#transupport

Yesterday I had a therapy appointment where I was super positive. My psychologist is honestly the best one I’ve ever had, and I’ve seen A LOT of them in my lifetime, trust me. She’s so good at reading me...at knowing when I want to say something but don't know how, and knowing when my emotions are written all over my face, but I act completely different. She’s done one hell of a job calling me out on things, because you see, I realized I do something very different in this past year or so that I used to never do. And I think it stems from me being in such a terrible abusive relationship for so long.. But I make things out be non chant. I shrug my shoulders, I laugh...I talk about the good things. And I do that, because in my last relationship, anytime I had anxiety or sadness, things blew up. My ex didn’t know how to understand my emotions and from there I learned to just not act on them anymore to save a fight. To save something being about me, turning into her, and how awful I am to her.... My psychologist is great at pinpointing that I do this, and knowing when something really does bother me, but I don’t have it in me to say it. I can literally look her straight in the eyes and say “Things are great Cheryl!” and she will shake her head and be like “Nope, your eyes say something different.” and will push me till I dig deep to find whats bugging me. So, she’s great and I love her and I just wanted to throw that out there. I’ve never had such an amazing psychologist that’s so great at calling me out on my shit. But anyway, yesterday was a great session. We talked about names. Which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t. It’s hard because I want to try out names but all my friends that know are cross country and can’t really help me in that area. Sure, some them have texted names to me, but it’s different than someone calling you a different name entirely. We also talked about how my professional life is SO different from my personal life. Not to say that I’m not myself at work, but who I am at work is, for the most part very private person, because I like to be seen and viewed professionally.  So, I’d be damned if any of them find out I’m trans. And those are really the only people I have around here that could help me out with a name, and that’s just not a possibility.  I talked about how lucky I am that I get to travel...and I get the opportunity to go to a new assignment next time and introduce myself as whatever I’d like to. If people don’t know me as anything else, they can’t really get much of a say in if they agree with it or not, am I right? I also talked about how I’m pretty sure my brother Corey, who I’ve told, has laid some ground work to kinda break the ice for my family. I’ve had my brother Chad reaching out more, talking to me, which never happens. And I also had my parents make a weird comment the other day where they used daughter and then quickly corrected it to child. I don’t know if these are all just coincidences but it seems very odd to me that stuff like this started happening only after I told my brother Corey. And I’m not mad if he did that. If he did, it was very smart of him too, because it let’s them brace for impact without actually knowing from the actual source yet. I doubt he woulda come straight out and say it because my brother is awkward and wouldn’t want to face the questions I feel like haha.  But it’s going to be interesting to come home....And I feel like I will tell my parents over break, starting with my father.  I just feel like he will be better at reacting to it...and I feel like he’ll have a better idea about how to approach my mom with it than I will. My mom is a wild card. I know there is nothing I could do that would make her stop loving me, but I think it’ll be a grievance for her, and an adjustment, and the last thing I want to do is hurt my parents.  Because you know, I’m not doing this to hurt them. I’m not setting out to pursue something new...I’m trying to be honest with myself and live my life authentically.  I hope they can see it as that too. And you know, my brother made a comment the other day way back when I first told him and I don’t know if I ever wrote about it, but I want to cover it briefly.  He said, and I’ll paraphrase, 

“I’m just worried you’re constantly looking for things to fix your happiness, because you know, you were unhappy being straight, so you came out as a lesbian. That still didn’t work, and you were still unhappy so you cut your hair. Than you’re still unhappy, now you want to transition. Like the pattern writes itself, and what are you going to do after you transitioned and you’re still unhappy? I think that’s why a lot of transgender people kill themselves...because then there’s nothing else to try and fix it.”

This struck me hard a lot because it really made me step back and be like wow, no. Cause you see, growth is a process. It happens over time. Finding yourself is a process, and we change over time.  The only part I agree with him on, was being unhappy while I was acting as straight, because I was young, going through a lot of changes, had no kind of guidance or role models to tell me it was okay, and I knew I was different. I was young and I was fucking terrified, so I changed that by coming out an living my life as authentically as I knew how. If I had achieved the growth to the point where I’m at now...if I had had access to even knowing what transgender WAS back then, then maybe that would have been my first step...because I’ve never felt like a girl really. Me cutting my hair had nothing to do with me being unhappy. It had everything to do with style and knowing I had none when it came to my hair. It was always in a ponytail and I knew I wanted to cut it for a long time. It wasn’t some sort of impulsive shot at trying to attain happiness. It was me taking steps towards being myself. And now I’m coming out as trans...not because I’m unhappy and looking for ways to fix it, but because I’m me....and I’ve done the research and I’ve done the work to learn about it and realize that is who I am....and that is who I’VE always been...I just wasn’t ready to come out yet...I didn’t have the knowledge to know that I could yet. And I’m not scared, I’m not terrified. I’m entirely in a different place then I was when I came out as a lesbian. I know there is a community out there that supports me, I have friends who are transgender, and I have at least ONE person in my family who accepts me as I am....and that is everything to me. I have friends who accept me as I am, and I am just more certain and secure within myself as a person to know that this is something I need to do, but it isn’t as messy and sporadic as it was when I came out as a lesbian. And that’s a good thing.