Repressed Memories of a Traumatic Coming-Out

I'm struggling a bit with coming to terms with the fact that I'm not entirely cis!female.

It's not about not being sure.

It's about the fact that I managed to reach 32 years old before realising this, despite always having been very aware of LGBT issues and supportive of people with non-conforming gender identities.

It's about the fact that I actually knew about this when I was very young; but when I was six years old, I came out to my mother. My very conservative, traditional, deeply religious mother. I don't actually remember everything that happened; but I know she tried to "cast the demon out of me".

I was scared.

It wasn't painful; it just involved a lot of prayer, scripture, and invoking God's assistance and commanding evil spirits to leave, while I had to stay in the corner facing her until it was over. This was neither the first nor the last time my parents attempted to exorcise me. I don't struggle to remember any of the later attempts, and while the memories aren't pleasant ones, they're not actually traumatic - certainly not in comparison to other parts of my upbringing. But that particular attempt was so traumatizing I actually blocked the memory of it out until recently.

Part of what made it so traumatizing was the fact that it seemed like it would never end. The end of the exorcism was supposed to come when my parents were satisfied that whatever evil spirit had been causing the issue was gone. But every time my mother stopped to ask me questions about my gender identity and my feelings on it, my answers failed to convince her that I was free from demonic influence.

I cried and sobbed and apologized and promised never to do it again. But no matter how much I begged, she would keep starting up again after confirming that I really did believe that there was something wrong with my gender. I remember screaming in desperation for her to just stop; I understood I was wrong. But lying was wrong, too; so my honest answers to her questions meant we had a long night ahead of us.

I couldn't understand why. I did feel different now than I had at the beginning - I was terrified. Too terrified to care about the request to be given a boy's name and be allowed to dress like a boy that had been so very important to me before. But I didn't feel free from anything, and there was no sense of relief.

Just a sense of loss and betrayal.

I've always known that I went through "a phase" as a child where I "really thought I was a boy."

I've always known that I stopped after talking to my mother and having her explain that what I was feeling wasn't real.

I've always known that something felt off about myself.

I've always known that thinking of myself as female was uncomfortable; like wearing shoes that don't fit right.

But I never managed to make the connection with the possibility that I might have a gender identity issue - despite being aware and supportive of LGBTQ issues and rights since I left home as a teenager.

There was a mental disconnect in my head for years, that stopped me from even considering that I might not be 100% cis!female. I've always been very supportive of trans individuals, but the very suggestion that I might be one of them made me feel so awful I always dismissed it as a possibility.

It wasn't until I had a conversation with my own daughter about her struggles with gender dysphoria, when she came out to me, that I finally made that breakthrough. And it shook me.

Even more so as I've started to remember what actually happened back then.

I was so nervous when I went to talk to my mom. So afraid that there was something wrong with me, but I needed to talk about it. I was just so sick of feeling wrong. Hating it when I was called a girl, looking at my dresses and my long hair and feeling like I was going to cry or throw up. So tired of my body just not being right.

"Maybe God made a mistake," I told myself. "I was supposed to be a boy, so my soul's a boy; but when he started making my body he got distracted and I accidentally turned into a girl."

So said my six year old logic; and I cheerfully decided that now that I had an explanation for what was wrong with me and how it must have happened, I could go tell my mother. She would help me tell everyone I was actually a boy and I would wear boys clothes and have short hair and my name would be David. Mommy would fix everything, and it would be all better.

It wasn't.

I'm just... really struggling to wrap my head around this. A lot of the emotions from back then are coming back, too; it's just really, really awful.

When I first realised I wasn't cis!female, acknowledging it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I felt like I was finally free for the first time. Like I finally knew who I was.

But earlier today something triggered my memories, and now I feel like a mess. I feel so betrayed all over again, and I don't know what to do or how to make any of this better.

There's also the fact that when I was younger, my symptoms, emotions, and mental state all suggest that I was trans male. I only went to talk to my mother after at least TWO YEARS (that I can remember) of becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my own body, with being called a girl, wearing female clothing, etc. It was something that never went away or got better, never changed, and I only became more and more desperate as time went by and I still hadn't managed to pray myself into a boy's body.

The thing is, I'm not comfortable completely shedding my femininity anymore. The thought of never being female again doesn't sound like a miracle anymore. The idea of being trans male doesn't feel right; it makes me miserable. I'm honestly more comfortable now identifying as genderqueer.

I just keep wondering... did she break me?

 

Thanks. I WILL be addressing this in therapy; I'm trying to remember to be an adult now and look after my mental health.

I'm sorry about how long and depressing that last post was; I was just in a very bad place when I wrote it. Like I said; I'd only just started to truly recover my memories of everything that happened, so the emotions from that time felt very fresh. I honestly probably should have called a crisis line for support; but my thinking at the time went, "I'm not suicidal or self-harming, just very, very upset and depressed. I should find a forum instead." It doesn't help that I get anxiety over using the phone a lot, so. A couple of nights of sleep and a bit of distance make facing those memories feel a bit more manageable, though.

I think I just needed to hear someone else tell me that it's okay to be non-binary now, even if I WAS born trans male. It isn't the idea of being non-binary that distressed me - like I said, at the time that I first acknowledged that it felt freeing and empowering in a very big way. It's the idea that I'm NOT SUPPOSED TO be this way; that this isn't me finding who I'm meant to be - it's me finding who my mother turned me into. That she somehow unmade me enough to change such a fundamental part of who I am.

It's me being afraid that not being able to be who I used to be anymore means that I'm irreparably damaged in some way. That not being comfortable identifying the same way I used to be most comfortable with anymore means that I'll never truly recover from what was done to me. Or that I need to try to force myself to identify that way even if it isn't the best fit anymore if I want to heal.

That's the biggest source of my worry over this whole thing right now. My childhood unfortunately means that memories of my parents traumatizing me and/or betraying my trust in some way aren't really a new thing, so I have experience compartmentalizing and dealing with that side of things. It's the fear that not only was this unfixable, but that if I can't fix it, I'll never really be free.

Like I said, I'm going to have to discuss this in therapy, but I really needed to vent and have someone tell me it would be okay.

Not to mention, I have no idea how I'll even start thinking about coming out when I get myself into a more stable place mentally; the thought is very overwhelming atm.