Surviving Transsexuality

[KellyJameson]

Inside my head it was like a pressure cooker that hormones and walking the uncompleted but soon to be completed path of physical transition released eliminating intense anxiety but there were many years I lived with this extreme dissonance and all its consequences.

Early on, especially in my teen years, the wish to escape this pressure, confusion, anxiety and heartache made suicide an extremely attractive option but I also had and have a very strong will to live.

For me being transsexual was being held in tension between this will to live and death as release and I have really never known any other way of life.

I often think this must be what war is like where death is imminent and the desire to survive is heightened to the point where your brain is like a piano wire always stretched to its limits.

Beautiful music may be created but the piano wire suffers for the creation.

I was frantic to find reasons to live so I would not be pulled into the temptation to escape myself but everything I did to prop up this life was being built on quicksand so every support was temporary and would soon lose its effectiveness throwing me back into despair.

Part of the anxiety I carried came from knowing that I was running out of time as I ran from place to place looking for a solution while at the same time avoiding the only solution that would work.

This frantic state makes us very self destructive because we are desperate for escape.

All sorts of addictions are likely to come out of it. Interpersonal relationships are often very unstable including employment, spouses, friends and family so when you look back over the path you have walked all you see is carnage but yet sometimes also beauty.

Maybe this is in the children you have created or the friendships that have endured as you and friend become bonded together from the intimacy that pain creates or the simple beauty of surviving that which is almost impossible to survive as we are asked to survive it.

The attempted suicide rate is 41% for transsexuals.

My question is this.

Separate from physically transitioning what did you do or what do you do to survive even when those methods may have been or are self destructive.

How did you cope and what advice would you give others to help them survive?

Here is a link concerning suicide rates and other challenges to being transsexual http://www.livescience.com/11208-hig...er-people.html

[Angela Campbell]

I never found anything. Of course at first, in childhood, it was not severe. Later the pressure slowly built. Slowly over time. I had no idea it was taking place, but looking back I can see the results. As I got older and relationships failed one after the other and I isolated myself more and more I even began having dreams about becoming a woman. I fought this so hard. I came up with reason after reason why I could not transition. I convinced myself it was impossible with a thousand reasons. Still the pressure built. The pressure built by small amounts each day for 50 years. Eventually it became the only force in my life. It became bigger than me. It became out of control. I still fought it every day until I crashed. At that point I knew there was no living with this anymore. I could see what it had silently done to my life. Oh what it could have been.

Had it been more accepted by the medical world and society in general, I would not have tried to deny and hide and run from it. I would not have wasted all those years and hurt so many partners and acquaintances. ( I cannot say friends because I never allowed myself to have them...who would want to know me anyway) I did the best I could, but there was no way to defeat it. The only relief I have known is the feeling I get when I take steps to become what I should be on the outside.

If only I could have done something before the pain was overwhelming.

Advice? I have none. Even today it is normal for the medical community to want you to wait until it is almost too late before they will help.

[LeaP]

Because of certain family issues, I learned early on to survive in brutally difficult emotional conditions. That translated (easily? nicely?) into the ability to survive my own issues over the years, including disabling levels of depression, extreme social anxiety, and dissociation. I have always found it far easier to live in the shadows and retreat inside myself when anything or anyone has come close - good, bad, or indifferent. When necessary, I (psychologically) pushed people away aggressively.

[arbon]

Lea, you described me.


I am editing my post because it was totally depressing and no use to anyone.

what to do - don't live a lie.

[Marleena]

How did you cope and what advice would you give others to help them survive?

My coping was hiding and repression and I tried to self administer hormones.

My advice would be do none of the above and seek out the help of a gender therapist. Never expect cisgender people to be of any help unless they have studied about TS people, they just can't understand this.

[Angela Campbell]

It is kind of funny that you spend all of your life hiding yourself from everyone to escape ridicule and what the world that can never understand will think or do about you....and find out the only way to escape is to do something that makes it public for the whole world to see. The only treatment is what you feared all along.

[Marleena]

@ Ellen isn't it ironic that some of our coping methods are what we shouldn't be doing? Society and family forced us to do it though when we didn't know any better.

I should add that keeping busy does help a bit to keep your mind off it.

Great thread Kelly.

[Ann Louise]

Alcoholism, drugs, multiple marriages, a loner mentality were the most obvious mechanisms of avoidance, and they worked very well at times. But having survived all that and shaken off all those hindrances, those chains, I became and still am as tough as nails. I get emotional very easily now, but it's tears of joy, not sorrow, that wet my face.

A deep love for my children gave me a glimpse of potential inner joy, Buddhism taught me how to find it and live it, and love and compassion for myself and all others keeps me there.

Now I'm just a mindful, tough old lady, Ann

[Angela Campbell]

I should add that keeping busy does help a bit to keep your mind off it.

Great thread Kelly.

Yes it does, but it isn't possible to keep that busy.

