I recently came out to my mother at the end of July as being transgendered & when she reacted by saying she loved me, then hugged me & said she just wanted me to be happy after i told her I planned to transition fully to my true gender, I felt that things would be OK. I even asked her, just for the time being, not to say anything to my dad, as I was afraid of how he'd respond. Unfortunately, I was very wrong & extremely misguided in trusting how I felt with either of my parents. Three days later, my mother walked into my roon (I live in the basement, so no bedroom door & no privacy), looked me in the eye & said that she didn't think I was trans, I was just making up how I've felt for my whole life &, even worse, that my father knew what was up with me, as she had pretty much outed me to him without any thought for my asking her not too. Since then, I had rarely had 10 minutes alone in the same house with either of them. My father has not even spoken on the subject yet. What has started happening, and has been increasingly occuring now, is my father asking me to do tasks around the house (which is fine, I usually do chores as I'm living in the basement rent-free), that have increasingly seemed like they are intended to stop me from thinking and feeling female. What's worse is that the verbal abuse he has been inflicting on me has remained constant (he's been like this for 30 years & my mother has made little to no effort to stop him, she quite frequently watches my try to defend myself & does nothing). Now, I've been denied access to either of their vehicles, in what I think is an attempt to prevent me from seeing the two friends I have come out to that have been supportive of me. So now I'm stuck around the house. I have also been unable to have any private phone conversations, as in the house I cannot get a moment alone sometimes to discuss with my friends what is going on, and when I go outside to the yard, it's becoming obvious that they have started to follow me & are always lurking around a corner either eavesdropping or just flat out walking up, interrupting & asking me to get off the phone so that they can have me do anyother task. I have started to go car shopping & looking for an apartment & even considered gov't assistance as a means of support until i can find a job to cover school & the rent, but without a car & just using online means, it has been limited in what I can do. I also have a difficult time being online as quite frequently lately, they have started looking over my shoulder at where I am online, what I'm doing & who I'm talking with. It's gotten to the point where I have to jump quite a bit on my iPhone at nights just to be able to chat, this in addition to a new internet curfew. And to top it off, even if I do find a car & an apartment, my mother has access & control over all the money I have been able to save, which leaves me in a poistion of vulnerability as I can't be sure that she won't just refuse to allow me access to my own money. I guess my biggest issues right now are how do I handle this situation, get the hell out of this house & away from these people? I've pretty much come to the conclusion that they are not going to come around, but only get more insistent on forgetting everything I feel. In the past on the rare occaisions I've trusted them with my feelings, I always end up getting hurt, my emotions always end up being ignored or dismissed and my parents always lay a heavy amount of pressure on me until I knuckle under & they get their way & I see their way of things, which always happens as I am unable to keep resisting forever. All of this, coupled with occaisional threats of kicking me out & my being homeless (which I suspect are idle threats, but are stressful nonetheless), are dragging me to a place where I just have limited options. Are there any opinions or ideas for how to handle all of this? Am I stuck in this hell & just going to have to accept it? I see little point in trying to discuss these things rationally as I've tried to do that with other things in the past & still ended up on the losing end of the conversation. A little help please!?!
Hey girl, Im sorry to hear that things have taken a turn for the worse. Everyone here at EC supports you and your decisions but that isnt going to help with your parents. You seem to be on the right track about getting out of their house, getting a job, and getting a car. Not having access to the money that you have saved is definitely a setback. Do you have any access to your money at all? Debit/credit card, checks, is your name on the account, etc? If so you may be able to get with your friends and have them give you cash to place an order with your credit card for something they need. Its a back door way to get your money if you can arrange it. If not, the only other thing that I can suggest is getting to get all of the plans together (find a place, a car, and a job) and sit down with your mom and explain that you feel that its time to be out on your own and show her that youve done all of the leg work and have a plan but that you need YOUR money to be on your own. You might have a chance. The only other thing that I can think of is to pretend to go along with what they want until you can get out. It will not be easy to live a lie but its an option none the less. Its not right that they seem to be so selfish and are trying to control you and your life to deal with their insecurities about your decisions. You can suggest therapy for them to deal with it but from the sounds of it they wouldnt do it anyways. My heart goes out to you my sista. My shoulder will be there to cry on and my ears are available for when you need to vent. If there is anything that I can do for you just let me know. You have been there for me and help me out so many times that I am happy to return the favor. (*hug*) <3 Stephany
Blair, our social work expert, is currently working on his thesis, but he should be back on EC soon. I would recommend going to him, as the best thing you can do is get in touch with someone who knows the ins and outs of gov't assistance and the like. You definitely need to move out, your current situation is very unhealthy.
I agree, get the hell out of Dotch! The situation can and will escalate and when that happens, suicides is not uncommon. Having said that though, your parents might be un-educated to exactly what transgender is and that it will be good to explain to them, but obviously your folks probably won't even want to listen. They are afraid that they are loosing you and that is any parents worse nightmare. What they might not know though is their actions is driving you away much faster than they realise. if i look at my sister's situation, we all didn't agree with her choice in a bf... he's cheating on her and has been caught doing that by her red handed, still she kept him as a bf. My folks made all kinds of rules to stop her from seeing him but in the end this only resulted in her moving out and server all contact with them. i know in what state my folks were in in that time. at the end though she did marry him. I would suggest you do as the others have said and what you have said, get a job, find a place and move out. the government will be able to help, though I am not sure in what capacity. If you can make your case clear to a lawyer, he can get you a status that allows you to live on your own and be in charge of your own finances... basically they will make you legal to sign documents, pay rent and work. But your case have to be good to get that status and you have to proof that you can actually live on your own. But see the government assistance to see what is the procedures on this. Maybe it might be easier now as it has been in the past.
Thanks everyone, but I should point out that I'm going to 36 years old in 4 days, so I'm pretty sure emanciaption is not really what I need. Technically I could leave, I just have no where to go at this point. And I'm pretty much of the mind that if this is how my parents are, there's a good chance the rest of my family will react n similar ways (ie uncles, aunts, cousins, etc) as everyone was raised in this area where I live & tends to be pretty conservative like everyone else in my hometown. I was going to try & tough it out while I was going to college, but it's becoming rapidly apparent that that is probably not going to work. And educating people who don't seem to want to learn or understand will probably just make things worse, but I'm still trying to find a way to get one of them to look at the PFLAG site. Givenmy history with them, I can honestly say they lost me quite a while ago already, it's just taken me a while to wake up, accept myself, decide what I need to do so that I can be happy with myself & to give up on the fantasy of ever getting approval from either of them. But still, part of me wishes it didn't ever have had to be like this...
(*hug*) im sorry all this is happening! you said college is starting soon- soon, you'll be out of there house and you can do all you want. meanwhile, you can find an apartment so you can live however you want. they can't keep you there forever, and when you get away, you never have to interact with them if you don't want. hang in there, k!!!! (*hug*)(*hug*)
I agree with what the other people said, just try to get out of there. Just know that we are all here for you!! I'm sorry that you have to go through this.
