Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: Another Life Story

  1. #1
    Member Sara Olivia's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Victoria, British Columbia
    Posts
    142

    Another Life Story

    Reading KymberlyOct's story made me realize how similar many of our life stories really are. I can so relate to your story Kymberly. In everything from the self discovery to the shame to the realization that I liked girls and could perhaps live a normal life. I married a wonderful woman, had two amazing children yet ultimately was the most unhappy human being in the world that I knew. I too ultimately made the decision that I needed to live what was left of my life as my true self. Fortunately so far mine has been a happy story with my marriage intact and healthier than ever, my children, family and friends all there for me and managers and colleagues at work that from day one of my transition have treated me with nothing but respect, kindness and friendship bar none. What follows is the letter I wrote to family and friends in my attempt to explain to them why it was so important to me to risk everything good in my life to grab onto something that to them seemed so abstract. Here is my life story.

    So here I am. On the wrong side of fifty, and finding myself in a circumstance where I have to tell the entire world, well my entire world that is, that the person I have presented to them has largely been make believe for the duration of my entire life. This is a difficult subject for me to talk about, especially face to face, so I have decided that perhaps I can communicate things better by putting my thoughts onto paper. My story actually has its beginning at the young age of four, perhaps five. I am not entirely sure of the exact age as some of these early memories are now shrouded in the haze of time passed and I cannot recall them as clearly as I would like. What I do recall with vivid clarity has always been my profound sense of shame, humiliation and embarrassment when I became aware that I was not like the other boys, that something was very different about me and realized what that was. So I did what to me at that time seemed the only possible solution. Bury that part of myself deep, somewhere within the recesses of my mind, so that in time I would forget that it had ever existed and caused me distress. Now decades later, and with the acquired knowledge of years of life experience, I realize that what for much of my life I tried to lock away in a part of my mind is in fact the essence of who I am. I have come to accept that it is time to confront this reality and to be, for the first time in my life, truthful about it with the people who matter to me. For far too long, I now realize, I have been fooling myself and everyone around me pretending to be someone I’m not, have never been, and someone I cannot ever be going forward.
    This issue that has haunted me throughout my entire life, right from early childhood to the present, has to do with my own sense of self and gender identity. I do not consider myself to be crazy. Never have. When I look in the mirror I have always seen an image of, first a boy, then a man reflected back. I have no illusions about that - I was born male. The issue for me has always been that my inner self, my soul if you will, has always been that of a girl and woman when my physical body clearly indicated otherwise.

    As stated previously, throughout my early childhood I buried this realization and all the feelings that went with it deep in the far reaches of my mind. As years went by and I became older, any time these thoughts resurfaced, which happened all too often, my mind again burned with a sense of shame and humiliation. Not because, and I must strongly emphasize this, I have ever thought of girls and women as somehow not being equal to boys and men, but because I was supposed to grow up to be a man and it just seemed wrong for a man to want to be and to feel like a girl. I do not recall any specific instances when anyone actually ever pointed that out to me, I imagine it just went without saying and I just knew instinctively that it had to be wrong. Boys can't become girls. Nature just didn't work that way. So why did I have to feel that way? It just seemed crazy to me, and made no sense at all, that I would identify as a girl who was stuck in the body of a boy. My solution, at the time, was simply to ignore and to deny myself these perceptions and to be the most convincing boy that I could be. To convince both myself and everyone around me that I was and could be a boy. I engaged only in activities that seemed to me masculine and the stereotypical domain of boys while avoiding anything and everything that might stereotypically be considered something girls did, or toys girls played with. As I grew older I discovered that I liked girls. I became convinced that I could conquer these issues that continued to plague me and somehow always seemed to find their way into my head.

    Years passed and I continued to struggle with the fact that I was transgender. Yes by this time I had been able to put a name to what I believed was wrong with me and had learned that I was not in fact the only person on the planet feeling this same way. However, in the 1980’s and 1990’s it seemed that the only time you ever heard about or saw transgender people was on these awful daytime talk television shows where transgender people typically served the function of freak in a freak show, someone to be laughed at and ridiculed by the rest of society. I was now more determined than ever that the knowledge of my being transgender would never see the light of day with another human soul. I was more determined than ever to prove to the world and to myself that I could be a man. I sought out rugged outdoor pursuits. Jumped out of airplanes, crawled through narrow damp passages in caves deep underground, volunteered with search and rescue navigating small boats on stormy seas, went white water rafting on the wildest rivers I could find. Hunted and fished. I vigorously pursued opportunities at work that enabled me to scuba dive under three metres of arctic ice and in fast flowing murky rivers. You get the idea. Never, to the best of my knowledge, did anyone ever question that I could be anything but male through and through. That at least was how I presented myself to the outside world. Just below the surface though I was never actually that person. Throughout my life I always seemed to have more female friends than male friends though I'm not talking romantic friendships. Girls seemed to like me and click with me and I with them. At parties and social events I was always much more interested in the conversations of the women than the men. I also always felt much more comfortable in the presence of women and always secretly wished that I could have been born one of them.

