It is my problem …………
For me, and probably for many others like me, the problems that we experience from being Transgender are not always our problems. But, they become our problems thanks to those whose understanding and acceptance of us has not quite caught up with reality. When other people create a problem for me by saying or behaving in a transphobic manner, or they react in a negative way about my gender status or just simply behave in a way towards me that directly impacts on mine or my wife or children’s lives, this causes me huge upset and at the same time brings me incredible guilt that they could be disadvantaged or suffer because I am who I am. This is, without doubt, a vicious circle, which if not kept in check will leave me suffering with stress, anxiety and depression. I know, because it’s happened to me many times and recovering from it always impacts on other areas of my life. The struggle here is that sometimes the problem may only exist inside my head because of comments made to me, or someone’s behaviour towards me. If I perceive that my gender status will become a problem for other people or that an unpleasant situation will arise, this will trigger a rise in my anxiety levels, in turn I will stress over the situation, whether it’s happened or not and this will bring on the depression that accompanies it. So, the biggest problem for me is simply being me!! A life time of not being completely honest about who I am also continues to cause me an ongoing problem, there are people in my life who I don’t think will accept me if they knew the whole of me, and as such I feel I cannot tell them. I hide this huge thing about myself from some of the people I love the most in this world, and that also adds to the whole feeling of guilt. I am living a part life and a lie, and I’m deceiving people that I care about, and all because they might have a problem with me. Now this is nothing new to me, as I have lived with being me all my life. I didn’t wake up one day and think, I know, from now on I am going to stop being solely a boy and become a boy and a girl all rolled into one. Hell no, what kind of complete sadist would want to do that?? As I have said before, it’s not a choice, it’s just who I am. So why is this really such a problem for me?? Why have I, like so many others, had periods in my life when I have felt damaged or broken?? Felt worthless and not worthy of friends or love?? Its because I thought I would be seen as some kind of human anomaly, and I needed to lie to people and shut away who I was, to satisfy the expectations of what they thought I should be. Conforming for so much of my life to a societal dictated binary, so everyone around me could be blissfully content that all in my life was ‘normal’, and yet at the same time, be totally unaware that it wasn’t. Whilst I constantly felt like crap, knowing I wasn’t the same as everyone else, and always living just one step back from that deep black hole that was just waiting for me to fall into it. Now. Despite all of that, I’m lucky. I've never felt so bad that I wanted to end my life or even to harm myself in an attempt to cry out for help, although it took many years for me to truly open up to others about this. I had accepted, in myself, to some degree that this is who and what I am. Being a child growing up in the 80’s was great because there were all manner of people out there refusing to conform. I could see that things were changing, society was starting to accept people who were different, people like me, and that gave me some hope. I wasn’t to know that that acceptance would still be incomplete some 30 years later, but that hope was there, and it was real. Moving on, how does ‘There being a problem’ affect me now? Well, it still does a few things: Firstly, it triggers those feelings of a loss of self-worth, I feel like I have instantly become a lesser person, that in many ways I am not as good as others and that I still don’t really have a proper place in the world. This gets me down and depresses me, it triggers anxiety, and can become self-consuming, and if not reigned in and managed, will only get worse. Secondly, it makes me want to hide away, I feel embarrassment and self-shame, which leads to a feeling that I am then going to be a source of shame and embarrassment to my family and close friends who I built up the confidence to share this real part of my life with. I will go back through the motion of questioning who I am and my validity as a normal human in this world. I will feel like I’m abnormal and substandard when compared to the so called normal people in society, and that I am no longer worthy of being a part of their lives. So, I shut myself away, I stop communicating and socialising with them. Of course, I don’t tell anyone that this is what I am experiencing at the time, so how would they know, and at the same time, if no one asks after me or spots something wrong then this just validates my thoughts in my own head. Finally, and fortunately things don’t get this bad very often, certainly not recently, but they have before. I will go through a period of complete self-loathing. In a constantly failing attempt to rid myself of my dual existence, I will deny who I am to myself, which will never work, as fundamentally I am who I am, and nothing can change this. This hasn’t happened for many years but essentially, I take everything about my female side, my wardrobe, my makeup, jewellery, hair, shoes, everything, and destroy it and get rid, in a misguided effort to be shot of half of myself. Obviously, this has never worked as I am still here and living my dual gender life, I can’t just erase half of who I am. This is closely followed by a period of what has recently been accepted and named as ‘High Functioning Depression’. Life becomes an act, a lie, to hide what is wrong and to maintain a complete external normality if anyone asks. I go to work and act completely normal, I just close the door on the rest of the world until I feel I can pick up and move on, having as little as possible to do with friends and as little contact as I can get away with family throughout this time. Please be assured, this has not happened for a long time. Much of this is thanks to the broad ranging acceptance of who and what I am by so many people both close and not so close. Coupled with the love and amazing support that my wife gives to me when things are not so good. I really don’t think I could be me without her. Some of you (Most of you I hope), who are reading this blog may completely understand what I am talking about, after all, you don’t need to be transgender to empathise and understand this, some may say this is stupid or ridiculous, some will say that I should just grow up and deal with it, others may have some sympathy and want to help. Unfortunately, although some will understand and empathise, a lot don’t, and sadly that is because they simply don’t want to, they don’t want to understand, it allows them the comfort of ‘Not my Problem’ !!! The thing is, it would be easy to pass of this kind of closed down behaviour as attention seeking, but that’s exactly what it’s not. The kind of behaviour that can trigger this can happen anytime and that’s the real problem. If something triggers this downward spiral, then like all people who suffer from depression, it’s so hard to ask for help and support, so I just don’t. So please help me out, if you don’t hear from me for a while, or I seem a bit off, be a friend, ask and check up on me, show me that added bit of support, it really will make all the difference. If you want to know more, then contact me through this blog or on one of the other Social Media platforms that I use. I’d also love to receive your feedback. Love and Hugs, Sophie xxx Facebook www.facebook.com/beingsophie Twitter www.twitter.com/sophietgirl Bloglovin www.bloglovin.com/blogs/being-sophie-17676297
28 Comments
|
AuthorHi, I'm Sophie. I hope you enjoy reading my blog. Please leave some comments on what you think of my blog x Archives
March 2022
Categories
All
|