Letting the Light in at Last

I decided to write up my story to this point for several reasons.  First of all it's long, encompassing a lifetime of secrets and hidden agony.  To simply walk up to someone I've known for years and tell them that I'm really a woman and have been all along, is confusing and difficult to understand.  I worked hard to keep my secret, found complicated outlets for my girlish fantasies and survived in any way I could, but in the end I can deny the truth of my existence no more than I can deny the sky is blue.

Secondly, for some people, especially my family, a more detailed and clearer explanation is owed.  I have lied to them the most, and whether they end up able to understand me or not, I want the truth to be out there as clear and detailed as I can.  It's the least I owe to the mother who has loved me and been there for me my whole life.

Finally, I write this up here in the hopes that it can help people understand the true reality of people born with my defect.  The women and men out there trapped in the bodies of the wrong gender, forced to be at odds with their very existence.  If sharing my story can help someone who has had to suffer as I did in any way, then this blog has served it's purpose.

Finally, the following story is a work in progress.  I spent all morning compiling the basics into some kind of legible format so I could get this on paper and begin sharing my story.  However, at this stage there are many details left out, since I was overwhelmed by memories I had forgotten, emotions I had hidden away, and thoughts and lies I had told, to the extent that I could not sort them all out in a single session.  I fully intend to add more details over the next few weeks and months as well as, add subheadings to improve the readability of this story.  Without any further ado however, I present the rough draft of my years of pain and the reality of my life to this point.

I have always been a rather emotional, and delicate person. As I child I remember being more sensitive than my male playmates, and while many of the details of my childhood are fuzzy, I remember being much more interested in playing pretend. I also remember having an interest in doll houses, cute things, and princess outfits but I was smart enough to know that such things were not for boys and that I wasn't supposed to be interested. I kept those thoughts to myself and tried to fit in as best I could. My father wanted me to become some kind of sports star and I was enrolled in all kinds of sports leagues and such all through my young life, which I hated and was not very good at. I few other random memories I have are of playing games my sister's would get like Detective Barbie and house a lot.

From the time I entered kindergarten all the way through middle school I was bullied increasingly for being a crybaby, called gay, and generally singled out and rejected by the “alpha males.” My childhood friend made things worse by playing with me at home and teasing me vigorously at school. I was told I was teased because I was so smart and that the other children were simply jealous, but I always felt distinctly different like something wasn't right about that explanation.

Around puberty I began to become more aware of gender differences and found myself increasingly distressed by the behaviors of my male peers and I noticed huge discrepancies between the way they thought and the way I did. Hormones drove me insane, putting my inner self at odds with these crazy chemicals making me violent, hypersexual, and very confused. I remember having very detailed vivid fantasies where I was female and I remember praying to god and then the devil asking them to change me into a woman because that was what I was supposed to be. Outwardly however I was terrified what would happen to me if caught, so I built up a “male” facade, suppressing myself and trying to force my feminine side away. I believed, because of general and religious stigmas and beliefs, that my gender confusion was a phase, part of my hormones, and that it would pass if I endured it. 

I was so ashamed and terrified of rejection that I forced it all deep inside, and for years tried to force my thoughts to those of a “normal male.” I became callous, insensitive, arrogant, and aggressive, all of the things I hated most about men. This persona, so at odds with my true self, was dominating me fueled by the raging hormones, but no matter how engrossed I became in becoming what I hated, the discrepancy remained. I was a girl and what I was doing was wrong, and was not me. I felt incredible loneliness, depression, self-loathing, outcast, strange, and inhuman. Much of my thoughts were fixated on women, but not by a desire to unleash the hormones within, but rather I wanted to know what it felt like to be touched, loved, and embraced. I wanted the feelings and sensations that I should have been feeling as my true gender.

