Tired and emotional becoming a bitch, a reintroduction

Hello, yes I used to be Ashley@Heart on TGBoards.  I am tired of just chasing the shadows of hope of fighting for something I always was. Of putting on masks measuring my responses to not  hurt but instead hurting myself. Who knows if I can break decades of near docile passivity.  But here I am pushing back at my boyfriend and best friend, nuking my Facebook account, and getting ready to do even more while my therapist is trying to catch up.

So what brought me here?  May 2016 I joined TGBoards looking for help understanding hormone therapy as the excuse and made the mistake of introducing myself. September 2016 I came out to my now ex-wife and watched on as my life fell apart and slowly reformed. Started hormones January 2017, Finalized divorce, sold our home, and moved to Washington in July 2017.  Fell in love with a transgender man finally got on proper female normal hormonal levels in September 2017.  And after a long process of approvals had the first stage in my bottom surgery late October of this year. So maybe I am here for nostalgia and to reconnect, maybe this is a hello and a goodbye I don't know yet.

I am so very lucky to have what I do. This nearly 6'5” 48 year old girl who is only now learning to stand up, to feel, be hurt, and truly love. It all seems too late looking at the kids starting so early. I look at my own kids happily playing in the park as I snuggle against Liam and I am content.

We are but stained glass windows
 Arranged in three dimensions
  Made of flotsam and found pieces
    Of borrowed bits or new creations
A shimmering, kinetic work
Illuminated and shaped
  Shaded and reimagined
    From without and within
To feel my fallen self,
   Uplifted,
    Glowing,
     Embraced,
       in your love’s warm rays.
Like colored leaves
 thrown high with your joy
  You smile and see
     A better me

Hey, welcome back Carolyn aka Ashley. Glad you are here.

Your post sounds a bit like me.

I largely discovered myself via online forums explaining what had happened to make me exist.

And then my 27-year marriage died. Not really because I showed up, but, it was doomed regardless (the now ex-wife isn't a lesbian). I started hormones (2014 in my case) and then a year after separation I was formally divorced. I became post-op in May 2017, but as great as that was, my love life refused to happen. Clearly, surgery only solves physiological issues, it doesn't suddenly make you attractive to the men in your dreams.

I too sometimes wonder, what am I doing here? But this isn't just a place for pre-op or non-op or whatever term is desired for a person that is not post-op. Post-op doesn't conclude anything really, it's just a state, not a destination.

I went through a lot of misery post-surgery coming to grips with the brutal reality of online dating... that online dating is one of the bigger scams out there.... fake as the day is long. Good if all you want to do is find shallow people only wanting casual sex regardless of what's on their profiles (often bullshit and outright lies).

Then in later 2018 (August), after I had thrown in the towel, yet again, and at that time seriously considering never trying again too, I met my now fiance on the street in town, by chance, by accident all totally unplanned. My fiance is also transgender female, younger than me by 10 years, but such an incredible match. A longtime resident of town, but totally invisible as she is only just starting her journey (6 months on HRT), and she is so much not who she was now.

I had at the time, initiated a plan to escape town (more or less), by means of long time span bike riding options in the warm seasons as a means to finally go someplace (and not remain trapped forever in my small town).
Now, I'm happy, smile so much more all the darned time, and content to be here in my small town, and my bike is now just a toy to ride around on during sunny afternoons.

I post a lot of rambles, but, mainly I'm trying to just show our gang here what's possible I suppose.
My journey, it's been a lot of great moments, but, it's been a lot of sadness and misery too.
Most of the sadness and misery though was due to my not understanding how to get from then to now safely, easier and without all the mistakes in method I had chosen. Oh if only I could go back in time, and tell myself NOT to employ online dating, at all, under ANY circumstances. To just get outside and just look around with my eyes open.

I am a firm believer, and supporter, of the belief, you are in greater danger while IN the closet to yourself, than you are from anyone/thing out there after exiting that closet. If I had not come out, I WOULD have killed myself by now just from an inability to live a fake existence.

All I have 'lost' as a result of coming out, wasn't a 'loss' when looked at correctly. Bill, Dan, Jim, Kevin, even you too Adam, and sadly Paul as well, the inlaws, it hurt losing all of you. But, none of you was enough reason to risk suicide over.
My son, my brother, and mom, my sister and brother's kids, and their kids, my church, my hobby club guys, the entire town to a point, so much of the retail community, PFLAG, Gender Journeys contacts and CMHA staff, my non-blood 'dad', and recently, my fiance and so many of her friends and family including a sister, and potentially a step son and stepdaughter.
I totally scored coming out.

I'd have ditched a job if need be. I haven't actually worked since 94 thanks to disability.
I'd have lost a home and slept on a street if needed.
There isn't a single thing more important than the ability to wake up still alive in the morning eh.

And to some extent, that is why I am here.
To tell anyone that is transgender, and needs to hear it from one of their sisters, not just a social worker, that there is a good reason to be brave and take that hard first step out of the closet.
Risk it all, because your life might depend on it.
Be ready to lose what isn't worth keeping, so you can be in a position to gain so much and a real life.

I can't even recall what it felt like to live in 2014 any more. It's all been discarded as just garbage from a past I have no interest in remembering.
My today is awesome. My tomorrow is looking pretty darned good. My 2019 is so much more than even seemed possible. None of this was going to happen from inside of a closet.

People often state all manner of reasons, and the word 'can't' is mentioned.
Yes, you can.

