I hate my name

I’m probably just being weird now, but I find that the things gender dysphoria chooses to settle on to be very odd.   I’m used to frequent lows and constant desperation due to the massive incongruence.  But of late something new has started that is very weird.  Really weird.  And a little upsetting I guess.

I write a LOT of email.  I don’t get 100s a day like I know some people get, but given the type of work I do, I generate a lot of email traffic as I’m regularly badgering people for work / to meet deadlines etc.  When I have been writing emails recently, I have been getting a palpable sense of dread as I near the end of the email, knowing that I am going to have to, yet again, type my boy name.  Its almost like it is quickly becoming an obvious and painful reinforcement of who I am not.  Each time I send one, I contemplate whether I can reduce the formality of the email by leaving my name off altogether and bypassing the problem.  It can last at least a few minutes debating with myself over a 3 sentence email.

Sometimes it goes further and I feel a desperate compulsion to change my official email signature to Rhiannon [insert real surname].  On days when I’m feeling that way out and am sending an email to someone I know well and who knows I’m trans, I gleefully make the change.  They probably think I’m just being a bit mad.  I, however, am feeling relief like you can’t imagine…

I’m starting to think that I have this thing quite badly.  That its getting worse.  And that I’m sliding inextricably towards a need for radical change.  If an email signature is now causing me pain an extra 50 times a day, I think I might have a real problem.   It seems so small and stupid now that I write it down, but I guess I can't really help it, I lay bare my madness.

Praise for another ally

I know that there are some people in the world - many people in fact, who just hate the trans community.  I get that, but today, I think we should celebrate once more, our friends and allies who, frankly, are just so awesome, kind and who take acceptance to a whole new level.  I have many of those people in my life and I am so thankful for it.  This week, I added another.  As I have mentioned in recent posts, I have just joined a diet-group-slash-slimming-class-slash-fat-club (delete as applicable).  It is going well so far - 22.5lbs lost - clothes that were tight are miraculously fitting again.  My favourite dress still eludes me, but I’m nearly there with it.

Anyway.  I have an issue with slimming club leaders and Doctors for that matter.  When I say I have an issue with them, let me rephrase that, I have an issue with them not knowing something I never told them.  After all, surely they should be mind readers?  I don’t tell them I’m trans.  I know that you might roll your eyes at this, so I apologise, but part of the reason I’m large of body is that my trans-ness makes me desperately sad sometimes and I comfort eat (and drink) to overcome it.   Its a bad coping mechanism, I know.  The best one (full time as Rhiannon) is a work in progress.   So I am choosing to go somewhere to get help.  The issue I have is that when I go, I’m presenting male and so that’s how I’m treated - I’m a man losing weight to become all buff and handsome.  Having my motives for losing weight misunderstood, is a really painful thing for me that makes me very unhappy.  I want to be understood as Rhiannon and for the people who support me to know why they are doing that and what I’m really trying to get from their help.

Recently the diet-group-slash-slimming-class-slash-fat-club have run this thing where you set your short-term goal of what you want to try to achieve by Christmas.  I’m still in the ‘lots to lose’ category, so I realise that I’m not so much interested in my promise to myself for this Christmas, but that my goal is for the next one - 2017.  By then, I want to be comfortably fitting into a size UK14 dress.  Its a big ask as i’d need to lose about 5 dress sizes, but I’ve already lost 1 and I think it is do-able.

The leader of our group is such a supportive lady and we recently connected on Facebook.  Our group members regularly and spontaneously stand up to sing her praises as to how she has helped them and made a difference to their lives and I’m really not surprised.  She is total bundle of positive energy.   So I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, I’ll tell her.  So tentatively, with a terrible opening message along the lines of, “Hello. Ok. So. Support. I'm nervous. Scared more like. I've sought help on my slimming before, but to my regret, I've never told any of my previous people why I'm slimming which is actually the most important bit really.  Not sure how you'd take it and whether I'm about to make a mistake that will alienate you forever...this is really not something I'm sure about.  Can I confess the secret only selected friends and family know...? If this is already TMI, honestly, I won't say, but clearly, it already sounds too interesting I suspect…”

She gave me to ok to go ahead, and so I did: “The target by this Christmas is interesting, but my target by the following Christmas is more revealing.  I want to be a size 14.  I’m transgender.”  Way to blurt it out.

