told her of it, she said "they" were trying to "rob her from her son". In fact, I feel like my gender identity problems have simply contributed more to her delusions...

But I realise that, no matter what, I can't live my life for my mother. I want to be happy. I have tried as hard as I could to encourage her to socialize, to get a job, to consult a psychiatrist for her mental illness, but she denies all problems and says I am only criticizing her. She even called me a traitor when I told her I believed she was mentally ill and should consult (which was not meant as an insult).

The bottom line is: You can't live for others. You have to live your own life and seek your own happiness. I personally know that I can't live with my mom forever. Even though she will be completely alone once I am gone, she, to a certain degree, is poisoning my existence with her random aggressivity bursts and unpredictable emotional behavior, and I decided I should take care of myself first, and it is up to herself to fix her own problems.

I'm not going to conform to whatever ideals my mom has setup for me. She isn't even consistant with herself. I can't let her regulate my life and what I should and should not like/be/enjoy.

MandyTS
12-01-2005, 10:00 AM
Robert,

I had to read your post about 5 times to really hit me what is going on here... and hit me it has. What you are going through is 100% what I went through about 1 year ago, except my parents did not know and I drove myself deep into depression over it.

For several years feels about TS and everything else were starting to get stronger and at that time I oc uld not explain why. For the last 8 years I had denyed my feelings if you would but they would poke in at the most inoportune times. I can remember a distinct time lying in bed praying for guidance, I was split in two. The question was "should I do this? Can I live this way?" That question is the heart and soul of anything important in life and in many ways the most important question to a TS person.

I began going through a laundry list of sort in my mind what I needed to get done before I could pass, FFS, voice surgery, hormones, etc. I read all the scary stuff and could not figure out if I could be that way. A female friend of mine asked, are you sure ou want to be a girl? You are 6'6", etc... I worried about passing, a job, life everything else.

As it always did things began falling in place for me. I got good news about my job, my family found out, my friends are suportive, etc. I found a suppot group on the web, and the question never was, should you do it but how to deal with it and finally transistion. My parents also think that people on the internet are influencing me. In someways there is a bit but when it comes down to it the only real thing doing that is myself.

Websites like this are great because you feel like you are not alone. We begin to find people like outselves and form a community. I agree it is easy to get caught up in all of it, but when I hear comments on how lucky I am to be my age or in my circumstance (instead of 45+ years old) it makes me feel like this could really happen... although it is not peer pressure.

Everyone needs to make the decision for themselves. An online community, friends, therapists, etc and not do that for you. Search inside of your heart, take your time, evaluate your options and when you are ready go for it and don't look back. Only people that are firmly committed will ever be happy.

Mandy

Stephenie
12-01-2005, 10:27 AM
Robert,
The previous posts have a lot of good things in them. Please think hard about what you want in life and why you want it. Then do what is right for you.

Natasha Anne
12-01-2005, 02:28 PM
These posts are all wonderful. They were nice to read.

When you finally accept who you are, you realise no matter how much you've tried to live for others, the pain and stress you create in your own life is far worse than the pain and stress you'd experience if you just lived as who your are.

I'd rather a few people accepted me for who I really am, than have everyone accept me for an artificial persona I created to hide my true self.