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Feeling completely unhinged right now.

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Dinah, May 7, 2014.

  1. Dinah

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    [​IMG]


    ---------- Post added 29th May 2014 at 06:47 AM ----------

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Dinah

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    Whenever I create an online profile and come to the 'About Me' section, I eventually just skip over that part. My entire life, 'who I am' has always been a cheap imitation of everyone around me, picking out the things I like about others and leaving out those things that I don't like and assuming that those are MY defining traits and charateristics.

    I don't know who I am, when nobody else is around, and I feel like I'm never going to figure that out. The few brief moments that I've allowed myself to question my identity have left me feeling that who I've pretended to be all these years, doesn't fit with whatever this is inside of me that is begging to be let out.

    I spent a large part of my childhood, hidden away in my room because it was the easiest way to keep all that social white noise out of my head, but still the problem remained. Without that social white noise, who then was I? Who AM I?

    I knew how to find that inner silence, so that I could ask those questions that needed to be asked. But I never found the answers that I needed. So I just learned to accept that I would always just be a chameleon, someone else's shadow, quit asking questions because it ceased to do any good.

    Now, I'm in that quiet space again, and the questions come back more powerfully, and yet again, I find no answers. When I think I might've found something, I run away from it, because the feelings that come with knowing a truth about myself, those feelings are just too powerful and overwhelming for me to handle.
     
  3. Dinah

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  4. Dinah

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    Ugh, just did a google search of 'best 100 places to live in Arkansas', aaaand this state sucks so badly that I got nothing in search results.

    Dammit I hate living in Arkansas!!!!!!!!!
     
  5. Dinah

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    Trust issues with family members. It's not so much about trust for trust's sake with them, as it is that if I let them see the real me, and let them judge me for it, it would destroy me completely. What my family thinks of me means everything to me, though I might try to think otherwise. So I hide. Then I lie. I keep my back against the wall, because I allow myself to be exposed and vulnerable for even a second.
     
  6. Dinah

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    I always felt it was better to play myself off as being dumber than I really am, because having been as observant of how things were growing up, to tell my family what I thought or how I felt, would be very hurtful to them (at least in my mind).

    If burying my thoughts and feelings was the price I'd pay for that, I didn't feel like there was much of a choice. It hurts like hell, but I don't want anyone else to feel the way I do, because of the way I've felt all these years. There are alot of things I felt this intense pain for, and alot of it I don't even (presently) remember, but the pain is still there.

    ---------- Post added 4th Jun 2014 at 11:16 AM ----------

    [yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQCzXgTwekI[/yt]


    ---------- Post added 4th Jun 2014 at 11:23 AM ----------

    And there's the tears. :tears: :tears:
     
  7. Dinah

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    Couldn't even get through half of the song before I just broke down.
     
  8. Stacy in MA

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    For what it's worth... (*hug*)
     
  9. Dinah

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    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9CRsU-OAf8#t=88[/yt]


    ---------- Post added 4th Jun 2014 at 11:43 AM ----------

    Thank you.

    I'm trying to hold out hope that things will get better. I'm standing with my face against the storms and driving winds, trying hard not to get blown away.
     
    #89 Dinah, Jun 4, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2014
  10. Dinah

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    I remember back in my high school days, my classmates (guys, of course) would joke about 'being a lesbian trapped in a man's body) which when taken in the intended context was somewhat amusing. But what's funny to me, is that that's pretty much exactly how I feel most of the time.
     
  11. Dinah

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    I posted the link to Kat's video on the same topic previously, and I've asked and received permission to repost the text for this.

    When I Knew | Thought Catalog

    =================================

    When did I know?

    You’re asking me that? Have a seat and I’ll tell you. You ready?

    I knew when I sat in the living room as a child feeling like my body didn’t fit and when I asked them about it, they told me that I had “boy parts.” I knew because even then it didn’t feel right.

    I knew when they told me I would one day be a big strong man and that I would one day be married to a girl and make babies because that was my biological destiny and the thought horrified me — but I was afraid to tell them.

    I knew when I would play with the other girls, when I had a desire to be like them, a feeling that I should be like them, a feeling that I should not be like this — and them telling me that that feeling was wrong.

    I knew that night they made fun of me in the parking lot of the mall when we were walking back to the car. They made fun of me for being “effeminate.” I knew when they used to punish me for crying and call me a pussy and tell me to “man up.”

    I knew when we watched Ace motherfucking Ventura and they laughed at the man who was disgusted after kissing a pretty lady that he wanted to kiss, crying in the shower, and when I was confused they told me that it was funny because she was really a man and that was disgusting.

    I knew when they forced me to be on that swim team and I had to reveal the body that I was so ashamed of to crowds of strangers on a regular basis. I told them how much it made me uncomfortable but they didn’t listen.

    I knew when they forced me to go to church and I heard a man that they said was a good man telling me that I was going to hell for liking men and for not feeling like one.