Following my shaky start what unfolded was probably one of the most instantly supportive, accepting and enthused conversations I’ve ever had.   One of the opening lines from her was that she had suspected something.  Clearly this just confirms that they are mind readers after all - I’ll never have to out myself again! :o)  It continued through her saying it is awesome and exciting.  I showed her my Flickr page and this blog. She responded that I look beautiful.  I told her about the medical reasons for losing weight to help get prescribed with hormones etc and she offered her absolute support with helping me to achieve my goal and my dreams.  Her recognition, from her own past, that people can be judgemental and ignorant really helped.  Her perceptive responses really amazed me, the genuine depth of understanding is really unusual.  It left me happy, elated and reassured and was really lovely.

All of this happened on FB messanger and I’m not at group this week as I’m away on holiday, but I am nervous about the next group session.  I’m always a little more shy in person about this stuff.  My work persona, for example, is different - I have to present confident and accomplished - but secretly I’m shy and a little bit (or a lot) insecure and lacking in self esteem.  But I’ve been bowled over so far by her response and, who knows, one day, I might be able to go to the group as Rhiannon and be welcomed by the other slimmers.  Certainly that dream feels a step closer and I know that I have another amazing fierce strong woman helping me in my corner.  I’m very grateful.

Desperation is growing

Sometimes you realise that some old sayings are indeed, true.  In this case, ’you can have too much of a good thing’ is something that I’m suffering from at the moment.  This week has been very very Rhiannon.  Sunday afternoon and evening, Tuesday afternoon and evening, all day Wednesday and all day Thursday, I’ve been in girl mode and have been very very happy.  Weight is going down and confidence is growing.  But honestly, its causing me to really struggle.  Every time I have to return to my male disguise, my heart breaks and I want to cry.  Desperation is growing.  I just want to be full time right now.

This week has seen me driving to Birmingham, UK, in Rhiannon-mode, checking into a hotel.  When I was in my room, I fancied a night in one of my favourite normal girl dresses.  Upon realising that I’d left my mobile phone in my car, I thought sod it and I popped out in my dress.  Exhilarating and felt great, even with a group of loud men looking on!  On top of that I had a lovely evening in with A2, diet food and wine.  Then time out watching the new Bridget Jones movie at the local cinema and today, lunch at Nandos.  Add in that I went shopping in Boots and I think I’ve been really brave this week.

I got noticed very little and anyone who did, just didn’t say anything.  The weight loss means that clothes are fitting me again.  A lot more to go, but I suspect that by Saturday, the total dropped will be 21lbs which is a fantastic achievement so far - given that I’m enjoying eating still!!  All of this means that I’m not just content, but desperate to get out more and more in Rhiannon mode.  I’m not being stupid and risk taking, but I am focussed on getting on with life.

The challenge is twofold with going full time.  Work won’t be an easy one to resolve - lots of thinking and work to do to decide how to move things forward.  Financially, full time leads to splitting with my wife and funding two households for a time.  Neither easy, but I’m giving a lot of time to working out how I can overcome both challenges.  The problem is that in the mean time, I’m struggling.  I need more of my good thing.  I daydream about being full time and long for when I can be myself all of the time.  And right now this is making me desperate.  I’m not going to do anything stupid and rash - its a time for careful thinking and planning, but I wish it wasn’t.  I wish it was already happening.

It’s good to talk…

On a roll?  Let’s not get too excited, its only the second one recently.  But I am in a happy place today which is both a minor miracle and a great relief.   I know that I have outlined my dysphoric episodes in the past, so I don’t need to go there again.   But the other day it struck like thunder.  Typically, it was on a day when I had so much work to do which was really frustrating.  I couldn’t focus or concentrate.  Luckily my friend who I think I have previously referred to as A2 on here was at the end of an email and really helped.  She helped calm me and to put things in perspective.  It was good to talk.

