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| Inside "Casa Susanna" A dream trip I never made. |
My early days of dealing with a severe case of gender dysphoria can only be described as being in hell.
For those of you who can remember the dark days of information before the internet and social media, you also recall the days of being completely alone in your dark gender closet. Since I was raised in a very male dominated family, I knew escaping my own closet was going to be difficult at it's best. I was forced to sneak around behind my family's back to steal away the time to cross dress in my small stash of girls clothes and makeup. I even resorted to storing away my clothes and a spare mirror in plastic bags in a hollowed out tree in the woods next to our house.
Through it all, I knew the whole process of dressing as a girl made me feel better but somehow would have to be enough to get me by. I followed the vicious cycles of feeling the gender euphoria of being feminine in my mirror with deep depression when I was denied access to my clothes. I learned very early I wanted to do more than look feminine, I wanted to be feminine. Way before the term transgender was ever invented. to put the date in perspective, I would have been in the 1960's before I hit my teenaged years and still years away from my military duty and discovering Virginia Prince and her "Transvestia" publication which only dealt with so called heterosexual cross dressers or transvestites. I mention "Tranvestia" again because it was my first link to other like minded people.
From then on, I knew I wasn't alone and could even go to transvestite mixers which were within driving distance of me. Even though I had discovered others, it turned out I was still dealing with my own personal hell. I still needed to be able to deal with the gender euphoric times followed by longer periods of gender dysphoric down times. Ironically I brought much of my hell on myself by not knowing the best ways to dress and apply makeup to best present my inner female to the public world. I had a difficult time dealing with all the stares, all the way to laughter when I tried to take on the world. Once I began to learn how to best handle the public, along came the Army to disrupt my life. As much as I didn't really want to experience military life at all, specifically I didn't know how I could exist three long years without having a chance to express my feminine self. For years, as I waited for the Vietnam War to draft me, I went through hell considering it's ramifications to me.
One way or another, I made it through the three years and couldn't wait for the relative freedom I had to escape my own personal gender hell, no matter how briefly.
My big escape came when I made the highly personal decision to stop considering myself a cross dresser when I went out and I transitioned into thinking of myself as a transgender woman. Semantics to be sure but a huge move for me mentally. By mentally transitioning I was able to take a huge step out of my own personal gender hell. In many ways, I entered my golden years of MtF gender transition by leaving much of my hell behind and be able to increasingly explore the world.
From then on I was able to free myself from my gender dysphoric hell and start to live my dream life as a transgender woman. Although I want to say the process was worth it, I wouldn't wish my journey on my worst enemy.