    As the years progressed I fell head over heels in love with a beautiful woman. Amazingly she loved me also and even agreed to marry me. Many of you were at our wedding. Falling in love with, and marrying xxxxx was not part of my striving to build and maintain an identity of maleness. It was genuine through and through. It was because of her warmth and kindness and my trust in her love for me that I eventually shared some of the emotions that had been haunting me my whole life. I wanted her to know the real me and not just the me that I was presenting to the world. First in vague terms, then when she didn’t laugh at me, and my courage increased, I slowly opened up more and more to her. Then followed the births of our two wonderful children. Anyone who has ever been so blessed as to have children will understand how they have a way of melting ones heart. Making us determined to being better people and to never let them down. To always being there for them and bringing out the best in ourselves. Myself not excluded. As our children grew from infants into inquisitive, intelligent young human beings I struggled with the concept that they would never know the real me. I wanted them to love me, look up to me, be proud of having me as their dad. In my mind this could never be if they ever knew or even suspected that their dad was transgender. They would be ashamed, embarrassed and would want to spend as little time as possible with me. Further to that, if their friends found out they could potentially themselves become victims of bullying and harassment on account of me. I felt awful.

    Unfortunately my sense of identity, that of being female on the inside, over the years not only did not diminish but rather became stronger and occupied my mind more than ever. I felt more and more lost like I was falling into an abyss from which I could never emerge. I was perpetually feeling unhappy, frustrated, at times feeling sorry for myself and in a foul mood. One day, in what seemed a moment of clarity, I realized that I was distancing myself from the very people whom I loved the most. Here I was a person who had so much to be happy about and so much to be grateful for and yet I was probably one of the unhappiest miserable people I could imagine. I realized then that I could see no real future for myself. I couldn’t see myself growing old the way that I was. I realized that I had spent more than half of my life doing everything within my powers to bend my mind to the realities of my physical being and had failed. The only tenable solution that I could come up with was to accept that I am transgender and to change my physical being to accommodate my soul. Of course this is easier said than done and not just in the obvious sense. It was one thing to formulate this line of reasoning, quite another to actually pursue the course of action it suggested. I mean, what would my family think, what would people think, how would I not be a joke for the rest of my life.
    Ultimately the idea seemed too radical, too extreme, and I just couldn’t bring myself to pursue it. I believed that it would put me on the same path of so many other transgender individuals. So many have lost their entire families - all the people they loved and cared about. I tried to find other ways to make my life work. Nothing ever did. Unable to find other ways of dealing and still on a life path to nowhere I ultimately confessed my thoughts about the possibility of transitioning to xxxxxx (my wife). Of course she wasn’t happy, after all when she married me she fully believed that she was marrying a man, but she also didn’t throw the possibility out entirely. We sought counselling to sort out our feelings and as to how we could talk to yyyyy and zzzzz (our children) about this. No easy solutions but when we sat them down they were much more understanding and kind about it than I had dared hoped to expect. I was right in my belief that I had a wonderful family. Much less certain that I deserved them though.

    In Canada you cannot just go to a doctor and ask for a prescription to change your gender. First you have to have an evaluation from a qualified psychologist. Its called a hormone readiness assessment and without it your family doctor will not be able to secure an appointment with an endocrinologist who then takes over and decides on a hormone regiment. I went through it all and in June 2016 started the hormones that if all goes well will at some point in the not so distant future result in me spending the rest of my life as a woman.
    I have chosen the name Sara Olivia for my life as a woman. How everything will work out with my family, all my family and friends , is still a great unknown. The best that I can hope for is that xxxxx will stay with me and that we grow old together, being happy, perhaps someday able to watch our grandchildren as they play in the backyard as we have often watched our own children play. That yyyyy and zzzzz can accept having a dad who's a girl, and that they will not suffer any consequences of this from others who are less tolerant. That I don't bring shame and embarrassment to the rest of my family and that hopefully I do not lose any of you from my life. My family and friends mean a lot to me even those of you whom I do not see but every few years.
    Why am I telling you all this? As I am getting closer to that day in the future when the female me will become my new reality, I feel that it is only right that I share this about myself with you my family and friends. This topic still holds a lot of shame, embarrassment, pain and a sense that I am letting everyone down for me. When attempting to talk about it I often find myself at a loss for words, emotional and getting flustered. In the end more often than not I am unable to put into words what I'm really hoping to say. So this is a tool that may allow me to express myself in a way I might otherwise not be able to do.
    I have been asked why at this late stage in my life would I ever consider transitioning from man to woman. More than once I have heard the phrase "You have made it this far in life as a man, why not the rest of the way"? Perhaps simply put what started as a snowflake in my early childhood, grew into a snowball in my youth and has now progressed into an all out avalanche. Feelings that I used to be able to deal with are now front and center all of the time and I am no longer able to just ignore them and lock them away. This issue takes up so much of my energy every day that I have nothing left for anything else in my life. Which isn't good. After all, I have a family who also need me to be there for them. They are supposed to be front and center in my life, not this unresolved conflict that I am incapable of making go away.