But today I went further with a confluence of three good things happening in one day.  The first is that I got a lot of work done.  I’m really worried at the moment as my list seems to be getting longer rather than shorter - it’s constant growth is getting tiresome.  So whilst it only got a little shorter today, it did get shorter.  Second, I got a day in Rhiannon mode which was fantastic.  As I said last time, I’ve been attempting to lose weight.  That, together with the removal of my hernia meant that I put on my skinny jeans and they fit perfectly and beautifully.  I felt a million dollars.  I put it together with a nice flowery blue top, blue cardigan and my blue kitten heel shoes.  I was saying to A1, the other A, that even my confidence was higher today because I felt better in myself.  What more incentive could you possibly want for losing a bit of weight?

All of that was working toward the fact that it was my counselling session today.  I’d decided to go in Rhiannon mode and so getting ready (and even my make up was good today) was a joy.  My counselling was recommended by my gender Doctor and it is with a recommended gender counsellor who is very good.  I suffer with verbal diarrhoea most of the time.  He, I think, has realised that, so asks me really good questions and lets me start talking.  It is so cathartic to get this time just to talk about what is in my head.  I’m grateful for the opportunity.  The gender Doctor indicated that in order to start my course of hormones, I need to lose a bit of weight and that the counselling would be useful to help me think about getting the rest of my life in order so that I can continue on the route of travel towards going full time.  Weight loss is in progress and counselling has started.


The counselling sessions so far have been very focussed on unpacking the issues and the problems I face with transition.  I think that as we move into future sessions, they will get harder because they will start to deal with the actions I need to take to make that happen.  I don’t really like that because whilst I desperately want it, I pathologically avoid upsetting people.  I can’t bear knowing I’m the cause of someone’s upset.  It might sound like I’m a saccharine goody two shoes, but I find it really hard to be selfish.  But I know that I have to do it.  I’ve realised over time, that it really isn’t a choice.   I need to take it very seriously as I start to plan to impact many of the lives around me.  Some of the questions today caught me short and I was hit by how tough this process is going to be to go through.

So today had real highs and I’m really grateful for them.  But it also was very challenging and went to the core of who I am.  I don’t mean to be flippant, but there is power in being able to communicate and to start to process all of this: it is really good to talk.

Less of me has returned than I left with...

The first question, when you have been away from your own blog for an impolite amount of time, I suppose, is where to start?  Looking at my most recent entry, you could be forgiven for wondering if I’d vanished in a blaze of self-recrimination after feeling like I had let my self down.  Actually, it was worse than that, but in a very different way…

Shortly after the last blog, I started to feel unwell.  Really unwell.  Unwell to the point that I could barely eat without feeling lots of pain.  Long story short, it resulted in me ending up in hospital and very quickly needing to adjust to a longish period of recovery following a fairly big operation.  Not a serious, needing organs to be fixed or replaced type of operation, but certainly an open up your abdomen, poke around and repair one!  Everything is all well and good now and I feel better than before, but it made for a mostly difficult Summer.  

This may sound a little macabre, but one of the upsides of being so unwell was that I lost a whole load of weight.  It was great, but when I then started eating again, disappointingly, it all began to pile back on to me.  As you will know from previous blogs, I really struggle with my weight, so that was very disappointing.  But it did inspire me to think about losing it properly.  I know I’ve promised this before, but this time, rather than acting in the rash heat of the moment and failing, I have actually started already.  Joining a local well-known brand of slimming groups, I have begun the process of reducing my size down…again. (Perpetual yo-yo dieter here I’m afraid!)

As you would expect, the group I joined, which is a large one, is primarily populated by female members.  There are a few chaps, but not many.  I find fitting in quite hard: as usual, I don’t feel part of either gender’s group.  I’m not (outwardly) a girl and I certainly find it hard to connect to the men.  