[dreamer_2.0]

Thought provoking post. It was a good read.

Thank you for the thread.

[Momarie]

Alcoholism, drugs, multiple marriages,

You cut a wide swathe of pain.

[MysticLady]

I became and still am as tough as nails. I get emotional very easily now, but it's tears of joy, not sorrow, that wet my face.

A deep love for my children gave me a glimpse of potential inner joy, Buddhism taught me how to find it and live it, and love and compassion for myself and all others keeps me there.

Now I'm just a mindful, tough old lady, Ann

Hello Anne

You paint a picture of rough experiences my friend. My hat off too you. Some of us deal w/ many awful situations. But, I speak only for myself, weathering these experiences is a building of "something" within us that makes us go forward against the blizzard. That "something" is probably deep within our souls. Why some experience situations that make ours seem weak is sometimes beyond me. Then, I remember, Some of us are being forged for a different task, be it here or elsewhere. Take life for what it is. A learning experience!

[I Am Paula]

The original post, and all the replies resonate deeply with me. How can so many people share such similar histories, and only now, at 55 am I hearing about it? How did I stay so deaf, dumb, and blind, that I could still think I was the only one going thru' this?
It sounds like, to some degree, we all become masters of denial, hiding, and acting. The only part of my life that was real, was dispair.

[KellyJameson]

Do not be to hard on yourself TgirlCeleste.

We are isolated continously almost from birth.

We "feel" early that something is wrong and so we start hiding ourselves from others so they do not find out we are not like them and so we become very good at hiding from ourselves as well.

Everything is done to survive the trauma.

When you are locked out of your gender as "body" everything becomes a coping mechanism. You are cut in two and separated from yourself.

Split off from living through a body that matches your brain and mind so you cannot really touch or be touched, hear or be heard, love or be loved. It is the complete separation from everything important.

It is the loneliest experience imaginable to my mind because it is both imposed on us but we also impose it on ourselves to survive

[josee]

Because of certain family issues, I learned early on to survive in brutally difficult emotional conditions. That translated (easily? nicely?) into the ability to survive my own issues over the years, including disabling levels of depression, extreme social anxiety, and dissociation. I have always found it far easier to live in the shadows and retreat inside myself when anything or anyone has come close - good, bad, or indifferent. When necessary, I (psychologically) pushed people away aggressively.

Wow, Lea, can I relate to this!

I was having a discussion with my therapist today about why I was feeling so good about myself lately. Yes, this is a new and foreign concept to me. As we talked I remembered a conversation I had with my wife a couple of years ago after another attempt at self denial when my wife said "I'd respect you more if you would just say 'this is who I am! Deal with it!".
That lead me to ponder I remember thinking "well I would like her to respect me - Hell I'd like to be able to respect myself. Who am I anyway?" And thus began my journey of peeling back the layers of crap to try to remember who I am.

So here I was today realizing that my life though having been changed forever by the "tranny grenade" had vastly improved in the quality of my personal relationships with others and myself. Not that I am THERE yet but I have in the last few months developed some wonderful personal relationships that were impossible before I began that quest for respect. Before, most of my relationships were like "How can I benefit from knowing this person"? And recently that has shifted to one where my relationships are based more on honesty, love and communication.

It is really amazing to me and I shed the first real tears of joy I have experienced since possibly the birth of my children with this realization.

Sure other parts of my life feel like they are in a blender but my capacity for compassion and being able to love and respect myself and others is off the chain! All this because I am finally being honest with myself. I actually feel like I want to survive to see what's next.

[noeleena]

Hi,

You focus on maybe some thing that you work towards, or have a goal you strive for nether looking behind left or right, every last part of you must tune in to that, just not like the high strung wire, it must be able to move freely.

Or as i did focus all on a little baby girl. she was my life she keeped me ...ALIVE...with out her at the right time , not a few years before or after, it was down to the few months that she was born & every thing fell into place, every one i needed at that time was allways the right person, yet it was Dejarn who KEEPED me alive, simple yes .

You may think & say im... not ...even a trans person. . what would i know, this is refered to myself, your right im not , yet i had other issues, not unlike trans people so i know what its like iv been through hell & back. its no joke, try 8 years, you soon find out.

Yes Dejarn is 10 y 6 m so i can say with out her. dought id be here.

i dought many would understand the Psychological , Mental & Emotional, stress anguish total dispodency depression lack of confidence in your self in every thing you do , to life is not worth a damm. to i dont wont to be here. of cause none of this is true as some would say take a pill get over it, yea right. then you go through what we do then you may just ....just get it for us its to ...live... & just be who we are, .

I count myself as a misfit weird mixed up hormones, & different maybe insane . yet are we, well maybe, yet just because we are different does that mean we are infact quite normal in our own way,

I had some one to give my full love to , to live for her, & be close to her, to have my full focuse given to her, ...this ....is what keeped myself going, it is & still is
Degarn,.our grandaughter,

...noeleena...