A Journey Can't Begin Until You Take The First Step, And Then There's No Telling What Will Happen.
[Content Warning: A single mention of drugs, alcohol, suicide. Lots of discussion about depression and mental illness.]
This is my 3rd attempt at transitioning and I swear to whatever high atop the thing if this attempt fails I'm gonna absolutely lose my shit. I didn't know it at the time but the route I took from there to here would be wrought with chaos and pain.
My first attempt was an abject failure. Back then we had to follow the Harry Benjamin Standards and go through a Real Life Test in order to start hormone therapy. Unless you were really lucky or had sympathetic doctors you had to deal with the Gatekeepers who wanted receipts, and living in the deep south at the time made this all even worse. This would lead to my final attempt at shedding my mortal coil and boxing her up in the deepest corner of my mental closet.
This is where I danced a downward spiral and gave absolutely no fucks. Drugs and alcohol. A long path of broken hearts from relationships I kept sabotaging. Excessive eating. A day that ended in -y meant the plan was the same - lets make some bad decisions and self-destruct. I was damaging myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and I didn't care. I wasn't looking to the future because I didn't plan on having one, I didn't look to the past either because it only led to blaming myself even more. I looked at the here and now simultaneously damaging myself and doing damage control. It was exhausting!
I had a fight with myself that sort of stopped this. I was in the midst of a manic episode and just riding its wake, coming up on day 3 of no sleep and was working on getting pretty well sloshed. I was alone and just pacing around my house in the dark saying some very awful things to myself and then it happened - I saw my reflection in the mirror and absolutely loathed it! I wanted to recoil from it but instead I got angry. Really angry. Hulk angry. What commenced was a rage-fueled screaming match with myself of hurricane proportions. I can't tell you exactly what was said nor how long it lasted for, but I seems I managed to sleep as when I came to again I was in bed. The brain fog was heavy and deep which was normal, but I would eventually notice a note I wrote myself on my hand that said "I forgive you". I remembered, sort of. The memories were (and still are) hazy, but I remembered just enough to be numb. This was an absolute vast improvement that can't be understated. Its like being negative 5million and suddenly being at 0.
Reconstruction takes time. Current damage has to be assessed and additional damage mitigated. I'd gained a ton of weight, had either burned down or set fire to numerous social bridges, and had a few new health issues that needed to be repaired. A few years later I eventually considered the repair project complete and I was very much a blank slate. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted - it was a pure existential crisis. It made perfect sense at the time and hindsight (and my therapist) says it was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but I said fuck it and built a new me. I frankensteined a new person and would proceed to alter and replace pieces as needed. Write this down kids, this is called an unhealthy coping mechanism.
This invariably leads to the second attempt at transitioning. New me found themself in a new state with new friends, a new path in life, and a new opportunity. Planned Parenthood was now offering transitioning services! No gatekeeping. They said "you know you better than we ever could, as long as you know the risks and are prepared for the changes we can help". This was a warp speed steamroller event. I dug deep into that closet and pulled that box out, letting her out and unabashedly parading her around. Got my hormones, got new clothes, got my own place, and had all the amazing safe and consensual sex I could (sane was not welcome, because this girl had time to make up for!). It was intoxicating! Living, working, shopping, dating as the true me. In this whirlwind I lost friends and family but didn't realize it. I created a hollow existence that had no actual meaning or substance. Sure, my body was starting to look the way I always wanted it to, I was living the life she always wanted to, and there was no one there to stop me.
So that's the thing - there was no one there. It was chistmas day and I was sitting alone in my apartment eating ramen and cold pizza. No text messages or calls, no visitors or invites. The only gift I received that day was from myself, an epiphany. I had once again blown up my life. You see, when you take something out of storage and intend to use it you need to make sure it's still fit for function. She wasn't. She was a battered and bruised beast from a much earlier part of my life that I just kept feeding and had lost control. I had such terrible tunnel vision that I mistook the light of an oncoming freight train for the light at the end of the tunnel.
I detransitioned. I guess you could say I also detoxed. But this time I did not do it alone, I had a good therapist and a good friend that moved in with me. We examined the deepest parts of me, of her, of I. It was tough. The toughest and hardest thing I ever had to do, but it HAD to be done. This civilization I had built was done on the rubble and ruined remains of the last one, which makes for a very poor foundation. It was doomed to fail. My friend sort of acted like a sponsor. She was there to help guide me and make sure I didn't relapse. She helped me sell or give away what I had to, and by the end I had a clean and empty plot of land. Maybe something would grow there, or maybe something would be built there. But no matter what happened, I had to stay vigilant. I had to protect this land because this land was me. I was the sole resident, caretaker, gardener, builder, guardian.