I had a major overwhelm of dysphoria at one point in my first meeting.  As is customary, you are asked to identify a target to aim for and instead of what I was expected to say (i.e. losing a million pounds), I nearly said I wanted to be a size 14.  Good sense kicked in and I realised that I’m not supposed to say that, so a target weight came out of my mouth instead.  But inwardly I felt so frustrated.  Why, for once, can’t I just live how I want to live and say it how it is and how I want it to be - I really really need to get this sorted out.

Anyway, to the group - I’m finding the purpose of the group meeting difficult: it is driven by almost a name and shame approach — or name and praise if weight has been lost.  But most people there seem to be comfortable.  As someone of my rotund proportions would expect, the weight is coming off well to start with — it’ll be interesting in a few months when it completely slows down to see how motivated I am at that point.  But for now, at 1 stone (14lbs, 6.35kg) lighter than I was, I’m feeling more comfortable already and more importantly am gearing up to sign up to some gym membership.  Fitness is as important to me as weight loss.

Other things are going on which I will report on later, but that will do for now except to say that during my period of unwellness, time as Rhiannon was rendered virtually impossible due to incapacitation and pain.  But things have resumed and now, for the first time in many months, my heart is singing again.

The cock crowed three times…

Have you had had the experience where you were put on the spot, backed into a corner almost, where the only two options were to either tell someone that you are trans or lie and deny it?

The first time it happened to me was several years ago when I started to come out.  I was building up to tell one of my friends, and did the whole, “I’ve got something to tell you…” bit.  They just looked at me and said, “you are trans aren’t you?”  Filled with surprise, I caved at that point and just agreed.  It was ahead of when I wanted to say it, but I did want to say it, so I did.  I was ready.

Last night a similar opportunity arose and god, did I crash and burn.  I was invited - and went - to the birthday party of a full time transwoman friend called J.  She is completely lovely and kind and it was so nice of her to include me in her celebration.  I drove over in male mode, for a range of reasons, and when I arrived, the party was in full swing.  A number of her friends were there, none of whom I’d met before and none, I assume, knew about my trans status.  Clearly some people there were from the LGBT community, together with others who either weren’t LGBT, or were very stealthy.   

My pain commenced almost immediately.  I started talking to a nice chap who was very much larger than life and almost his opening line was, “how do you know J?”  Gulp.  I know, in hindsight, that I should have considered how I wanted to respond to that question, but honestly, I hadn’t.  I went red and a million thoughts went through my head, each one of them screaming, “don’t say it,” “what will they think,” “you never tell people about this in an unplanned way,” “he’s a complete stranger, what are you thinking”, “give the safe answer”.  

So instead of thinking clearly, opening up, telling the truth and just being very cool and relaxed about it.  I crashed and burned.  I said, “Oh, we haven’t known each other long, we met on line. She’s just fab isn’t she,” and indicated that I was ready to move on.  As the cock crowed for the first time, fortunately the guy loved the sound of his own voice and he moved on.  And an inward part of me hated myself for denying who I am. 

Later on I was talking to another chap who was also lovely - we’d been having a really interesting conversation on a very blokey topic (house building) and we were regaling each other with mutual experiences.  I’d (not deliberately, I think) been talking about my kids and wife and sounding like a very normal, sane, family man respectable type.  As you do with strangers at parties.  As you might expect, in a lull in the conversation, my heart sank as he asked the same question, “how do know J?”  I tried the same line again.  He looked confused, but was about to accept the answer, I could hear the cock crowing again in the background, when things turned for the worse.  J joined the conversation and he asked her the question instead.  She looked at me in a “how do you want to answer this” kind of way.  So I quickly repeated my previous line, brightly and with enthusiasm, “I was just telling him, we haven’t known each other long have we J?  We met on line. You are just fab aren’t you?  So many varied interests, we just hit it off.”

