Karen62
04-29-2015, 01:23 AM
As I have told my story to family and friends in the process of coming out to them as trans, I have learned how to tell it with certain examples and metaphors that help them better understand. One that has been particularly useful in conveying what it has been like to live my 52 years of life as a deeply repressed and hidden TS woman goes something like this.
I tell the person to hold their arm out in front of their body, parallel to the ground, with their palm facing up in a cup-shape, as if holding a cup of air. I say, “This is easy to do, isn’t it? Your arm feels light, you feel strong, and it should, as you are only holding a cup of air, which is essentially weightless. It would be humiliating to not be able to hold a palmful of air, wouldn’t it? The tug of gravity is there, you feel it, but it’s easy to resist. So show me how strong you are and hold your cup of air up in front of your body for 20 minutes – perhaps even just 10 minutes. Of course, you cannot hold the outstretched arm with your other hand, and you cannot rest it on anything. You just resist the little tug of gravity.
“After a couple of minutes, your arm starts to get tired of resisting that tug. I remind you of how humiliating it would be to not be able to hold a cup of weightless air in your hand, so the beginning of fatigue is blunted by a new-found resolve to hold your arm steady. That determination enables you to hold it out using your strength and willpower, and your renewed commitment really helps. But only for a while.
“But that little tug of gravity is relentless. It constantly pulls at you. It never stops. You keep trying to redouble your commitment again and again to stretching your arm out, holding that cup of air, but it gets harder and harder to do with each passing minute.
“In time, your resistance to that little but persistent tug of gravity becomes all you can think about. It consumes your mind and your body, and you struggle mightily to resist. All you can think about is how great it would be to stop resisting, how comfortable that would be. With true dedication, you may even continue to resist for a little while longer, but your cupped hand will eventually begin to tremble with stress as holding up that cup of weightless air simply exhausts you, both emotionally and physically.
“Finally you come to a critical point of breakdown. You have no choice but to decide what to do now, as your ability to resist to that constant little tug, that compelling, relentless pressure on you that has grown from a small annoyance early on to now pretty much consuming all of your thoughts and energy. You have literally 2 choices for ending the situation: you can face the humiliation of publicly admitting you couldn’t hold up a palmful of weightless air or you can kill yourself. But you cannot resist the tug any longer. You have to end this resistance one way or another.
“I decided to lower my arm and admit defeat. And you know what? It feels OK. In fact, it feels really good.”
This is my metaphor for describing why now at age 52 I am announcing something as seemingly unexpected as I am a woman inside, am now taking female hormones, and have decided to begin transition. The tug of this feeling in me was relentless, and it finally became impossible for me to resist any longer. I cracked under the pressure. Suicide was not an option I wanted to face, so instead I face the challenges of transition. But keep in mind that transition is my solution to my unbearable problem, not the problem itself.
This metaphor has really helped several people understand my struggle. I even got a “Wow” out of one person as it helped them understand so clearly what I have felt for so long. Does it resonate with you? How would you improve it? I’d love to hear what you think.
Karen
I tell the person to hold their arm out in front of their body, parallel to the ground, with their palm facing up in a cup-shape, as if holding a cup of air. I say, “This is easy to do, isn’t it? Your arm feels light, you feel strong, and it should, as you are only holding a cup of air, which is essentially weightless. It would be humiliating to not be able to hold a palmful of air, wouldn’t it? The tug of gravity is there, you feel it, but it’s easy to resist. So show me how strong you are and hold your cup of air up in front of your body for 20 minutes – perhaps even just 10 minutes. Of course, you cannot hold the outstretched arm with your other hand, and you cannot rest it on anything. You just resist the little tug of gravity.
“After a couple of minutes, your arm starts to get tired of resisting that tug. I remind you of how humiliating it would be to not be able to hold a cup of weightless air in your hand, so the beginning of fatigue is blunted by a new-found resolve to hold your arm steady. That determination enables you to hold it out using your strength and willpower, and your renewed commitment really helps. But only for a while.
“But that little tug of gravity is relentless. It constantly pulls at you. It never stops. You keep trying to redouble your commitment again and again to stretching your arm out, holding that cup of air, but it gets harder and harder to do with each passing minute.
“In time, your resistance to that little but persistent tug of gravity becomes all you can think about. It consumes your mind and your body, and you struggle mightily to resist. All you can think about is how great it would be to stop resisting, how comfortable that would be. With true dedication, you may even continue to resist for a little while longer, but your cupped hand will eventually begin to tremble with stress as holding up that cup of weightless air simply exhausts you, both emotionally and physically.
“Finally you come to a critical point of breakdown. You have no choice but to decide what to do now, as your ability to resist to that constant little tug, that compelling, relentless pressure on you that has grown from a small annoyance early on to now pretty much consuming all of your thoughts and energy. You have literally 2 choices for ending the situation: you can face the humiliation of publicly admitting you couldn’t hold up a palmful of weightless air or you can kill yourself. But you cannot resist the tug any longer. You have to end this resistance one way or another.
“I decided to lower my arm and admit defeat. And you know what? It feels OK. In fact, it feels really good.”
This is my metaphor for describing why now at age 52 I am announcing something as seemingly unexpected as I am a woman inside, am now taking female hormones, and have decided to begin transition. The tug of this feeling in me was relentless, and it finally became impossible for me to resist any longer. I cracked under the pressure. Suicide was not an option I wanted to face, so instead I face the challenges of transition. But keep in mind that transition is my solution to my unbearable problem, not the problem itself.
This metaphor has really helped several people understand my struggle. I even got a “Wow” out of one person as it helped them understand so clearly what I have felt for so long. Does it resonate with you? How would you improve it? I’d love to hear what you think.
Karen