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| Image from Annie Spratt on UnSplash. |
Over the years, turmoil from my gender dysphoria just tried to destroy me. Much of it came from the confusion I felt early in life as I tried to figure out if I was a boy or a girl and could I ever escape the gender box I was born into.
Perhaps the worst part of my inner gender feelings came from not knowing if what I was doing in front of the mirror was really doing me any good or was just a stop-gap measure to get me by to the next time I could cross-dress as a girl. Were my limited mirror experiences all that I would find to get me closer to my lifetime goal of being a transfeminine person. On my own terms. What no one told the young me was that the rules of my life would dramatically change. No one told me then that I would take three years of my life to serve in the military and then go through many years of therapy for a manic-depressive disorder. I was just a confused kid.
As I matured and went through the unwanted terrors of male puberty, I started to feel the pressure for the first time to fight back my gender dysphoria and do the so called “right thing” and just relax in the gender box which was given to me. Somehow, along the way, I had learned the powerful/destructive male response to some problems called internalization. I learned it from my dad as he never showed much emotion at all except when he was angry with us. Most certainly not the ideal environment for a gender dysphoric child to grow up in. There was no way I felt comfortable in going to my dad and telling him I wanted to be his daughter. So, the years went by with me internalizing all I felt the best I could.
It was not until many years later when I was honorably discharged from the Army did, that I began to feel the increasing depression which was gaining on me. I knew something was not right and I sought out my first therapist for help. From him I learned one of basic truths of therapy, you only get out of it what you put into it. I got absolutely nowhere with my first therapist when I mentioned my cross-dressing and my growing depression which was beginning to seriously threaten my life I was building as a man. He finally prescribed some medications for me which made me feel worse and sent me on my way. I did not know what I thought would happen except nothing which did and my depression over my life began to build to the point I was not happy unless I was out in the world testing out how I felt as a novice cross-dresser.
Regardless of how negative my experience was with my first therapist; I set up other appointments to see another therapist who advertised gender therapy to try to save my rapidly dissolving marriage I was with my second wife. It was with her that I discovered another two truths about myself and the world of therapy. The first was that I was much more comfortable talking to another woman about my feminine desires than a man and for therapy to do me any good, I would have to listen to what I was told. For example, I completely ignored her when she told me there was nothing, she could do about me wanting to be a woman.
On the positive side, we talked about the major depressing lapses I was having in my life and how I spent days when I did not want to get out of bed. She diagnosed me with a form of Bi-Polar depression and prescribed me medication I take to this day which helps stabilize the chemicals in my brain which caused my extreme depression. On the negative side, I was left on my own facing my own battle about who I really was when I looked in the mirror. I was still years away from solving the major question of my life. Sadly, I was wasting valuable time in my life making the decision I always knew was true. I was always a woman pretending to be a man the best way I knew.
The best idea I had was to go out into the world and see if I could make it in a universe ran by and for ciswomen. A world which operated on a separate plane than cismen. I will always be thankful and amazed at the number of ciswomen who welcomed my arrival into their world and showed me the way behind the gender curtain. Where I always wanted to be in my life as part of the girls’ club. It was only then that doing my extreme gender turmoil begin to subside and I could relax and even be happy when I was out in the world as my feminine authentic self.
At that point, I needed to pause and reassess where a life of living a lie had taken me. All I did know was the HRT gender affirming hormones I was prescribed by my Veterans Administration therapist were miracle workers for me. I have spent time mentioning the external changes such as a softening of the skin, longer hair and bigger breasts which came along faster than I even hoped for on my femininization timetable. But I spend less time mentioning the internal changes such as emotions which came about quickly too when I found out how it was to cry. It was as if my body was syncing up with my external woman in the world by saying what took you so long.
As I said, the hormones forced me to play my feminine hand and with help of my circle of women friends, it was time to permanently leave my old male past behind. Sure, not all he had done was bad, but still there was enough negative to want me to leave him in my past and forget about all the gender turmoil behind me.
I know I get comments all the time from those of you who have not had the chance to free yourself from the chains of your closet. I hope you have the chance soon to escape into the true world you always deserve.
Thanks for reading along, commenting is always appreciated!