Sensing a healthy dose of BS, he got more specific: “where abouts on-line?" he asked, "what?  A mutual interest site?”  I knew the game was up.  I looked pleadingly at J, not knowing how to handle this at all.  She said, “Its an LGBT support forum.  Isn’t it great at the party tonight, we definitely have some L’s, a few G’s, at least one B and some Ts.”  He nodded, we moved on and the cock crowed for the third time.  

My sage and wise adviser and gay friend has been a fantastic help today and has just messaged to instruct me not to beat myself up over it, because honestly, I am.  He rightly says that it comes from the 'fight or flight' instinct and that even he has denied being gay at times.  I just need to get better at knowing how to answer that question.  It's going to happen a lot more.  If I’d been in my armour of my dress, make up and wig, I think it would have been easier.  Partly because they wouldn’t have needed to ask, but also because I am ready to answer in that mode.  The thing that's sad is that I am not ashamed of being trans, but I made myself feel like I am, whereas I was actually just frightened.  But the horrible thing was that I felt like I put J in an uncomfortable position and it was almost like I was denying her at the same time and I don’t like that about myself. 

Its amazing how much time you spend with yourself and yet, you still learn more that you didn’t know. 

There and Back Again…

Sorry, another 2 month pause.  I really must stop doing that.  I have been so busy and together with having to create a lot of content for my blog at work (I know, such a blog harlot), I’ve been creatively exhausted.  Sounds a bit too grand really.  But I’ve been hanging around and reading lots of other blogs and commenting.  Lynn over at YATGB is just producing some amazing content at the moment which I’ve been really enjoying.

In general, I’ve continued to spend time presenting as me.  I’ve been out a few times - one included going for a meal in a local restaurant with a friend who is completely lovely and encouraging.  I wore one of my new tops from this blog - the lacy armed one.  Many days as Rhiannon at work, including one little afternoon soiree (can a soiree be any other time than the evening?) which was very pleasant.  Continuing my regime of waxing and attempting to start to diet and failing.  Generally happy in a devastated-and-traumatised-to-spend-a-moment-longer-presenting-male kind of way.

So not much new to tell really from the last couple of months, just two little stories to whet the appetite:

1.
I said in my last blog that I was going to visit Dr Curtis to start the medical process towards transition.  It was an interesting meeting, I’m not sure I enjoyed it as I felt very nervous. Dates and the order of my journey so far just flew out of my head and I felt that I gave a very muddled account of myself.  In fact, when I got the report I didn’t open it for several weeks as I was sure it would be a label of ‘deluded bloke’ rather than ‘gender dysphoric transwoman’.  But eventually I womaned up and opened it.  The first thing that struck me: I’d forgotten that a copy was being sent to my GP!  Ohmygoodness.  Well, if they were ignoring it before, they can’t now.

But the verdict? Several things: first, it was a gender dysphoric diagnosis (phew), second, it was a view that I can’t move forward medically without major weight-loss (which I suspected), third, I need to stop my habit of using alcohol to cope with my feelings of gender dysphoria and fourth and final, I need to get some counselling.  Fortunately, the counselling can happen locally to where I live, so I’ve started that process off and hopefully the actual meetings will start soon.  The weight loss is more challenging.  Great gusto for several weeks and then falling off a cliff.  Very little exercise too.  I’m a very busy and active woman with lots going on in her life, I just prefer to do it all sat down.

2.
I had a wobble.  Cheeky, that doesn’t relate to my weight loss problem.  But I did.  I was booked to go out for dinner with a friend to a small town in the South of England.  I’m getting used to going out in cities, but there is something slightly more exposing about going out in a small town. The thought of it made me feel very vulnerable and honestly, a little frightened.  I know that if I’m to go full time, these are challenges that I need to overcome.  Fortunately on that night, I ran a little late in getting to the town and so I didn’t have enough time to get changed etc.  I wonder whether I would have taken the plunge if I did have the time.  I’m going back there sometime, so I guess we’ll find out one day… anyway, my friend was brilliant, I had a great night and the food was fab.  So all good.

I do have some more ideas for some blogs, so I won't leave it long before the next one.  Thank you for reading :o) xxx