When I was 14 my anger and hyper-sexuality caught up to me, and I ended up in therapy. While the full details of that experience would take up a small novel, suffice it to say the process was long, grueling, and slow paced, largely because I was attempting to heal myself while simultaneously denying my gender and refusing to talk about my true gender. However, in spite of my continued deception regarding my gender, I was still able to eventually succeed in a number of important things. I was able to regulate my sexual desires and hormones better, and I was able to restore my compassion, logic, sanity, and self-control. I was able to feel better about myself because I no longer embodied all of the traits I so despised. I could cry again sometimes, and I could reach out emotionally and respond with empathy. The real me was beginning to return. Naturally however, this only strengthened the reality that my body and gender were out of sync. But I lived in Utah and raised Mormon, I was deathly terrified of losing my family, and being rejected by society for this defect of my birth. I continued to lie to myself that my problem was just in my head, and things my gender problems would be defeated if I just endured longer and pushed it away. I was obviously full of shit.

I met a girl as I was starting college, and we started dating. I truly loved her, but after a number of months together we attempted to have sex, which ended in disaster. My body was clearly aroused and excited, but my groin would not respond properly. This confused and distressed me further. At other times my penis was out of control, frustrating, and wouldn't stop, but when I was there with someone I cared for, every part of my body responded except the one area I needed. The relationship went badly soon after and this would later become further evidence to me that I could not live my life as the wrong gender.

Nevertheless, family pressure and years of fear are not so easily dissipated. The next few years continued in depression, and suffering. I failed school more than once, barely managing to preserve my eligibility for financial aid. My job ended and I lapsed into one of the greatest depressions of my life. I hated myself for what I was. My efforts to motivate myself and turn things around were met with apathy. I began to believe that I was incapable of loving myself and that I was just the kind of person who could only motivate for others' sakes. Fortunately for me as I went broke, I switched my depression fuel from a playing DDO (which was at the time subscription) to playing a Free-to-play game called Perfect World. I lasted for only a few months there but during that time several significant things happened. I ended up in a bit of a rebound relationship with a girl I met there, this helped me by giving me someone to feel responsible for and allowed me to function better. Of more lasting significance I met the core group of friends who have followed and supported me to this day. When I quit Perfect World, they followed, and we formed what would eventually become the gaming community Fallen Sun Gaming(FSG). Additionally I managed to land a job again and had a successful semester in school. These things helped me get on my feet again but I was still in heavy denial. After several years, of changing majors, barely scraping by, I came to the conclusion that I could not be honest with myself and sort out my problems while I still lived at home, and in such a deeply religious and judgmental state.

Conspiring with one of my best friends, Brian, I slowly concocted a plan to get myself out of Utah, and give myself the space I needed to really sort out what was holding me back. I wanted a new start. I switched to an online university (which has done wonders for my school success) and poured my loans into making this dream a reality. After a very messy sequence which involved a huge change in destination midway, I arrived in Lansing, MI to a comfortable 3 BR apartment.

My brain continued to protest that my body wasn't right. Separated from the pressure of my family, I slowly began to research and and consider the idea. After three months back and forward on this I was in a conversation on the Teamspeak Server FSG maintains, and the conversation reached a level of seriousness that compelled me to hint that I had “gender issues.” While not quite a full coming out, this conversation strengthened me because I was received well, and I another friend also identified that he had similar problems. After that conversation, nothing was really said for a few weeks, as I let things stew and tried to force myself back to the status quo. My mind however would hear nothing of it, the emotions I'd worked so hard to keep inside were boiling over everywhere for me. I began to examine some of my denial and fallacies that had keep me so chained for so long, and a few days ago the emotions finally refused to be contained any more. My very soul screamed for correction, for healing, for unity, and I approached several friends one at a time and completely outed myself, my struggles, and my true gender to them.

Since then these past few days have been a flurry of freedom, emotion, memory, and research. In the past 3 days I have done more to crush my lies and free my inner feelings, than I was able to in 5 years of therapy. I've felt my motivation and creativity flooding back, and I've started eating better, exercising and generally giving a shit about my well-being. I can barely begin to describe the relief and freedom I've felt being able to act like my mind wanted to all these years, to say things I was terrified to say for fear of being found out. I can use tildes~, say things like *huggles,* and go into fits of girlish joy over cute things. I have a long way to go, but now that I've safely left my prison I can never go back to that hell. I am myself, the girl I was meant to be, and I will not rest until I can be that self fully in body, mind, and spirit.