    I knew when I would go to school only to be called a “faggot” by the boys they forced me to be around when, try as I might, I couldn’t fit in with them or feel comfortable around them. I knew when those boys told me to cut my hair and tried to hit me and called me a girl like it was an insult. The boys that they said were like me, that they wanted me to be like, the boys that I didn’t want to be.

    I knew when they would toss around transphobic slurs like it was nothing. I knew when they called them “shemales” and “trannies” and “it” and no one batted an eye — but I did.

    I knew when they would ask me about girlfriends, when they expected me to have one to validate my identity, the one that they pushed on me, that I couldn’t escape. I knew when the women I was supposed to want to be with, I wanted to be instead.

    I knew when I felt aimless in denying my own identity for so many years that I tried to shape one the only way I thought I could — by being “a real man” and trying so hard to be “manly” and dress like a man and walk like a man and talk like a man and…

    Only to feel like I would rather die than be a man.

    I knew when those feelings wouldn’t go away.

    I knew when I had sex and the sex didn’t feel right, and when I said it didn’t they told me to keep trying, because men are supposed to enjoy having sex that way and I was a man and if I didn’t like it there was something wrong with me but I knew that there wasn’t. I knew that there was something wrong with them but I was too afraid to say it.

    I knew when I found a forum where people were talking about the things I was feeling and reading the words on the screen and thinking that I could have written them and for the first time imagining the possibility of me being who I am and being filled with joy only to remember how they all called me an ugly freak and again stowing it away because I didn’t want to be a “freak.”

    I knew when I couldn’t get those thoughts out of my head, when I started to draw myself and see myself and think of myself as a woman — when I started to see that there was beauty in me and not because I thought the woman that I drew was pretty but because the person that I was drawing was me and I loved her like I could not love myself because myself was not who I was then.

    I knew when I told them — I finally told them — and they told me it was a phase, that the grass wasn’t greener on their side of the fence, that I was just an “effeminate man,” a “delicately masculine man” and then telling them to go fuck themselves for thinking that they knew better than I did.

    I knew when I came out to my parents as genderqueer and I felt that was a compromise.

    I knew when we would be out and they would not know which pronoun to use and whenever they would call me “she” or “ma’am” it felt right and I smiled — I smiled.

    I knew when they would ask me if I was gay or bi or straight and they would treat me like I was a gay man and talk about me like I was a gay man anyway and it seemed weird, forced, uncomfortable, and most importantly, wrong.

    I knew when I would seek out the most gender-neutral clothing to wear and it still didn’t seem good enough. I knew when I decided to shave my legs and wear eyeliner so that people would see me as me — not because I felt that it was necessarily me or what made me who I was, but so that it would be visible because I was tired of being invisible and hiding behind my own fear.

    I knew when the teasing and the sidelong glances and the whispered comments stopped bothering me.

    I knew when after years of presenting in a way that allowed me to be read as female, I felt I had to revert back to presenting myself as a man to get a job, cutting my hair, and trying to wear masculine clothing, only to decide that it was bullshit and remember why I abandoned that life.

    I knew when that woman asked me out on a date and I spent the entire time talking about how I felt like a woman.

    I knew when my dysphoria got worse and despite all that, I wasn’t sure that what I was feeling was legitimate because I didn’t want to be a 1950′s housewife, that I didn’t know if my sexual attraction to men was legitimate because I didn’t want to have sex with anyone as a man and I had never been with a man, that maybe I was just an “autogynephile” because the thought of having sex as a woman (god forbid!) turned me on.

    I knew when I stopped eating because I wanted to die. I knew when I would punch myself and hurt myself and spend hours on the floor crying waiting for death to come as I became disgustingly thin.

    I knew when at my most desperate hour I found someone to talk to that legitimized what I was feeling and they told me that things would be okay. I knew when they told me that, that I had been living a lifetime having been conditioned to deny and doubt the undeniable – who I was.

    I knew when I changed my Facebook name to a woman’s name — my name — and came out to my friends and my parents and it felt right.

    I knew when I decided to buy women’s clothes and put them on and see myself as I had always wanted to be seen and realized that I could be who I wanted to be and that who I wanted to be was right all along. I knew when I started to wear those clothes in public and despite being terrified and awkward I felt like it was the only way I could live.

    I knew when I started taking the right hormones and I felt not only true happiness for the first time in my life, but euphoria. It was a release, a reawakening, a rebirth.

    I used to have problems answering that question. I knew the answer was complicated. But the older I get the more I know that I knew all along.

    So I guess, if you are going to ask me “When did you know?”, the answer would be all the times that they told me that I didn’t.

    Kat Haché
    ======================================

    ---------- Post added 5th Jun 2014 at 12:41 PM ----------

    When everytime I look at a mirror and what I see doesn't look like what I feel inside. When I feel like a vampire looking at a mirror and not seeing their own reflection.