    I know that there are many who think that what I am doing is very selfish. It probably is. It certainly makes the lives of my family much more difficult. I totally understand that. There have been moments when I was feeling great despair and believed that perhaps I should just move away so that my family do not have to deal with all of my issues and the embarrassment and shame that they might bring to them. But I made a promise to zzzzz, yyyyy and xxxxx years ago that I would always be there for them and never abandon them. That was a solemn promise to them that I refuse to break. In defense of my decision to transition all I can say is that I spent the greater part of my life desperately trying to live up to the expectations that society and my family had of me. To be a man and a good citizen. To be a good son, brother, husband and father. To be someone whom my family can be proud of, and not someone of whom they are embarrassed. Ultimately I still believe that I can be most of those things, just with a different pronoun. I liked the way xxxxx once put it to me when we were discussing the issue. I see the person, the human being, not what gender you are.
    Last edited by Sara Olivia; 01-26-2019 at 04:05 PM.

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Jeri Ann's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Houston
    Posts
    1,656
    Sara,

    Thank you for sharing your story. You and I have talked before and, as you know, my story is very similar. Change a few details and this is the story of many transwomen I know.

    I expect it has been difficult for your family but you are truly blessed to still have them in your life. I had breakfast this morning with two transwomen I know. Both are transitioning with their S.O.'s support. I din't say it but I am envious. My S.O. decided I wasn't worth it and convinced the rest of the family of that too.

    Best of luck to you as you move forward in your new life. And, thank you agin for your courage and transparency. Let me know if I can do anything for you.

  3. #3
    New Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Posts
    17
    Thank you for having the courage to tell your story. Best wishes.

  4. #4
    Gold Member Lana Mae's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    8,606
    Thanks for sharing, Sara Olivia! My story has similarities and differences! I too tried hard to be the male everyone expected! Now I realize it was not really me! Again thanks for sharing! Hugs Lana Mae
    Life is worth living!
    "Foxy lady! You look so good!!" Jimi Hendrix

  5. #5
    Aspiring Member GracieRose's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Location
    Cincinnati
    Posts
    820
    Sara,
    Well articulated.
    I admire your courage and the support you get from your wife and family. I hope you grow old together.
    I wish you well on your journey.
    -Peace
    -Gracie

  6. #6
    Aspiring Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    SE PA
    Posts
    598
    Sara,
    Many, many thanks for sharing your very personal life journey. I relate to several parts of your journey. I wish you and your family happiness, good health and lots of love; and hope your extended family and friends embrace Sara.

  7. #7
    Member DanaM64's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    172
    Best of luck Sara with your continued support!
    I'm always happy to hear when we are accepted for who we are on the inside!

  8. #8
    Senior Member kayegirl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    West Yorkshire England
    Posts
    1,103
    Sara, thank you for your story, there was so much there that I could relate to, I only wish that I had your courage and resolve. I wish you and your family all of the best for the future.

  9. #9
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    113
    Thank you for sharing that wonderful letter. I’m sure it resembles much of what we all feel!
    Just trying to be the real me!

  10. #10
    Junior Member Rita Leigh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    76
    Sara Olivia, thank you for sharing this with us...it is at once brave beyond words and yet you wrote it all down. The pain, embarrassment and shame you felt because of this soul/body conflict is clearly expressed (far better than many of us could do) and the courage you have displayed in sharing this is admirable. Those first steps, sharing your true self with your spouse and then your kids, was so brave, but to now pour out your heart and soul to your family and friends is incredible. Your sincerity shines throughout your letter and what a blessing it is that you have been so well received by these family members and friends. Continue your life journey with your head held high because it's obvious to us (readers and conflicted souls too) that they all truly respect you as a person and someone worthy of their love and support. Best wishes, Rita Leigh

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


Check out these other hot web properties:
Catholic Personals | Jewish Personals | Millionaire Personals | Unsigned Artists | Crossdressing Relationship
BBW Personals | Latino Personals | Black Personals | Crossdresser Chat | Crossdressing QA
Biker Personals | CD Relationship | Crossdressing Dating | FTM Relationship | Dating | TG Relationship


The crossdressing community is one that needs to stick together and continue to be there for each other for whatever one needs.
We are always trying to improve the forum to better serve the crossdresser in all of us.

Browse Crossdressers By State