My wife is my world. She knows my entire history, the battles and wars I've fought, the mental and emotional challenges I face every day, and she takes it all with open arms and never complains. When we talked about having kids we didn't know what would happen - between my own biological issues and the changes from the hormones it was a huge question as to whether I even could father a child. We talked about doing all the medical tests my doctor wanted to do as a kid, but when we really thought about it, what would the results change? Would knowing I was intersex, or had some kind of biological irregularity change anything for us? I already had a somewhat clean bill of health from my last checkup. So we said fuck it. It took quite a long time (and not for lack of effort or trying) but we eventually had our first daughter. We also inadvertently sparked something in me.
My therapist didn't know it, my wife didn't know it, and I didn't know it but the birth of my daughter was the trigger for a cascading series of events. As much as I had tried, using all the tools available, I could not keep denying my transgenderedness. Transness? It had always been there, in a quiet and overlooked part of my land, dormant but with just enough life to keep existing. Having a child and becoming a parent was the trigger needed to spark it back to life. Slowly, silently, it grew and stretched out its roots all the while causing emotional and mental issues. My depressive episodes were coming more frequent, but we didn't notice it was depression. My dysphoria was coming back with a vengeance but we thought it was from other sources. My egg was cracking open.
All it took was a simple, innocent, statement and everything changed. My daughter had tripped and fell, started crying, and as I picked her up I said "Come to mommy, baby". My wife noticed what I said, I noticed what I said, and the egg fully cracked open. It would be a series of conversations, large and small, over a few years. It would be 2 steps back and one step forward and jumping in place. We eventually would have the final conversation and determine that yes, I needed to transition. This part of me cannot be denied, ignored, or buried. When I asked what it would mean for our marriage, I said losing you wasn't worth it. She said I married the person, not the gender. We would have our second and last child before starting down this path.
So here we are in my third transition attempt. She has been an integral part from day one. We've explored what I want from this, what can be obtained and what can't, what needs to adjust in our marriage and how we can do it successfully. She gives me my weekly E shots and comes with me to every appointment. This change has also given her the ability to not only explore her own bisexuality, but also gender. We consider our friendship, relationship, and marriage even stronger than before. Our own little family unit is building quite the home on my land. My girls flip/flop between calling me mommy or daddy, but we don't mind since they always call me she or her or even ma'am. My eldest daughter always tells me how pretty I look or how she likes my dress or jewelry. Thanks to an obsession the youngest one had with the movie Coraline, father's day has been celebrated as Other Mother's Day.
Life isn't perfect though, nor should I expect it to be. This journey has also she light on how just how my own mental illnesses have been impacting me and the decisions I've made (if my biography is ever written a copy of the DSM V will need to be packaged with it for reference). Despite my vigilance things do sneak past and I've only just started climbing out of the deepest depression hole I've ever been in and this episode started 4months ago, but my wife has been loving, understanding, and supportive which helped immensely in pulling myself out.
I've socially transitioned at home, at work, and in the world at large. I'm medically transitioning and will soon legally transition. While I mourn that she never got to experience this in it's purest form, I do take solace in knowing she would have approved.
I've received my share of flak from people before, saying that I shouldn't transition because of my mental illness or that my history gives other trans people a bad name. Some bolder individuals have even said that because I detransitioned that means I was never trans to begin with. It hurts for a bit, but the haters are gonna hate and sometimes bitches just be trippin. From the time I started that Real Life Test to now it has taken me 21 years, a herculean task if there ever was one, and I have earned every. little. inch. This victory was earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Want to devalue that? Want to invalidate that? Want to take that away? Well, you'll need to pry it from my cold, dead, fabulously-manicured hands.
If you've read this far and you're struggling with your own transition, know that I understand and I support you. You aren't the first, you aren't alone, and you are heard. I love you!
A man is walking down the road and falls into a hole. He tries and tries but he can't climb out. A doctor passes by and he yells out "Hey doc, I fell in this hole and I can't get out! Can you help?" and the doctor looks down, writes a script, and sends it down saying "This should help!" and walks away. The next passerby is a priest and he yells out "Hey padre, I fell in this hole and I can't get out! Can you help?" and the priest says "Yes! I'll pray for you!" and walks away. The next person is his friend, Joe. "Hey Joe, I fell in this hole and I can't get out! Can you help?", Joe looks down, see's his friend, and jumps in the hole with him. "Joe, what the hell are you doing? Now we're both stuck down here!" he says. Joe replies "Yeah, but I've been here before and I know the way out".
theartofmadeline
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