I go through what you go through. But then I remember what was and realize what I did wasn’t a conscious choice I made, rather it was the culmination of a broken life and finally having the guts to take control. It’s still hard. I am still full of angst, but I am me and no one can change that now. Some of the things that were easy as him are hard now as me, but I still awake every day as me and that is priceless. You look beautiful and content in your picture. You have made a long brave journey to arrive where you are now. Many talk about it, pontificate and endlessly ruminate on it, but few actually are brave enough to come from where you were to arrive where you are today. You must be a very incredible woman. Anyways, thanks for sharing. I am able to relate to much of what you say and hope all continues well for you in the direction you have chosen. Whatever happens now though, happens to YOU. You took back yourself and now you own it.

It's so nice to hear from you again Carolyn, I really have to dash soon so I'll be brief and just say that Jess has said it all. You are an amazingly beautiful woman and those curls are wonderful. Celia xx

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Welcome back Carolyn.

Please take this as a compliment but your avatar looks just like the image you posted and I a see a lot of satisfaction in both images.

jentay1367 wrote:...realize what I did wasn’t a conscious choice I made, rather it was the culmination of a broken life and finally having the guts to take control.

I think what Jess has posted is what a lot of us here feel. We were simply tired of not being who we are and finally, as I say, stepping off the curb into the street named freedom.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

But we do lose, don't we. We lose family, friends, jobs. What do we gain - ourselves. We get to be who we are, who we choose to be.

The "bitch" part of this is slowly finding my voice and to stand up for it.  A sort of starting to hit the point where I am seeking validation of my gender from others less and less.  I feel like as I grow more comfortable that I need to move beyond transgender spaces maybe dip my toe in other queer spaces and understand the rest of myself better being a sort of picky-pan/demi-sexual person who until now never allowed myself the freedom to be emotionally open or even feel attractive or interesting enough to allow someone a chance to get close who I didn't already know or to allow myself to want...

I think you have come to the understanding that it is you out there - not some idealize Carolyn, but you. And you, as you can tackle the world as it is. Even at 6'5" you can stand out not because of your physical size, but because it is you standing tall - and just you.

One of the things that I finally rationalized and came to terms with is that as Trans people that want to identify as genetic females, we have a horrible habit of finding mirrors and picking ourselves apart until we find every nuanced problem and dissecting the reflections maleness until it becomes a giant bullseye in our perspective. It is hard to find a way to live with this. But I still searched for some rationalization. There are a ton of cisgendered folks out there that if you stop and examine them with that same jaundiced eye, see they look completely opposite their birth gender. There are also girls with no bottom, men with ample breasts as well as guys with no shoulders and women that can palm a basketball. But we as transwomen pay little or no attention to that. Were busy obsessing on ourselves. Too much tummy, bottoms too flat, chin is to big and the nose is too wide. So our angst tends to devolve towards things we feel we can control, like how we interact and what we might do to align ourselves with our conscious idea of who we feel we are. That obsession can't be seen in a mirror. Cant be quantified nearly as easily. So we tweak and push and pull everywhere and at everything until we begin to implode and damage those around us. I am only starting to explore this dynamic and realizing that my constant search to be the "perfect woman" may very well be damaging that very endeavor. I am just recently beginning to embrace my female energy and to quit mocking it. To just "be", if you will. To be here now and be mindful that all I really need to do is love and care and search outside myself for satisfaction and satisfying relationships. For a long time I felt my job was to recreate my physical self and when my obsessive need for perfection told my lizard brain I was failing at that, I chose instead to double down on my obsession with my behavior.
Needless to say, I became exhausted. But worse than that, I realized I was exhausting those around me and my efforts were actually damaging that which I was trying to create. So these days, I am just letting it be. My mantra is that I have arruved so it's time to quit travelling. traveling is harried and hectic. So I have decided to lay by the pool for a time and just relax and watch the world go by.
I hope you will all excuse my silly metaphor. I just want to share that sometimes we try and strive so diligently that we actually end up destroying what we so lovingly have taken time to create.

jentay1367 wrote:... I am only starting to explore this dynamic and realizing that my constant search to be the perfect woman may very well be damaging that very endeavor.

...I became exhausted. But worse than that, I realized I was exhausting those around me and my efforts were actually damaging what I was trying to create.

...My mantra is that I have arruved so it's time to quit travelling. Traveling is harried and hectic. So I have decided to lay by the pool for a time and just relax and watch the world go by.

...I just want to share that sometimes we try and strive so diligently that we actually end up destroying what we so lovingly have taken time to create.

Please excuse my heavy handed edits, but 'nuf said'.

Get on, getting on. You may find some happiness in simply being you.

Lol....you can edit my scattered thoughts any time, Miki. Thank you for getting to the crux of what I was trying to relay.

hmmmmm...appears as though Miss Carolyn has left the building and taken most of her contribution with her. I do wish her well and hope things work out for her. We are all so fragile

jentay1367 wrote:hmmmmm...appears as though Miss Carolyn has left the building and taken most of her contribution with her. I do wish her well and hope things work out for her. We are all so fragile

That is sad indeed.

I sometimes wonder, am I really contributing here?
Do I really 'need' to be here?
Do I actually 'want' to be here?

But when I get over the doubts, the answer is still yes.

I wish her well.

It looks like you're deleting your posts, but for what it's worth, thanks for dropping by and thanks for the update. That means a lot, ya know?

Hi Anna!

Yes, I have to agree. I'm sure we'll hear from Carolyn again soon, for it's always nice to hear what she is doing. And good to bump this thread up, Jess's post is very sound advice to all.

Celia xx

Your being tall and still going for it gave me the courage to write off that fear, too. I am very grateful. Hope you've been well.