I'm not really sure how to start this or where to put it ~ To start from very a very early age have always shown signs that my gender didn't fully match my physiology (male) at least looking at it retrospect. The other thing is that I am also HSP or an Empath which was also always there even though I didn't know what it was. It literally took me until almost age 40, close to 20 years ago to start coming to terms with my gender Identity, and it wasn't until about 12 years ago that I understood that I am empathic and what that really means. Now I'm leaving out a tremendous amount of details of the Journey, but at 56 years old I felt that I had a pretty good handle on who I was, that is until my Father died. Now to put this into perspective although I never knew it until after I was into my journey of self discovery and coming to terms and came out to my Dad (about 17 years ago - my mom had already passed) but my Dad was a Cross Dresser and had been for most of my childhood which seemed to lend truth to such things being perhaps Genetic or more Nature vs. Nurture. Fast forward again to 2018 to Now and after a very rough year and a half where My Father died after 6 months of Hospitalization, my moving him in with me and taking care of him through a Hurricane with Flood Damage, then a Divorce that was supposed to be amiable turning into a Legally Ugly affair, and almost losing my career due to downsizing (which was drug out over 6 months) ... The dust has finally settled since the middle of 2019. Sorry for the long intro, but I felt it necessary to explain. So here I am after the dust has settled and the legacy of having living parents has now ended and I'm finding that everything has changed / is changing. Since getting through all of this I've really just not felt like a woman or feminine or really had any real inclination to express anything other than my birth Gender aside from my underwear and sleep attire. No feeling the need to have a "Girls Day", dress, wear makeup etc, and I've really been questioning why? Then about two months ago while talking to my Sister she laid an absolute bombshell on my that I never knew and that my father never shared with me despite us being close in the last dozen years or so... She told me that my Father was Raped by his Dad multiple times in his youth (3 out of the 7 kids had been). Now that may not seem too relevant and perhaps it wouldn't be if I weren't empathic / HSP. But I am... and so now I am totally questioning pretty much everything that I had come to accept and thought was true. Because the truth is that I know that as an HSP / Empath I take on the Feelings of those around me to the point that If I am not careful it becomes really hard to separate myself from those that are around me, and I know that I often can pick up feelings that even the individual that I'm getting them from isn't consciously aware of - Things that are in layers below the conscious or recognized. So Here's my big "What If?" ... and what I am trying to now come to terms with: Am I just a confused HSP / Empath who's been immersed for virtually my whole life in someone elses Dysphoria? or am I really Genderfluid myself in my own Skin? Between the personal changes I have been experiencing since my Father's passing and then the entire context of my Dad's life and all that he had told me and shared over the years shifting to where I literally need to reprocess all of it because the context has so dramatically changed I really don't know where I'm at or who I really am. Any thought's would be appreciated, though I doubt that there are many who have gone through something similar.