    ---------- Post added 5th Jun 2014 at 12:43 PM ----------

    When I tried on so many different labels growing up, (prep, jock, cowboy, emo/goth, outcast, etc.) and none of them felt right.
     
    #91 Dinah, Jun 5, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2014
  12. Stacy in MA

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    Wow, that is really powerful. Thanks for asking permission and posting it here!
     
  13. Dinah

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    Growing up, my favorite comic book superheroes were always the X-men and also their enemies. Aside from the Sci-fi/fantasy appeal that that story brought to the table, the true appeal of that story has always been the social commentary underlying it all.

    It presents you with people who are born different from the rest of humanity without choice, and are forced to hide it for fear of hurting others and being hurt by others.

    On one side you have the X-men who made a conscious choice to learn to accept themselves as they are and use what makes them different to help others. Both those who are like them and those who fear them, who are different from them.

    On the other side are those who, like the X-men, are born different, and are willing to go to any lengths to survive, no matter the cost. Even if it meant hurting others to do so.

    Of all the characters in that story, I'd have to say Rogue is my favorite by far. Because what makes her unique, even among her fellow outcasts, is that she CANNOT physically touch anyone else without causing great harm to them. Anytime she touches someone else, she takes on some or all of that person's traits, but at the end of the day, those traits are still only temporary, they are not true to her existence and she remains who (and what) she is.

    Setting aside her inability to physically interact with people (or maybe expanding on that idea), her life was a lonely one, much more than any other. Something that I (and many others, who feel as I do) deeply relate to.

    Always observing, always witnessing the world around me, but never truly being a part of it, of living in that world like everyone else. Unable to touch, to hold, to be held, by others, knowing that revealing ourselves, there would only be pain and suffering.
     
    #93 Dinah, Jun 5, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2014
  14. Dinah

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    Just told my brother today (yesterday now, I suppose, it's 1:30am here at the moment) and it went better than I expected it would. It seems the fear of rejection and judgment is often much worse than the reality of a given situation.

    Even still, after having told him, I don't feel any better about HOW I'm feeling. Like it changes nothing, and I know that I desperately need SOMETHING to change. I'm tired of the lying to everyone, and to myself as well, I'm tired of play-acting that everything's just fine and dandy. I'm tired of waking up every morning and seeing this face that's not mine in the mirror.

    Little steps, it's all I have in me, and it's gonna have to be good enough. I'm too damn tired for anything more than that.
     
  15. Dinah

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    #95 Dinah, Jun 7, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2014
  16. Dinah

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    I remember when I was about 14 or 15 years old, growing up in the church, I mentioned to my mom that I wanted a 'purity' ring, you know the whole wait until you're married to have sex and all that. So she said okay, and that she'd go to a pawn shop and get me one, and I felt degraded and dismissed. (I even still to this day remember EXACTLY where we were when I brought it up.)

    I didn't know back then why I felt like I wanted that, but thinking back on it (and it was never about the material object either), what I felt was that I wanted and NEEDED my mom's acceptance and approval, and that, (subconciously) I wanted her to see that I was trying to be the good wholesome girl worthy of her approval.

    It was my attempt at getting closer to her, but I felt like she didn't care, and that I wasn't good enough. I just wanted someplace or someone I could go to for the emotional security that I needed.

    I felt cheated, like she didn't care about the process or the experience of discovering that decision in my life on a personal level. So, some days or weeks passed and she eventually bought some cheap gold ring from the pawn shop and that was that.

    Yeah, I made use of it, but rather than experiencing what I had hoped to, I learned that I had to keep my feelings and desires to myself, and gradually over-time I ceased to even notice that when I was faced with a chance to choose what I wanted, I ALWAYS ended up just settling for whatever scraps I had handed to me in life. I stopped expecting or hoping for anything meaningful.
     
    #96 Dinah, Jun 9, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2014
  17. Dinah

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    :help::bang:

    Feeling trapped again today. Does anyone else (trans*) experience this feeling of having the walls close in on them or something similar? How do you deal with it, what sorts of things or activities helps to alleviate the crushing weight of it all?
     
  18. Acm

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    (*hug*) I get that feeling a lot, in fact I've been feeling it a lot today. I usually just try to distract myself with a hobby which sometimes works
     
  19. Dinah

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    I can't deny this anymore. I can't keep living like this. I know that eventually (hopefully sooner than later) I NEED to begin the process of transitioning. I'm holding back a flood of tears and sobbing cries because my wife is asleep in the bedroom and I'm not ready for THAT conversation.

    My friend's wife keeps asking/telling me I should cut my beard, either in part or completely. That deepest part of me wants to, I only grew it out anyway, so that people wouldn't see my long hair and possibly guess at the truth of what I'm feeling.

    I need to post some photos of myself as I look now. Attempted to try on one of my wife's bras, but of course, she wears much smaller clothes than I do. :tears:
     
  20. Dinah

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    This. Because it made me sad and I cried. Big heart in a world full of little minds.

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFWr-CKMWGY[/yt]