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Finding the strength to start over

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Eveline, Apr 16, 2016.

  1. Eveline

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    I gave up months ago, stopped the trandition process when I was so close to beginning to mediically transition. I gave up because I didn't know how to handle the rejection by my family, I thought that time would help them to come to terms with who I am. Months passed and I escaped deeper and deeper into the emptiness of the void. Numbing myself and letting myself go and the world became grey and colorless. The thought that I gave up haunted me but I tried to live on and everytime the pain resurfaced I escaped further into myself. I know that I can't go on like this, someday I will need to face the world and stop running. But it is so hard and I feel so unprepared to make that leap, to start over the long wait and find the strength to let the gender clinic know that this time it will be different and I'm ready to stop running and become the person that I know that I am, the person that I am afraid to be, that I was made to feel ashamed and to hate who I am. I don't want to run anymore but how... how do I stop running when I feel so broken and alone. When I can't look in the mirror without sadness and regret and fear. It is so hard to believe that everything will end well and I will be ok... :icon_sad:
     
  2. Eveline

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    An hour or so ago after weeks of playing video games, trying to forget, I read some articles about transgender discrimination and just broke down and cried for the first time in months. The depression came back in full force and there was something so comforting about it. I listened to some music and I felt alive again for a short while. I think of the people here who have touched my life in one way or another and how I lost everything along the way because I couldn't hold on. I can't forget the words of my family and whenever I try to rise again out if the ashes it stops me and I need to find a way to stop feeling like this because I do want to live and help others and make the world a better place.
     
  3. Eveline

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    The sad thing is that since starting this thread a few hours ago, I dreaded getting replies because I can't stop thinking about other people. Will I unintentially hurt others by posting this, maybe my brother who will be left worried about me, or people I tried to help in the past who might be effected negatively by my inability to move forward or maybe someone I will try to help in the future will go back and read this and not trust my words because of how I qm struggling right now. I live for other people and I have done so for years, that's why I was never able to move forward despite my family's rejection and why I was willing to sacrifice myself for their sake. The only way for me to survive is to numb myself. I don't really believe that transitioning will make their lives better, they are all at peace, happily married with children, the mask that I wear is who I am and they feel comfortable with that person. They are used to me as I am and don't want me to change. I can't bring myself to shatter this sense of harmony that they feel, I don't want them to be afraid and uncomfortable and I don't want to try and explain to my nieces and nephews that the uncle tgey love so much is not who I really am. I feel like I have a role to keep it all together and keep the peace in the family. It connects to my personal view of femininity and my identity and breaking it means hurting myself just as much as them and I felt it before when I still had it in me to come out and say that I am a woman and they hqve to accept that.

    Oh well, I guess I just needed to share, it you read until here, thank you for listening. (*hug*)
     
  4. Florestan

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    I hope you can find the strength you need. No one deserves to go through life feeling numb. It may make your family more comfortable, but if you try to sacrifice yourself for their sake, it could cause them even more pain in the end. The longer you stay depressed and withdraw into your own world, the more it will affect them.

    Sometimes upheavals need to happen. They hurt, but nothing can ever grow without change.

    Good luck with everything.
     
  5. jaska

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    slow down. stop. breath. Look back and see the hope. Then slowly start taking baby steps towards that hope. If you take it slow it could help to spread the pain so it won't be so big all at once. You're right though, you can't stay feeling as miserable as you are now forever.
    I don't really know what else to say to give advice but I really hope you get better soon (*hug*)

    Maybe try listening to some music again, or go outside and just listen to the sounds of nature to relax
     
    #5 jaska, Apr 17, 2016
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  6. Irisviel

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    You don't need to fear being "useless" here on EC by venting your own fears, Eveline... we are all here in this big, online support group. Sometimes we need a shoulder to cry on, sometimes we provide one to someone else. We're all on the same boat :slight_smile: and if anything, you certainly seem to have needed to share your fears this time. And those are completely legitimate fears that no one should ever judge you for. Transitioning is a life changing choice... and never an easy one, especially when you have little support.

    All I can say is that you should not feel guilty about your family. Family is important... but there are limits as to how much you should sacrifice in order to please them. Caring for them, that is a good, positive feeling, however, the same feeling cannot be so full of negativity against you. They owe you as much as you owe them, so don't feel guilty if you extend a hand full of love and they give no such thing in return.

    And as I like to think, as much as I often fail to follow my own advice... - be angry and fight for yourself, be a trans rebel. I like to listen to those songs when I feel like I will never get where I need to be. Bittersweet, but... ever powerful.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWSMhu4CA4
     
  7. Eveline

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    I wrote this to a friend but I feel it is relevant to this thread:

    The thing is, I need to move to another country and after I move there is a wait period of a year and a half to make an appointment with a gender clinic. I feel so disconnected from my body right now and I'm struggling to imagine how it will ever feel right. My age makes things so much more complicated because it has left it so damaged and to make matters worse I have to deal with all these horrible feelings and worries without the support of family or friends. This feels like such a hopeless situation to be in, how am I supposed to cope with such a horrible situation in which every attempt to dig myself out of ths hole hits a wall.. sadly, It's becoming hard for me to imagine surviving the year, I am just so broken and tired of everything. My spirit and strength has been slowly chipped away and now I'm just trying to hold on to the last shards of life.

    ----------------------

    All of your support meant a lot to me but nothing really helps anymore... I feel like a shell of who I was months ago. I was hurt so dearly by my family and the psychologist I went to just made things worse. She also seemed to be perfect at the start, I can't afford going to another one and it leaves me all alone. I remember watching a true story film months ago about a gay boy who eventually commitee suicide... at the time it hit me hard because what I was going through felt like a reflection of what he was going through and his final entry in his diary seemed to be taksn directly from what I was writing at the time. The thing is, my situation is so much worse than what it was when I watched the film. I keep going but I do so only for the children. I don't care about myself.

    Anyway, I'm sorry that this is such a dark post... I'm having a really painful day...

    Eveline
     
  8. Eveline

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    Anyway, despite everything, I am not really close to giving up, I survived this long and I will continue to live on and never give up. It took me 11 years to complete a first degree, I had to come to terms with having cancer, figure out that I had a learning disorder and learn to cope with it and overcome the severe gender dysphoria that made everything 100 times harder. So I failed again and again and everytime I found a way to continue to grow, to learn from the experience and eventually tried again. I finished the degree and went on to finish an MA degree...

    So here I am, facing an even larger challenge and it is hard and it hurts but I still believe that I will make it somehow, that even if I fall a hundred times and reach the lowest point a person can get to. I will never give up and I will find hope in the darkness, finding something to hold on to when everything seems impossible to cope with... :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:ride:
     
  9. Eveline

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    Sorry, this thread is a bit of a mess. I've been really unstable over the last few days as I tried to sort through my thoughts after escaping for a few months. Hopefully, it is over now. Thank you so much for the support. (*hug*)
     
    #9 Eveline, Apr 18, 2016
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2016